6 Best Meal Delivery Services for Families in 2024
Meal delivery services have become a popular option for households, but which company offers the best meal delivery service for families? Feeding a family is a tough task that involves a myriad of quandaries, such as managing a budget or choosing meals for picky eaters.
Parents are often told to make fresh, nutritious meals for their families regardless of how much time or money they have. Some parents can do this and may take cooking classes to improve their culinary skills. After all, it isn’t that difficult to find cooking classes near you, whether you’re looking for cooking classes in Miami or cooking classes in Liverpool. You could even take online cooking classes. However, a cooking class isn’t the only resource that parents need when planning meals for their families.
The best meal delivery services for families are excellent supplements and substitutes for cooking classes. A quality meal delivery service provides healthy ingredients and satisfying recipes that help your family have delicious, nutrient-rich meals throughout the month. Read on to learn more about the best meal delivery services for families.
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- Best Overall: HelloFresh
- Best for Kids: Nurture Life
- Best for Variety: Dinnerly
- Best for Larger Families: Home Chef
- Best for Dietary Restrictions: Sunbasket
- Best Budget-Friendly: EveryPlate
1. Best Overall: HelloFresh
Overall, HelloFresh is one of the best meal delivery services for families on the market. HelloFresh is excellent regarding flexibility, menu options and value. For the subscription, you choose your family size and the number of meals you would like per week, as well as some details about your meal preferences. HelloFresh is also one of the best meal delivery services for families of four since you get a slight discount on the cost per meal. The subscription runs every week, and you can pause or cancel an order at any time.
For the menu, HelloFresh lets you choose from around 30 different recipes each week, allowing you maximum control over what you eat. The meal options are extremely diverse, ranging from pasta dishes to burrito bowls and flatbreads. The recipe list changes every week, so it’s one of the best meal delivery services for families who want to try new dishes without committing to anything long-term.
HelloFresh is also quite inclusive of dietary needs and always offers recipes that are vegan, vegetarian and pescetarian. Plus, you can set your account preferences as family-friendly to receive recipe recommendations that are suitable for kids.
- Cost: $60.95+ per week
- Serving size: 2 to 4 servings per meal
- Cuisine type: American, Italian, Tex-Mex
2. Best for Kids: Nurture Life
As a brand focused entirely on food for kids, Nurture Life is definitely the best meal delivery service for families with young kids. Nurture Life offers frozen meals and snacks that are both nutritious and tasty. The subscription is based on how many items you would like to order per week, with plans ranging from six to 15 items.
You can order different items each week, which is helpful if your food needs vary throughout the month. For instance, you can lean more heavily on pre-packaged smoothies if you’ll be going on a road trip soon or stock up on extra frozen meals if you won’t have time to cook dinners in the upcoming week.
This brand is also considered the best meal delivery service for families with picky eaters. The Nurture Life menu makes selecting options easier for parents by indicating which meals work well for picky eaters. Some examples of picky eater meals include chicken with macaroni and cheese, turkey meatballs and penne Bolognese.
- Cost: $44.94+ per week
- Serving size: 1 serving per item
- Cuisine type: American
3. Best for Variety: Dinnerly
Dinnerly operates on a similar model to HelloFresh, but offers a lower price range and is arguably the best meal delivery service for families who want the most variety at an affordable price. Dinnerly has subscriptions for weekly meal deliveries with options for up to six meals per week. You can choose your meals from the rotating recipe menu, which reportedly has over 40 recipes each week. Furthermore, you can request a vegetarian plan and only receive vegetarian recipe options.
The Dinnerly menu features a robust collection of meals, including recipes for breakfast, dinner and dessert. In one week you could enjoy a pepper-crusted pork tenderloin, chocolate chip banana pancakes and a flourless chocolate torte. Although perhaps not as premium as HelloFresh, Dinnerly is still one of the best meal delivery services for families of four, particularly when you look at the bulk discount for ordering four servings per meal.
