Photograph: Matthew Korfhage
Photograph: Matthew Korfhage
Photograph: Matthew Korfhage
Photograph: Matthew Korfhage
Tempo
According to everyone I know taking a GLP-1 medication for weight loss or diabetes management, the drive to seek out delicious food just isn't what it used to be. What has not changed is the utilitarian need to get enough protein, in a reasonable form, balanced against other health considerations. Does this not sound romantic? It mostly isn't. But if hunger doesn't move you like it used to, it's extra important for your food to taste good enough that you actually want to eat it.
Enter Tempo by Home Chef, a never-frozen, prepared meal service that offers a selection of around 30 meals each week. As many as two-thirds of these meals are marked “protein-packed,” with more than 30 grams of protein. And at least 10 of these are GLP-1-balanced, per a dietitian. What you'll get: sufficient proteins, not too many carbs, no other funny stuff.
Tempo's proteins are well-managed, if unexciting. But the meals were easy, nutritious, balanced, and comforting, without relying on a pile of unhealthy sodium and carbs to be palatable. At $12 a meal, Tempo is about par for the course for prepared meals.
WIRED reviewer Kat Merck, who tested the GLP-1-balanced meals, found the portions appropriate for those on the medication, and appreciated that the meals offered her the proteins she needs to maintain muscle mass even while chemically un-hungry. Just note: You may end up with a lot of chicken and a lot of fish. Both Merck and I were happy to see the occasional chicken thigh, and not just breast. Thighs are better, for the record.
| Specs | |
|---|---|
| Cost per meal | $11 and $13 a serving, plus $11 a week for shipping |
| Meal plan options | Six to 20 single-serving meals a week |
| Lowest-cost plan at full price | $81 for six meals + shipping |
| Size of weekly menu | About 30 meals, plus breakfast and snacks |
| Gluten-free meals? | Meals not designated as such |
| Plant-based meals? | Not really |
| Other dietary plans or restrictions | Individual meals marked as high-protein, high-fiber, calorie-conscious, and GLP-1-balanced |
| Prep time | 3 minutes in the nuker or 8 in an air fryer |
WIRED/TIRED
WIRED
TIRED
Sunbasket
Sunbasket (~$14 per serving): Sunbasket focuses heavily on fresh, organic ingredients, and offers a whole lot of variety in its menus. Its recipes are attentive to saucing, and to basic good cooking techniques such as deglazing. Like Hungryroot, it also offers breakfasts and snacks to supplement meal options with little extras such as coconut yogurt and sous-vide egg bites. The meal kit also lets you filter out allergen-containing items. WIRED reviewer Louryn Strampe loved the flexibility and add-ons. During my most recent test, I enjoyed an excellent Greek chicken and orzo salad dish—and wonder of wonders, the advertised prep time was actually the actual prep time (about 30 minutes). The focus on organic ingredients does make Sunbasket one of the more expensive meal kit options, and the annual Thanksgiving meal kit was a lovely and welcome extravagance at $200.
Factor (~$14 a serving): Factor is a prepared meal delivery plan run by HelloFresh, with ready-to-eat meals that look a lot like TV dinners. But there's a twist: The trays have never been frozen. They were made fresh in a commissary kitchen and were shipped out with cold packs, yielding a result that's kind of like restaurant leftovers. Proteins in particular often maintain their texture quite well, including a chimichurri filet mignon I couldn't believe I microwaved. Some meals, especially carb-avoidant or keto meals, are oddly mushy. (For what it's worth, my gluten-free colleague, Scott Gilbertson, wrote that he had the best luck with Factor's Mexican fare.) But meals centered on proteins and whole starches, like potatoes or rice, alongside veggies like green beans or brussels sprouts, tended to fare quite well. So did stir-fry-style meals. In fact, a recent test of Factor's high-protein plan was my favorite experience with the meal kit and included wild rice and excellent pork loin. I do wish Factor would shed its reliance on the microwave, however: When I went off-script and used a Ninja Crispi air fryer or convection oven, I had much better results than with the nuker. But non-air-fryer ovens do not seem to offer the same improvement. Like many ready-to-eat meals, it's a bit more expensive than the kits you cook yourself.
Fuel Meals
Fuel Meals ($13 to $14 a serving): Fuel Meals are not the cheapest option among meal delivery that arrives frozen; it's about the same price as never-frozen meals from Factor and CookUnity. But I found that Fuel fulfills a specific niche as well as any of the other prepared meal plans. It excels at no-nonsense, no-fluff, no-added-ingredients, pure-protein-packed nutritive meals. Some of Fuel's meals had as few as five ingredients, consisting of essentially the macro nutrients themselves plus a modicum of oil and salt. A large percentage of meals are marked gluten-free or dairy-free. Does all this mean less flavor? It can. The meals are also often not beautiful, dominated by a large and no-nonsense serving of protein. But Fuel's meal service offers an admirable focus, especially for those bulking up or watching carbs. Meals are substantive, usually topping 600 calories and 40 grams of protein without added sugar or fatty dairy or carb-heavy filler. I feel like if I wore tank tops more often, this is what I'd eat.
