Marley Spoon

Pros

• Thoughtful recipes you won't find everywhere
• Even the quick recipes felt special
• Extremely fresh ingredients
• Not a lot of plastic waste

Cons

• On the expensive side when you factor in shipping
• Market add-ons are not the best

Meal kits have been going strong for nearly 15 years, and HelloFresh, Blue Apron and Home Chef have spent that time flooding your social feeds and podcast ad breaks with their names and offerings. But after testing every major meal kit service in my own kitchen -- and cooking through hundreds of recipes -- I've landed on a new favorite for 2026, and it isn't any of them.

Marley Spoon is built for people who actually love to cook. Its recipes are more adventurous than most, drawing from Martha Stewart's own cookbooks and personal collection -- but don't let that intimidate you. The techniques stay approachable, so whether you're a confident home cook or still finding your footing, the meals deliver something most kits don't: a genuine sense of occasion.

Read more: Your Guide to Meal Kits: The Essential Tools You'll Need to Get Started

Curious as we are at CNET about all things meal kits, we wanted to know just how good they are -- and whether they're worth the money. We tested a week's worth of recipes for a third time to bring you this review of Marley Spoon's meal kit delivery service.

How Marley Spoon works

Marley Spoon operates similarly to most others in the category and offers both meal kits with recipes that you cook and prepared meals that only require reheating.

After choosing between those two options, you will then answer the question, "What kid of meals do you like?" Meal kit options include everyday variety, low calorie, low carb, quick and easy, vegetarian, pescatarian and Mediterranean for two or four people and you can choose between two and six meals per week. The single-serving prepared meal options include everyday variety, low calorie or low carb and you can choose 6, 8, 10, 12, 14 or 18 meals per week.

Your box of meal kit ingredients is delivered once a week -- unless you skip a week, which is easy to do -- and you can either manually select recipes or let Martha Stewart personally choose them for you. OK, just kidding: She's not your personal meal concierge, but you can let the brand select meals if you prefer a little mystery. You can select any day of the week for delivery, and the boxes will arrive between 8 a.m. and 9 p.m. 

There are now more than 100 recipes each week, ranging in difficulty. Before you choose a recipe for delivery, you'll see all the steps involved, the estimated time it takes to complete, and detailed nutritional information to help you decide.  

Prepared meals are $13 each and shipping is $11 per box.

What are Marley Spoon meals like

As you might imagine, since Martha Stewart helped design the concept and created many of the recipes, there are some really interesting, high-end and gourmet dishes to choose from. Luckily, though, most are still fairly simple to make.

There are plenty of healthy recipes and dietary preferences to choose from. However, there are only between four and six vegan options each week, so if you want more options, Purple Carrot may be a better choice for you. Other services that feature built-in diet meal plans include Green Chef, Home Chef or HelloFresh.

At Marley Spoon, you'll find plenty of comforting dishes like French onion chicken breast and beef stroganoff, plus desserts you can add to your box, such as baked gingerbread doughnuts and French-style cheesecake.

On the prepared-meal side, the recipes are just as creative. Some meals include tilapia with smoky tomato sauce and black bean street corn, and merlot chicken meatballs with orzo pasta and green beans.

How easy are Marley Spoon meals to prepare?

Our meals ran the gamut from the super simple to a bit more complicated and time-intensive, but the good news is that it's really up to you on how difficult you want the meals to be when you make your recipe selections.

The skillet chicken Parmesan, for instance, had a number of steps like preparing the chicken, cooking it, making the sauce and preparing the pasta (which had its own ingredients). For someone with a decent amount of cooking experience, this isn't challenging, but some beginners might not be ready for such an involved meal. Other meals, such as the butternut squash pizza, were quite simple, tasty, and perfect for a weeknight when you don't feel like fussing much or taking time to cook.  

Read more: Meal Kits Taught Me How to Cook. Now I Get to Test Them for a Living

What we cooked and how it went

Beef picadillo pockets with bell peppers and cilantro chimichurri: This meal was not only delicious but also fun to make. It was the first time I used raw dough in a meal kit recipe, and the results were well worth the effort. Although the empanadas were filling, I still would have liked them to have come with a side other than the chimichurri sauce.

Butternut squash pizza with ricotta, almonds and hot honey: I had never had butternut squash on a pizza before this meal, but I can definitely see myself making this again. It was a perfect fall meal with the onions, squash, rosemary and almonds added on top.

