If you're looking for inexpensive vegan meals by mail or an affordable meal kit service that includes steak and seafood in the standard plan, we have picks for those, too.

The takeaway? Being budget-friendly certainly doesn't mean the food has to suck. If you're looking to eliminate a few weekly tasks -- grocery shopping, meal planning, prep, cooking -- without squeezing your budget, we tested more than 10 top wallet-friendly services to find the best cheap meal delivery for The bottom line : EveryPlate's meal kits were all solid and easy to make.

EveryPlate meal kits are easy to prepare and I loved everything I made in multiple rounds of testing. You won't find a lot of foofy, upscale cuisine or complicated recipes, but you will get a lot of satisfying comfort food, such as hoisin meatloaf with mashed potatoes, cheeseburgers, umami pork chops and sweet potato quesadillas.

I tested EveryPlate and was pleasantly surprised with how much I liked the meals. Having tested all of the leading prepared meal delivery service options, Fresh N Lean ran away from the competition, ticking more boxes than any other.

The food is healthy, thoughtfully prepared, tastes fantastic, looks appetizing and is fairly affordable, depending on the plan you select. Fresh N Lean has five meal plans to help keep folks on track with their specific nutrition goals, including low-carb, vegan, paleo and protein-plus options.

The food I tried was all made exceptionally well, made from simple, whole ingredients. This is the perfect service for families with picky eaters trying to eat well on a budget. Much like EveryPlate, Dinnerly has a lot of comfort foods such as ravioli with spinach and parmesan sauce, carne asada tacos and chicken pad thai.

Dinnerly has an enormous menu of recipes -- typically more than 60 to choose from in a given week. The bottom line: This plant-based meal delivery service had some of the best, healthy prepared meals of any service we tried.

I sampled about nine of Mosaic Food's plant-based prepared meal offerings and the vegetarian prepared meal delivery service had an astoundingly high hit rate.

Mosaic uses bold and interesting global flavors and employs creative use of meat substitutes such as tofu, jackfruit, cauliflower and vegan sausages to create tasty and satisfying vegetarian meals -- even for this omnivore.

There are some vegan meals, but many of them use dairy products, so vegans must choose their Mosaic meals more carefully.

The bottom line: Blue Apron is a classic example of a quality meal delivery service. One of the original providers of this service, it also stands out for eco-friendliness. Blue Apron is one of the original meal kit services and it's also one of the best.

In fact, Blue Apron topped our list of best meal delivery services for with a wide range of excellent recipes, all for an affordable price. It's true, you can order bistro steaks and roasted trout dinners with Blue Apron's standard plan, where many services charge extra for those premium proteins.

In addition to solid meal kits, Blue Apron is the most eco-friendly service of the major players, according to a recent study. The heartier meals are great too, like the cauliflower rice and pesto harvest bowl with cashews and spinach.

You won't need more than a saucepan, toaster or blender to prepare most of the meals, and most can be made in as little as 5 minutes. When I tried Daily Harvest , I loved the interesting smoothie combos such as a chocolate blueberry smoothie with greens, banana and almond butter.

The bottom line : It doesn't get much easier than HelloFresh. This service has tons of cheap meal kit options, more than 50 per week, and allows you to add proteins or extra servings to keep the whole crew fed and happy. HelloFresh has as many as 25 dinner meal kits per week, so it is nearly impossible not to find something you'll like.

HelloFresh also has five or six plant-based recipes a week, making it the best cheap meal kit service for vegetarians. Over the past few years, we've tested nearly every meal kit delivery and prepared meal delivery service we could get our oven mitts on, and that includes the best budget meal delivery services.

Many of the menu options for the meal delivery services we've listed include nutritious plant-based food or high-protein recipes with lots of veggies and lean meats. To test each cheap meal delivery service, I tried at least four and sometimes as many as 10 meals from any given service.

I always choose a range of meals from the various menu and meal plan offerings. For instance, if a meal subscription service offers vegan or vegetarian meals I was sure to try at least one.