Wildgrain
Wildgrain ($13 to $17 per loaf or box of pastries): This is less a meal delivery service than a way to step up a home meal. Wildgrain is a monthly delivery bread box: You receive par-baked bread and pastries from small bakeries all over the country. This is pretty much the same process that likely happens at local restaurants, when your warm bread basket comes out: It's not quite as high-quality as you'd get direct from an artisan bakery, if you live in places with artisan bakeries. But it's also as fresh as it gets, and I had a very good experience testing the box in October 2025, in particular, with sourdough breads perfect for large meals with houseguests. You finish the baking at home, so what you have at the end is ultra-fresh baked bread, biscuits, doughnuts, or scones that are still warm and crisp from the oven. A Wildgrain subscription arrives as a monthly box, filled with four, six, or 12 items that might range from a full sourdough loaf or fresh-made pasta to a pack of six doughnuts or four large croissants. Basically, you build your own box each month, choosing from among healthy sourdough or pasta and decadent pastries.
Thistle ($13 to $16 per serving): A prior top pick for solo diners with individually prepared dishes that require little to no prep, Thistle is mostly a plant-based meal kit—but there's a $3 option to add sustainable meats to any otherwise vegan meal. It's also so local and seasonal that the West and East Coasts have different menus, and the whole middle of the country, except Chicago, gets none. (You can check your zip code here to see if you can get delivery.) WIRED reviewer Adrienne So has used Thistle as a means to get herself to eat more vegetables, and thus avoid a life of rickets and/or scurvy. Portions are generous enough to split among meals, and in a nice turn for those who hate having to dispose of boxes, Thistle's drivers will pick up the cooler bag that housed last week's meal and replace it with a new one full of food. Vegan tester Molly Higgins's favorite meals from Thistle were a whirlwind of textures, including a Mexican-inspired corn and poblano chile salad with adobo pinto beans and a chilled lemongrass-accented rice noodle bowl that mixed spice, tang, crisply fresh veggies, and deep umami from mushrooms and seaweed. She still dreams about it sometimes.
Photograph: Matthew Korfhage
Tovala (~$13 a serving): It's not every day you get to try something that feels super new. Tovala offers perhaps the most ambitious solution to ready-to-heat and prepared meal delivery I've seen: The meal kits come with an oven! In contrast to the sogginess of many prepared meals, Tovala's recipes come in little foil pans with recipes custom-designed for a little steam oven. The results are often delicious—as was the case during my testing with a sweet chili–glazed salmon with pickled veg and noodles—and the QR code scanning function makes each recipe seamless to cook. Stick with the meal plan for six weeks, and in the bargain you get a quite affordable and powerful little convection oven, toaster, and steamer. A previous flaw was that Tovala only offered single-serve meals. But as of early 2026, at least four or five meals a week offer two to four servings, making the meal delivery service much more useful to families and couples.
Gobble Steak Vierge
Gobble ($12 to $17 a serving): Formerly the top pick for fast-cooked meals, Gobble previously wowed with speed-demon dishes that also offered interesting and worldly flavors. Indeed, the most recent test included Caribbean rondon, an Indonesian peanut curry stir-fry, and steak vierge. But while the flavors have stayed interesting, the focus on fast cooking appears to have waned since my colleague Louryn Strampe tested Gobble. Cook time estimates aren't printed on the recipe cards, but meals took as long as 30 minutes. For now, Hungryroot has taken the fast-cooking crown. For small households, Gobble is also among the most expensive kits. Ordering fewer than eight meals a week costs $15 a serving plus shipping.
Nurture Life ($6 to $8 per serving): Nurture Life is like a restaurant kids' menu, in ready-to-eat meal kit form. We loved the idea behind this fresh-made, never-frozen delivery meal plan when we tested it a few years back: a bunch of toddler- and slightly bigger kid-friendly meals, from mac and cheese to spaghetti and meatballs to myriad variations on the chicken nugget. The meal prices have dipped to reasonable levels of late, meaning it's likely due for a re-test—and each plate contains vegetables alongside the greatest hits.
Veestro ($7 to $14 per serving): WIRED reviewer Louryn Strampe enjoyed Veestro as a ready-to-eat vegan option, with premade meals delivered fresh, but with freezable options so you can have extra meals on hand in a pinch. The service offers a number of filters for other dietary requirements, and satisfying taste and texture—which is not always a guarantee on ready-to-eat meals. Veestro has updated its menu and offerings since the last time WIRED tested, including a number of snacky soup offerings. The online menu interface allowing you to sort by ingredients, and filter out unwanted ones, is among the best I've seen.
