Best Meal Delivery Deals Right Now: Home Chef, ButcherBox, Factor and More – CNET

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Meal delivery in 2022 isn’t hard to come by. There are meal kits and prepared meal subscriptions for everyone: keto and paleo eaters, vegans, carnivores, experienced home cooks and newbies alike. Best of all, many of the top services will let you try their goods for next to nothing. March is here and with it are some of the best meal delivery deals we’ve seen, including free ground beef for life when you try ButcherBox and super cheap meal kits with no long-term commitments necessary.

So what are the best meal delivery deals right now? 

Well, that sort of depends on what you’re looking for. If it’s the lowest possible cost, EveryPlate, Gobble and Blue Apron will send meals for $2 or $3 a serving when you sign up to give ’em a try. Other popular meal delivery services such as Veestro, HelloFresh, Factor and Daily Harvest are ready to send perfectly portioned, ready-to-cook dinners to your doorstep, at per-serving prices that are definitely cheaper than takeout.

Do meal kit sign-up deals have commitments?

Nope. Virtually all of them allow you to pause or cancel any time just in case you don’t love it, so there’s almost no risk after the deal is up. Although you may have to unsubscribe from their email blasts. The point is, most brands just want you to try out the meals and see if you dig them and those brands are willing to make it very easy (and cheap) to do that. To make things easier, we already tried the top meal kits and meal delivery services so you’ll know exactly what to expect and you can pick the best food delivery deal for you and your tastes.

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Pssst, over here. Because all these meal-kit companies let you cancel for free after the trial, you can try multiple services, all at hugely discounted sign-up prices and then see which one you like the best. You’ll save a ton and find out firsthand what each one has to offer.

Read moreHealthiest meal kits and meal delivery to try in 2022

So which meal delivery service is the best? 

I’ve tried most of them and they’re all pretty solid, with differences to consider depending on your budget, diet, taste and kitchen skill level. You can check out CNET’s roundup of the best meal-kit delivery services and best healthy food delivery services for a more detailed, er, taste. And remember, nearly all of these meal-kit companies let you pause or cancel anytime, so the risk and commitment when signing up for a meal-kit service is minimal.

Whether you’re looking for ways to eat healthily, learn to cook new recipes or just make fewer trips to the grocery store this winter, a healthyversatile and budget-friendly meal delivery deal can help you do it on the cheap.

These offers were valid at the time of publication, but they can end at any time and may be restricted by geography and other cookie-based conditions in your browser. If you don’t see a deal populate, try in a new window or private browser. In the meantime, if you’ve already tried one or more of these, tell me which ones and what you liked or didn’t like.

Read more: The 6 cheapest meal delivery services

ButcherBox

OK, so ButcherBox isn’t exactly a meal delivery service but you can certainly make some excellent meals with what this online butcher service sends in its monthly boxes. ButcherBox is an online meat subscription service specializing in Australian grass-fed beef. But you can also have heritage pork and organic chicken in your monthly box depending on the subscription you pick.

Monthly shipments of 8 to 11 pounds of meat start at $137 but If you sign up now, ButcherBox will include 2 free pounds of ground beef (that’s about eight big burgers) with every shipment. So we’re really talking more like 11 to 13 pounds of meat for that above price. You can pause or cancel anytime so this one may be worth a shot if you’ve got lots of meat-eaters to cook for.  

Veestro

Veestro is a fully prepared vegan meal delivery service, so all you’ve got to do is heat and eat. I tried it and found the 100% plant-based food to be consistently fresh and tasty. Veestro has a massive menu of ready-to-eat, meat-free meals with lots of (but not only) organic ingredients. You’ll have a whopping 44 dinners to pick from each week, and Veestro makes use of some alternative meat substitutes too so you’ll see a lot of meals that make you forget you’re eating vegan food at all. 

If you try the vegan meal subscription and agree to sign up for emails and texts, you’ll save a whopping $160 across your first four deliveries. 

Blue Apron

I tried the original meal kit company this past year and Blue Apron still holds up. After nearly a decade in business, Blue Apron still keeps things fresh and interesting with tasty brand collaborations, special menus, wine pairings and other fun stuff.

If you sign up for Blue Apron this week, you’ll score $110 off across your first five boxes. That’s about half the normal price and means meal kits for as little as $4 per serving if you choose two recipes per week to feed two people. Plus, your first box ships free.

Mosaic

This isn’t the most monumental deal we’ve seen but it is one of the best meal delivery services we’ve tried in a long while. Mosaic Foods churns out tasty plant-based meals that can be frozen for later. There’s no subscription required, so this would be a good chance to snag a few meals for a busy week. Use code FIRSTBOX to get $15 off your first order of meals. There is a minimum order of $70 (about eight meals) so your final tally will be somewhere around $55. Read our Mosaic Foods review.

Brandy Yowell

Gobble is quite similar to the other services, except that many items come already chopped, peeled, marinated and so on — which can definitely save you some prep time. The two meals I received, Yankee pot roast and cacio e pepe, were terrific. Dinner prices are normally a flat $12 per serving, however, so you do pay a bit extra for that convenience.

