As a college student, I’ve come to realize the true value of vegan meal delivery services. When personal time is scarce, finding time to cook robust and delicious meals can be near impossible.
If you’re not a natural chef, the struggle is even worse. You might know one or two recipes by heart, but you’ve cooked them so many times they’ve lost their charm.
Sure, you could learn some new recipes, but you know it’ll take up half of your Sunday. Not only will you have to do all of the prepping and cooking, but you’ll also have to go on a grocery store scavenger hunt.
Vegan meal delivery services save you from all of this hassle, all while actually giving you delicious and new meals to try out.
Vegan Meal Delivery: Saving Time While Staying Healthy
Meal delivery services are excellent for both the novice cook and the experienced chef. They provide nutritious and delicious vegan meals to your doorstep. Typically you choose which meals you want to be shipped to you online, or you can get subscriptions that send you different meals every week.
When browsing your options, you’ll find two primary types of vegan meal delivery services.
On the one hand, some brands ship you raw or prepped ingredients. These come with easy to follow recipes, making cooking a streamlined and fun process. On the other hand, some services send you pre-cooked meals which you just have to heat up.
Either choice frees you up from the hassles of shopping, prepping, and cooking your meals for the week. Even better, the services that send you recipes to follow help you later down the line. Also, if you eventually cancel your subscription, you’ll begin to know these recipes by heart.
No matter what, you get delicious and healthy food for your week, saving you from resorting to fast food or takeout.
“This sounds too good to be true…”
There are, of course, a few drawbacks that will be a dealbreaker for some, but easy to overlook for others.
Another thing to note is if you’re not the best chef, cooking times still may take a bit for you. You won’t have to buy your ingredients, but you’ll often still have to prep the ingredients and cook them up yourself. If you’re used to takeout and frozen food, you’ll still have a learning curve to get over.
Finally, vegan meal delivery plans can be limited in their options. Even if they have a diverse set of meals, they might not let you choose which ones you get.
Other times they’ll only serve meal plans for couples, or they’ll lack family plans. Nevertheless, with the number of options out there you’re likely to find a service that suits your needs.
Our Process for Reviewing
To get a good look at the pros and limitations of vegan meal delivery services, we overviewed many of the top services available. To get a more in-depth look at what these services look like, we reviewed a few of the most popular vegan meal delivery services on the market for you.
We looked over multiple published reviews on these services to get an unbiased opinion on what they provide. Our focus was on affordability, quality of ingredients and meals, and the subscription options they offer.
Plenty of Choices to Go Around
There’s a vast selection of vegan meal delivery services to choose from. Whether you want pre-cooked food, organic food, or affordable meals, there’s a service out there for you.
Sun Basket Vegan
Sun Basket is a popular meal delivery service that has recently added a vegan option to their selection. Their standard service sends you three meals, each packaged individually. The meals come as separately packaged ingredients, portioned in the right sizes for you to cook up according to their recipe.
This isn’t too big of a downside if you’re living on your own though, as you’ll get to have leftovers for the next day.
You do get what you pay for with Sun Basket, however. Their produce is USDA certified organic, and they use recyclable material in their packaging when possible. Sun Basket also portions their meals with nutrition in mind, providing sufficient calories, protein, and fats for a healthy vegan diet.
Green Chef
Another environmentally friendly option is Green Chef’s meals which are USDA certified organic, and they shipped in recyclable packaging.
Their services are similar to Sun Basket Vegan’s, providing you with ingredients and instructions to cook your own meals. They send an impressive variety of produce and ingredients to your door, allowing you to widen your cooking expertise and broaden your pallet.
Their meals are around 800 calories per serving. You’ll be sure to have a full belly after eating their meals, and their balanced nutrition and environmentally friendly practices will keep your conscience at ease.
Veestro
Switching things up, Veestro offers pre-cooked meals which you merely have to heat up. As a college student, let’s just say I consume a hefty amount of frozen food. However, the food I buy is from the supermarket and is the opposite of nutritious.
That’s why Veestro is something special. As much as 96 percent of their ingredients are organic, and their entire selection is vegan. You can put in orders for 10, 20, and 30 meals, and in each order, you get to choose which of their 50 meals you want in the package.
One qualm buyers have with Veestro’s meals are that you sometimes have to heat them up in an oven rather than a microwave. However, as a connoisseur of frozen food, I’m very impressed by Veestro’s service.
Purple Carrot
If you’re an athlete or busy you’ll appreciate Purple Carrot’s variety of meal plans. Like Sun Basket Vegan and Green Chef, they ship you ingredients which you then get to cook. What’s unique is that they offer a variety of vegan meal plans that accommodate different requirements.
For instance, Purple Carrot makes a plan for athletes which is designed to accommodate the nutritional needs of someone living an active life. Purple Carrot also creates a plan for those with a busy schedule, designing meals around quick cooking times.
Those who need special dietary requirements along with a vegan diet won’t have much luck with Purple Carrot, though. Their only exclusive selection is gluten-free, so if you have restrictions such as peanut allergies, you’ll be out of luck.
Purple Carrot’s meal delivery service stands out as an exceptional service though when it comes to making specific diets for vegans.
Deciding If Vegan Meal Delivery Is Right for You
Meal delivery services aren’t perfect for everyone. No matter what service you choose, it’ll usually always be more expensive than getting the groceries on your own. Pre-cooked vegan meals are extraordinarily costly.
Nevertheless, free time can be challenging to come by. That’s where vegan meal delivery shines the most. Getting to have ingredients and recipes shipped right to your doorstep takes the hassle out of making food.
Newly transitioned vegans might find the most benefit in vegan meal delivery services. At first, you might have a tough time figuring out which recipes and ingredients you love. As you keep cooking these meals though, you’ll start to get the hang of the process and become quite the vegan chef.
Whether you’ve been vegan for a while or are new to the lifestyle, vegan meal delivery has a lot of benefits to offer. From time saved to making meals you’d never cook otherwise, it’s certainly worth trying out for at least one week.
Have you used a vegan meal delivery service? Tell us about your experience in the comments!
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