Splendid Spoon ($9 to $13 per serving): Splendid Spoon is a nutrition delivery kit that offers a plethora of plant-based smoothies, soups, bowls, noodles, and shots. Everything here is natural, plant-based, and free of gluten or GMOs, including spaghetti and plant-based “meatballs.” WIRED reviewer Louryn Strampe has a big yen for the smoothies in particular ($10 apiece), but wasn't quite prepared for the intensity of a lemon juice shot that comes as part of a five-pack of dense 3-ounce superfoods.
ModifyHealth's Braised Beef (top) and Paprika Salmon (bottom)
ModifyHealth ($10 to $13 per serving): The idea behind ModifyHealth is that food can be medicine. Sometimes, I'll admit, it tasted like it was designed purely for nutrition rather than flavor. ModifyHealth is a prepared meal delivery service tailored to people who need a heart-healthy, low-carb, or low-FODMAP diet to avoid dire digestive or health consequences. GLP-1 weight-loss plans are also available, for people with diabetes or others. Gluten-free meals are attested to be made in an entirely gluten-free facility. The meals were simple, benign, and low-sodium but also sometimes a little soggy—a common problem with prepared meals. The plastic top of the packaging was also difficult to disengage from the base of each meal tray—a problem when the plastic is hot after a turn in the microwave. But here's what I do like: The meals are carefully tailored with consultation from dietitians, to help people for whom food can be a source of fear or pain. An additional service, offering one-on-one dietitian consultation, can be covered by many insurance plans. ModifyHealth also offers a free consultation for those just trying to figure out which diet plan is right for them. For those with IBS in particular, this remains the most focused food plan I've seen.
Daily Harvest (prices vary): Daily Harvest is another ready-to-eat meal delivery service specializing in dietary restrictions: plant-based, plus gluten- and dairy-free. Smoothies feature, as do harvest bowls, pastas, and grains. Calories are low. Ingredients are often inventive. The meal's a lifesaver for the solo vegan eater without time to prep a meal, and WIRED vegan reviewer Molly Higgins appreciated that the meals mostly relied on the natural flavors of the vegetables themselves, accented with flavors like curry and lemongrass. As with a lot of frozen meals, however, texture wasn't a strong suit on the ready-to-heat meals. The ready-to-blend smoothies are great, though.
Sakara Life ($30+ per serving): Sakara Life offers plant-based weekly menus in fresh, prepared portions, with greens, flavorful sauces, all-organic ingredients, and textural add-ons like seeds or berries. But it's among the most expensive meal plans we've tested, and neither WIRED reviewer who tried it has really cottoned to the thing. Tester Louryn Strampe questioned the science on health claims for detoxes and cleanses, while calling Sakara “egregiously expensive” and full of “bitter veggies and tart fruits.” Vegan tester Molly Higgins, meanwhile, said Sakara Life's tinctures and metabolism supplements didn't agree with her system, and that the mostly raw-food plan made her long for “human food.”
Previously tested: Diet-to-Go was one of the original ready-to-eat delivery meal plans, founded more than 30 years ago in Virginia. The website went offline in November and it appears to be out of business.
Are Meal Delivery Services Worth It?
If you're talking raw materials by the pound—meat, zucchini, rice, noodles—meal kits will of course cost more than buying food at grocery stores. It's a service, after all, with added value above simple ingredient cost. Unless you've got quite expensive taste, you'll easily be able to make delicious meals at home for less than the $7 to $14 a serving that a meal kit will cost. But this said, this doesn't necessarily mean that meal kits are expensive for what they offer. I conducted an experiment, trying to re-create four different meal-kit meals by going to my local grocery store—buying every ingredient provided by the meal kit. Turns out, if you don't have the right sauces and spices at home already, it's very difficult to recreate these tasty meals at grocery stores for less than they cost from a meal kit, in part because you'll most likely have to buy full containers of sauces and spice instead of pre-portioned ingredients,
So, is HelloFresh worth it compared to a grocery store? Caveats are in order: For staple ingredients and spices you'll use on multiple recipes, the grocery store is, of course, cheaper. Once you buy a container of paprika for an individual recipe, it'll also be there for future recipes, whereas meal-kit spices are portioned for the meal. So the real answer is that meal kits can be a quite economical way of trying out a new recipe, or a new style of cooking, without larding up your fridge with condiments you won't use again. For ingredients you'd use less commonly, a meal kit can reduce waste and spoilage, and maybe even compete on price for an individual meal.
If your comparison point is takeout, well, the best meal delivery services on this list will almost certainly be cheaper and more nutritious. I've found that a meal kit in the fridge tends to be a good motivator to cook a nutritive meal—and thus can save me both the money and the cholesterol.