Seared salmon with citrus butter sauce, smashed potatoes, and shaved Brussels sprouts salad: The Brussels sprouts salad helped elevate this simple meal and take it to the next level. I cooked the salmon on the stovetop and the smashed potatoes in my air fryer.

Skillet chicken Parmesan with casarecce and sautéed spinach: This recipe was good and very comforting, though it certainly had a healthy share of carbs and calories. The red sauce was very simple, and the chicken cutlets weren't breaded, so it felt a little healthier than normal chicken Parm, but not quite enough to be really, truly healthy. I had lots of leftovers, which was nice. 

Honey miso salmon with roasted carrots and Brussels sprouts: This one was great and healthy, but it wasn't particularly out-of-the-box. The salmon was high-quality and tasted super fresh.

Restorative chicken soup with sweet potato, kale and quinoa: A very tasty and hearty soup I made and ate all week. The shredded chicken was already cooked, which surprised me but I appreciated, as it was still moist and flavorful. This entire meal was simple to prepare and felt like nourishing medicine, thanks to all those superfoods. 

Marley Spoon support materials 

I found the recipes clear, concise and easy to follow. There's some nice background on the ingredients, too: my salmon recipe, for instance, provided context on miso for anyone unfamiliar with the fermented paste. The Marley Spoon app is also helpful with lots of information about each recipe and gives you the ability to order, pause, cancel or skip a week right from your mobile device. 

What makes Marley Spoon different from other meal kit services?

One thing to like about this service is that it doesn't try to be anything other than good. There's no pandering to fad diets or giving users too much autonomy to change recipes or swap out meats. The meal kit service's proposition is that the culinary team has come up with thoughtful, mostly healthy recipes they think you'll enjoy -- and they ask you to put your trust in them. I wouldn't go so far as to call it stuffy or stubborn, but there is something very Martha Stewart about it. 

In that respect, it reminds me a bit of Sunbasket. That meal kit service also tries to keep the integrity of the original recipes they've created, and while it might not please everyone, I think it pays off in the end for those who appreciate good food.

Who is Marley Spoon good for?

This is one of the best meal kit services for foodies and experienced cooks looking to shake up their weeknight dinner rotation. If you're looking for interesting new recipes that are both gourmet and approachable, Martha Stewart's meal kits are a good pick. It's also a solid choice for a home cook who's looking to hone new skills or work with new ingredients. 

A lot of the recipes are kid-friendly, so these meal kits would also work well for families of up to four people. And with as many as seven plant-based recipes each week, this is a good meal kit service for vegans, vegetarians or those trying to sprinkle in a few more non-meat dinners per week.

Who is Marley Spoon not good for?

If you're an extremely picky eater, a very new cook, or are trying to keep a gluten-free diet, I would not suggest this meal kit. It's also not a good meal delivery service if you're simply looking to get dinner on the table each week and don't care about the cooking process, since some of the recipes are involved.

Packaging and environmental friendliness 

I found Marley Spoon to be on the eco-friendly side of the meal kit spectrum. There was some single-use plastic waste, as there always is, but nothing excessive -- and the ingredients were not individually packed in disposable bags as of 2025. The boxes, coolers and ice packs were also recyclable.

Changing, skipping or canceling your meal kit order

Between the website and mobile app, Marley Spoon makes it very easy to skip weeks, switch recipes, or pause your subscription. Any changes must be made six days prior to the delivery date.

The final verdict on Marley Spoon

Being a Martha Stewart-conceived meal kit project, I had lofty expectations for this service, and it mostly met them. When I flip through the menu each week, it boasts one of the highest percentages of recipes that make me go "ooh, that sounds good," right up there with Sunbasket. Most importantly, all the recipes we made delivered on the promise of a tasty and interesting meal. There wasn't much blah factor, and we very much appreciate that.

The meal kit service also includes thoughtful touches others don't, like quick ingredient explainers for new chefs and profiles of the chefs behind some of the recipes. The produce, meats and fish were also some of the freshest we'd received from a meal kit service, and that goes a long way in creating a truly delicious dinner. The pricing is fair for what you get, and if you're cooking for a large group, it's actually quite affordable per serving. The market add-ons have also grown over the years.

If you've been wanting to try a meal kit service with a range of healthy, hearty and comforting meals and you already have the cooking basics down, I'd say give Martha's meals a whirl.