Gobble will send your first six easy meal kits for $36 total. That’s about as cheap as you’ll find high-end meal kits anywhere. For more, read our Gobble review.

EveryPlate

While the price of everything else continues to soar, EveryPlate has found a way to lower the price on its meals when you sign up for the popular and affordable service.

EveryPlate is already our pick as the best meal-kit service for families on a budget, but it’s about to get even cheaper. You won’t see a lot of haute cuisine, but I’ve tried its pork sloppy joes and its chicken and linguine in a tomato cream sauce. All the meals I tried were delicious, easy to prepare and light on the wallet. 

You can score EveryPlate’s already cheap meal kits for just $1.99 per serving for your first three deliveries. Read our EveryPlate review.

Sunbasket

Over the past year, we’ve tried just about every meal kit service there is and one of them outpaced the rest of the field as our clear favorite. Sunbasket recipes were the most consistently delicious, interesting and fresh-tasting, landing it the No. 1 spot on our best meal kits of 2022 ranking

If you’ve never tried Sunbasket, we’ve got an exclusive offer that’s too good to pass up. Sunbasket meals usually break down to about $10 or $11 per serving depending on your plan. If you’re trying it for the first time, you’ll save $100 across your first four deliveries, plus free shipping and four free gifts. Read our Sunbasket review.

Splendid Spoon specializes in deliveries of quick smoothies, soups, rice bowls and other smaller noshes that are great for breakfast and lunch. Some work well for dinner too, but I like this service better for those first two meals of the day. The meal delivery service has some interesting recipes along with classics, so there’s a little something for everyone. 

If you want to give Splendid Spoon a try, you’ll get 25% off your first box if you choose either the Breakfast, Lunch + Reset plan or the Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner + Reset plan. 

RealEats

RealEats meals were solid and the portions are hefty, when I tried it earlier this year, and the food tasted fresh. Meals range from about $10-14 depending on the plan you pick, but if you sign up for RealEats with code NEWYOU80, you’ll get $80 off spread out across your first four shipments.

David Watsky/CNET

Factor (sometimes called Factor75) had some of the best prepared meals I tried in my many rounds of testing all the leading services in this growing category. I enjoyed a lot of its low-carb and keto-friendly offerings such as pesto salmon over creamy spinach with green beans — and the keto cheesecake was nothing short of transcendent. Among the hits were some misses too and you can read all about the service in my full review of Factor here.

Sign up for the meal delivery service and save $120 off your first five weeks of meals. This deal applies to any of the meal plans, from four per week all the way up to Factor’s 18-meal plan, and you’re welcome to cancel as soon as the offer expires.

HelloFresh

HelloFresh has more total meal-kit selections than any other service and most of them are pretty easy to prepare. You can check out my deep-dive review of HelloFresh to learn more about the easy meal delivery service. HelloFresh is offering an enticing sign-up deal that amounts to 16 free meal kits over the course of your first four deliveries. Plus, three surprise free gifts included and free shipping on the first box. 

One catch in securing the sign-up deal is you have to provide a phone number, which it admits will be used for marketing purposes, but you’d have to provide that either way if you planned to sign up for HelloFresh. You can pause or cancel your subscription anytime after those four weeks.

Daily Harvest

Daily Harvest is quite possibly the easiest way to eat healthily without ever having to learn to cook. Sign up and you’ll get steady (or one-time) shipments of vegan soups, smoothies, bowls, flatbreads and snacks. Daily Harvest meals are chock-full of healthy, organic ingredients and trendy superfoods like kabocha squash, kale, berries and avocado. All you have to do is blend or heat and eat. 

Right now, use promo code WELCOME2022 and Daily Harvest will trim a cool $35 off your first box of 24 items or $25 off a box of 14 meals. Read our Daily Harvest review.

Hungryroot

While it’s not a traditional meal kit or meal delivery service, Hungryroot melds artificial intelligence and healthy groceries to send a curated heap (based on your preferences) of high-quality groceries, snacks and proteins for quick meals — or more intricate meal-making. This is a good option if you like cooking and are looking for some healthy kitchen inspiration, but find meal kits too restrictive. Like, maybe you just don’t want tilapia tacos with lime crema tonight. 

Hungryroot is offering new customers 30% off to try the service and a free gift in every delivery for life. If you’re hoping to try it out, know you can pause or cancel the service anytime. Even if you pause and reactivate, your free gift remains intact.

Home Chef

I tested Home Chef last year and loved its highly customizable meal kits and comfort-food recipes with a healthy bend, all of which were easy to prepare. Home Chef is also one of the more affordable meal-kit companies — starting at $7 per serving — and is even more so if you sign up using this offer. 

For new subscribers, Home Chef is offering $90 off when you sign up for three boxers of meals. The savings are spread out over three deliveries but if you’ve been wanting to try a meal-kit subscription, Home Chef makes it easy (and cheap). You can pause or cancel anytime, so the risk is low. Read our Home Chef review.

My advice: Take advantage of each and every one of these offers (making sure to pause or cancel after, unless you want to continue). You can see which service you like best and get super cheap takeout-style meals for weeks at a time.

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The information contained in this article is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as health or medical advice. Always consult a physician or other qualified health provider regarding any questions you may have about a medical condition or health objectives.

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