To really save on cost, some people like to keep testing out the trial offers and discounts. Much like mattress-in-a-box companies, meal kit companies usually have a running promotion. Usually this takes the form of a trial discount price that'll drop your cost by half or more on the first box, in hopes you'll like the service enough to keep it on at full price.
For me, a meal kit a few times a week ends up balancing out well: It's a motivating factor to eat better, and it means that when I do go to the grocery store, I can do so less mindlessly and more purposefully, given that I've got a few meals' worth of ingredients in the fridge. It's also had the side effect of broadening my culinary toolkit, keeping me from getting stuck in the same ruts.
That said, it's a set grocery expense and not necessarily a small one. I do get tired of tossing or recycling cold packs and boxes. And depending on time of year, I often prefer shopping in person for what's seasonal and local, when produce is at its peak—an experience you don't get from a meal kit, or from grocery delivery for that matter. If you're cooking for a bigger household, meal kits can also lose their utility quite quickly. A convenient option for two can become a much larger expense for a family of four or six.
Can I Pause a Meal Kit When I Go on Vacation?
Pretty much every meal kit I've tested has an option to pause subscriptions—and there's no particular limit to how often you can do this. The main thing is to be sure that you've canceled with enough lead time. Some services let you cancel or pause delivery as late as the Friday before a Monday delivery. HelloFresh requires five days' notice. Marley Spoon, at least where I live, required six days. Some, like Hungryroot, may lock in next week's order as early as the previous Monday, depending on where you live. Read your terms of service, and act accordingly.
For those with more variable schedules, the service I'd probably recommend is Blue Apron, which changed its model last year and no longer locks in delivery each week. You'll have to remember to order a box each week, which can be done where I am with four days' notice.
How to Optimize Meal Kits
Don't order too many meals per week: You know the old John Lennon line: Life is what happens when you're busy, out eating a random burrito, then thinking guiltily about the meal kit at home in your fridge. Aspirations are great, but don't order more meals than you're likely to make, or you'll be sad. Err on the side of caution. Order just enough meals per week that making yourself a recipe from your HelloFresh or Home Chef box is still a delight and a convenience and an overall boon to your life—not an obligation. For me, a somewhat improvisational and impulsive person, three meals a week is the sweet spot. The prospect of a few easy meals usually saves me from an impulse weeknight DoorDash.
Make room in your fridge: Meal kits take the place of a lot of grocery shopping. But they're also a lot of food, and a lot to keep organized. What I like to do is clear a tall enough space in my fridge to put the whole meal kit box in the fridge, after pulling out the cold packs: This way, I'm not left worrying about which groceries belong to the meal kit, and I won't lose any ingredients. I can just pull the whole box out when I want to make a meal. That said, some plans like Home Chef, HelloFresh, and Green Chef are very good at organizing each meal into its own separate bag. An added bonus from these more organized plans is that you'll be able to use less space in your fridge. Over time, this will matter.
Check the recipe cards to make sure you have everything you need to make a recipe: Most meal kits expect that you'll have certain staple ingredients in your home, usually including oil and butter. Recipes also have requirements for cookware. Check this before you start a recipe. Nothing worse than realizing you need an absentee stick of butter on step 5, with carrots already browning in the toaster oven.
Remember, you owe nothing to the recipe: Meal kit services hire recipe developers, and on the best meal kits, these chefs have spent a lot of time optimizing each recipe. But you owe them nothing—nothing! Add spices, change steps, season food when you want to season it. Meal kits can teach you a lot about how to make a good meal and shake you out of tired culinary routines. But it's your meal. Make it how you like. Have fun.
How Do I Test Meal Kits?
Chances are, wherever you are, whatever week it is, I'm testing a meal kit. I constantly cycle through various meal kits, testing and retesting each of my top picks at least once a year—and often multiple times per year.
I order at least four meals from each when possible, prepare meals according to instructions, and see how well it goes. I check my own prep times against the advertised prep times (rarely an exercise in honesty!), and take note of any inconsistencies, vagueness, or frustration in the recipe card instructions. If you needlessly recommend a nonstick pan, I like you less, especially if you tell me I should heat said pan before adding food—or you later make mention of browned fond in the recipe. Nonstick isn't cast iron or carbon; there's no fond.
I check for the quality and freshness of the produce, and do the same for the meat. Where possible, I also look into where the meat was sourced, and check on the reputation, safety, and standards of the meat suppliers. If a meal kit swears it's gluten-free, I check on this—calling certifying organizations where relevant.
I usually try to order as varied a menu a possible, checking in on gluten-free meals, a seafood item, a vegetarian item, and white and dark meat item—as well as meals that draw (or attempt to draw) from global inspirations. Sometimes I test the same meal kit multiple times for different dietary needs, and WIRED's vegan tester, Molly Higgins, often tests the same meal kit I do but with a different focus.
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