Since Dinnerly offers premium meals at a lower price than some of the other best meal delivery services for families, you should anticipate a few minor differences in what you get. For instance, Dinnerly only provides digital recipe cards — if you need a hard copy to work off of, you’ll need to print it yourself. Dinnerly also charges a little more for shipping than some of the other brands on this list, so be sure to factor that in when estimating your expenses.
- Cost: $54.23+ per week
- Serving size: 2 to 4 servings per meal
- Cuisine type: American, French, Mediterranean
4. Best for Larger Families: Home Chef
Home Chef offers versatile, crowd-pleasing meal options, making it the best meal delivery service for families during the holidays or special events. With Home Chef, you can choose from two subscription types: ingredient kits and ready-made meals. As with most of the best meal delivery services for families, you can customize your recipe options based on dietary restrictions.
If you want recipes that are sure to satisfy your family and produce a memorable dining experience, Home Chef has the perfect menu. The company’s weekly menus have recipes that are approachable for kids but elevated enough to impress adults. When it comes to premium services, Home Chef is the best meal delivery service for families of five. It’s one of the few companies to offer up to six servings per meal, which guarantees you can feed the entire family.
The feature that really makes Home Chef stand out as one of the best meal delivery services for families is its customizable options. In addition to letting you set dietary preferences, you can also customize the individual recipes as you order them, such as swapping out proteins to avoid an allergen.
- Cost: $47.96+ per week
- Serving size: 2 to 6 servings per meal
- Cuisine type: American, Asian Fusion, Tex-Mex
5. Best for Dietary Restrictions: Sunbasket
Sunbasket is a popular brand that’s often praised as the best meal delivery service for families with significant dietary restrictions. If your family has allergies, special diets or observes religious abstentions, Sunbasket could be your ideal meal service option.
The subscription service allows you to customize your order each week to include ingredient kits, ready-made meals and extra snacks. Sunbasket earns its spot as the best meal delivery service for families with allergies by having a thorough list of diet preferences. Not only can you receive recipe recommendations based on a specific dietary restriction, but you can also get recommended recipes based on lifestyle needs, such as a diabetes-friendly or high-protein diet.
Sunbasket also gives you the opportunity to add what it refers to as “market items,” which include pre-made breakfast, lunch and snack foods. Adding market items will increase the cost of your order, but it will get you some fun treats, such as a breakfast burrito or a loaf of sourdough bread.
- Cost: $45.96+ per week
- Serving size: 2 to 4 servings per meal
- Cuisine type: American, Asian Fusion, Italian
6. Best for a Budget: EveryPlate
EveryPlate offers the lowest cost per meal compared to the rest of the companies on this list, earning it the title of the best meal delivery service for families on a budget. For example, a family of four that receives four meals a week would be spending less than $90 for each subscription box.
Despite the low cost, EveryPlate offers all of the same services as its more expensive competitors. You can pick your recipes each week, and the subscription box comes with ingredients and printed recipe cards. Additionally, EveryPlate is the best meal delivery service for families of five that have a tight budget. Although the plans only go up to four servings per meal, you could order six meals a week with four servings each, which comes out to 24 meals a week at only $4.99 each.
The weekly menu at EveryPlate is slightly more limited than other meal services (around 25 recipes instead of 35) but each option is unique, ensuring more than enough variety in your orders. Furthermore, since the price per meal is relatively low, you could even get extra meals and have leftovers for lunch.
- Cost: $38.95+ per week
- Serving size: 2 to 4 servings per meal
- Cuisine type: American, Asian Fusion, Mediterranean
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If you’re looking for the best meal delivery service for families, you’ll have many options from which to choose. Depending on your budget and food prep needs, these leading brands are all excellent choices for providing quick and nutritious meals to your family.
For even more fun ways to explore your favorite foods, check out other experiences happening on Cozymeal.
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