Whether you’re eating at a restaurant or shopping for groceries, there’s usually no shortage of vegetarian and vegan options to choose from. Meal delivery services are no exception: Many popular meal kits and ready-made meals offer flexible plans to fit most dietary restrictions, including vegetarian, gluten-free and dairy-free diets. Meal delivery services that include vegetarian and vegan plans can provide you with easy-to-cook or ready-made meat-free meals and prevent you from having to sprint to the supermarket each week.
“Nowadays, there are meal delivery services specifically catered towards more challenging dietary restrictions —[they] can make it easier to find meals you can safely tolerate when you can’t always rely on unfamiliar restaurants,” says Lisa Moskovitz, a registered dietitian and CEO of NY Nutrition Group.
If you’re ready to sign up for a meal delivery plan but don’t know where to start, we spoke to nutritionists and recipe developers about services that they think are worth considering and compiled their favorite ones that include vegetarian and vegan plans.
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How we picked the best vegan and vegetarian meal delivery services
When shopping for a vegan- or vegetarian-friendly meal delivery service, our experts recommend keeping in mind the following factors:
- Plant-based plans: Look for services that offer plant-based or fully vegan meal plans. Many services will offer several vegan and vegetarian options within their weekly menu, and you can update your preferences to automatically show these meals.
- Serving size: If you’re feeding multiple family members who follow a vegetarian or vegan diet, you’ll want to consider meal kits with multiple serving sizes (typically ranging from two to eight servings). If you’re just feeding yourself, it’s probably best to select a single-serve prepared meal.
- Customizability: Browse services that provide a weekly rotating menu with several vegan and vegetarian options that you can select or swap in.
- Delivery dates and times: Many services will offer customizable plans to choose which days (and sometimes times) you want to receive your kit. Most will also let you pause plans or skip weeks as needed.
Best vegetarian and vegan meal delivery services
Each of the following meal delivery services was recommended by our food experts. All of them offer either completely plant-based vegetarian or vegan services, or they offer specific plans to fit one of these lifestyles. To make your browsing easier, we note the starting price, serving size and number of meals provided by each service.
Best overall: Sunbasket
Sunbasket offers both meal kits and pre-made, non-frozen meals (although you can freeze some of them to cook later, in line with the brand’s cooking instructions). The brand “has a variety of options that can be modified for carnivores and strictly plant-based eaters alike,” says Moskovitz. One of the service’s nine meal plans is the vegetarian plan, which comes with a variety of meal kits to choose from that are focused on protein, good fats and fiber, according to the brand. If you don’t feel like committing to just one type of plan, Sunbasket lets you mix and match its Fresh & Ready plan with over a dozen meal kits from its weekly rotating menu.
Cost: Starting at $12 for meal kits and $10 for the Fresh & Ready meals with an additional $6 for shipping | Serving size: Single-serve, 2 or 4 for meal kits | Number of meals: 4 to 10 per week
Best for beginners: Blue Apron
Blue Apron is a meal kit service that offers a number of weekly menu items based on your selected meal plan. Its vegetarian plan offers nutritionist-approved recipes made with fruits, vegetables, grains, seeds and more, which can be created with or without dairy products, honey and eggs, according to the brand. The plan serves two people and includes two to five meat-free recipes per week (depending on your plan preferences), most of which you can prepare in 25 to 35 minutes, according to Blue Apron.
Cost: Starting at $8 per serving with an additional $10 for shipping | Serving size: 2 or 4 | Number of meals: 2 to 5 per week
Best budget-friendly: HelloFresh
“[HelloFresh] offers quick and easy chef-curated recipes, they use fresh, sustainably sourced ingredients and [they] offer vegan and vegetarian options,” says Lisa Young, adjunct professor of nutrition at New York University. The meal kit service offers over 30 recipes to choose from each week, and you can customize your plan with protein-specific preferences: beef-free, pork-free, seafood-free and veggie. Though choosing the veggie preference doesn’t change the weekly rotating menu HelloFresh provides, it does ensure that you automatically receive meat-free meals for that given menu week.
The brand offers 10 veggie meals (including one vegan meal) within its Classic Plan each week — vegetarian recipes can also be made vegan by opting to remove certain ingredients like cheese or yogurt, according to the brand. The veggie and vegan meals are labeled under each recipe, so you can see which recipes fit your dietary needs when crafting your menu each week.
Cost: Starting at $9 per serving with an additional $11 for shipping | Serving size: 2 or 4 | Number of meals: 2 to 6 per week
Best health-conscious: Splendid Spoon
Splendid Spoon offers more than 50 healthy, ready-made vegan meals and snacks, including smoothies, soups and entrees, that contain no meat, dairy or animal byproducts, according to the service.
“I recommend Splendid Spoon for anyone who wants healthy meals in a flash — they taste as healthy as they are, which is a downside for some and a bonus for others,” says Ariane Resnick, a special diet chef and certified nutritionist who was sent a few boxes by the brand to try out. Your cart will automatically fill with the service’s bestsellers, or you can manually swap in your favorites. Splendid Spoon lets you choose how often you want to receive your meals: weekly, biweekly or monthly.
Cost: Starting at $10 per meal and $82 for the plan with $13 shipping (free if you order 10 or more meals) | Serving size: Single-serve | Number of meals: 5 to 20 meals per week
Best plant-based meals: Purple Carrot
Purple Carrot offers both prepared meals and meal kits, both of which are fully plant-based and vegan, according to the service. The meals are a perfect mix of familiar and innovative, says Resnick, who adds that, “it’s an easy way for people to add more plant foods into their diets without having to fully convert to veganism.” You can customize the number of prepared dinners you get per week — which range from six to 10 frozen meals — or choose three or four recipes from its weekly rotating menu for meal kits each week. Deliveries take place on Mondays, Tuesdays or Wednesdays depending on your shipping location, and you can choose to skip a delivery on any given week.
Cost: Starting at $11 per serving for meal kits and $13 for prepared meals with free shipping | Serving size: 2 or 4 servings for meal kits and single-serve for pre-made meals | Number of meals: 2 to 4 for meal kits and 6 to 10 for pre-made meals
Best ready-made vegetarian meals: Factor
Factor provides a weekly rotating menu of over 27 pre-prepared meals designed by dieticians — you can choose the service’s Veggie + Vegan plan for plant-based recipes that are free of all animal products, including meat, fish, eggs and dairy, according to the brand. Young recommendsed this service specifically because it caters to a number of diets and dietary needs, including keto, paleo, low-carb, vegetarian and high-protein. You can choose from five plans, ranging from four meals per week up to 18 meals per week.
“The food quality has been excellent, and while your options are a bit more limited if you have a nut allergy like me, I still find great options on the menu every week,” noted former Select writer Justin Redman, who uses Factor. Resnick added that the service “is incredibly reasonably priced for the quality of health-oriented food they offer.”
Cost: Starting at $11 per serving with free shipping | Serving size: Single-serve | Number of meals: 6 to 18 per week
Best splurge: Sakara
All of Sakara’s ready-made meals are vegan, plant-based and gluten-free, as well as organic and dairy-free, according to the service. “Sakara is very popular among my clients because of [its] varied menu, top-quality ingredients and delicious taste,” says Moskovitz. Programs include the Signature Nutrition Program, which comes with up to three meals per day and your choice of two, three or five days, and the Metabolism Reset, a one-, four- or eight-week program that sends you a specifically curated menu for up to five days per week. You can choose to do a one-week trial program if you’re just getting started, or you can pick a recurring subscription program that automatically renews each week with a set menu of meals that rotates weekly and seasonally.
Cost: Starting at $28 per meal with free shipping | Serving size: Single-serve | Number of meals: Two to 15 meals per week
Meet our experts
At NBC Select, we work with experts who have specialized knowledge and authority based on relevant training and/or experience. We also take steps to ensure that all expert advice and recommendations are made independently and with no undisclosed financial conflicts of interest.
- Lisa Moskovitz is a registered dietitian and the CEO of NY Nutrition Group. She is the author of “The Core 3 Healthy Eating Plan,” a program that focuses on simple and sustainable ways to lose weight.
- Ben Leonard is a chef and educator for companies and brands nationwide, including Sur La Table, Greenpan and more.
- Lisa Young is an adjunct professor of nutrition in the Department of Nutrition and Food Studies at New York University.
- Ariane Resnick is a special diet chef and certified nutritionist. She’s also a recipe developer and has written about nutrition, health, wellness and identity for a variety of platforms, including The Kitchn, Livestrong and Simply Recipes.
- Abby K. Cannon is a dietician and the founder of Abby’s Food Court, a private nutrition practice that focuses on women’s health and eco-friendly lifestyles.
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