I also mixed up the cuisine types to include pasta, meat dishes, bowls and other various styles offered by the brand. To test the best cheap meal kits, there was another set of standards and protocols to adhere to.

Here's more on how we test meal kits at CNET. The first big decision you'll make is whether you want meal kits, which require some prep and cooking, or a prepared meal service that sends fully cooked meals ready to heat and eat. Prepared meals require almost no time and energy, other than what it takes to actually eat the food, but typically run a few dollars more per serving.

If you're keen on eating low-calorie, low-carb, plant-based or pescatarian food, certain meal kits and meal delivery services are better than others.

Our list of the healthiest meal delivery services for is a good place to find the most nutritious options. With almost every service, the more meals or servings are in your order per delivery, the cheaper it becomes per meal.

Ideally, you'll want to determine exactly how much food makes sense for your household. That means it's less of an issue if you order too many meals on your first go-around. Services like Daily Harvest and Splendid Spoon have meals for similar prices but are focused more on grain bowls and smoothies and might be better for breakfast or lunch versus dinner.

When it comes to meal kits, your options are many, and most services provide weekly recipes that are low on calories but still filling. HelloFresh has the most recipes per week of any meal kit service, so that might be your best bet for finding consistent meals that keep your diet goals on track.

But all services list the calorie content for each recipe, along with carbs, protein, sugar and sodium. Depending on your weight loss goals, a healthy prepared meal delivery or meal kit service can help.

Fresh N Lean, Pete's Real Food and Daily Harvest all have low-calorie meals to choose from. Some of the services listed here are healthy prepared meal delivery services , sending fully cooked meals -- often frozen or partially frozen -- and ready to eat when you receive them.

Others include health-focused meal kits with premeasured ingredients all boxed up and ready for easy weeknight cooking. There's a stark difference between meal kits and meal delivery, but both make dinnertime easier and can translate into healthier eating choices for you in Plus, we sussed out the best healthy meal services for those on special diets like keto or paleo or for those who wish to eat organic prepared meals and meal kits.

It comes with eight pieces of regular chicken, eight chicken tenders, large fries, large mashed potatoes and gravy, large coleslaw, and four biscuits. Just make sure you order your meal on the website or through the app since it's only available online. Related: It's Not All About the Chicken.

Here's Every KFC Side Dish, Ranked. Designed to serve four or more, Panera's family feast includes four half-sandwiches, one whole salad, one group soup, and one whole baguette. You can also get variations that include kids' sandwiches such as grilled cheese, premium versions of Panera sandwiches and salads, or chocolate chip cookies.

Just like Domino's, Papa Johns also has a cheap takeout mix-and-match deal. It comes with a large specialty pizza and a large two-topping pizza for some variety. The Family Meal at Panda Express is completely customizable. Choose two large sides, such as chow mein or steamed super greens, along with three large entrees.

You think the employees would bat an eyelash if you ordered orange chicken for all three? Related: Every Dish on the Panda Express Menu, Ranked. Bojangles has a new family meal special right now, and it's no-frills but inexpensive.

You'll also get four family-sized sides, four biscuits, and a half gallon of iced tea. Boston Market is good if you want a homestyle family dinner of comfort food. The Family Meals feed three to six people, and the most popular option comes with a whole rotisserie chicken as the main, plus three to six sides depending on the size of the meal.

You can also get meals with barbecue ribs, roasted turkey, or meatloaf. Del Taco offers Fiesta Packs that can feed four or more people easily. The cheapest Fiesta Pack comes with six bean-and-cheese burritos and six value tacos, but you can swap the tacos for bigger Del Tacos or grilled chicken tacos.

If a chicken dinner sounds good but you'd rather not have it fried, El Pollo Loco's eight-piece Family Dinner comes with grilled, citrus-marinated chicken, three large sides, tortillas, and salsa. If you need to feed up to eight people, there are bigger meals featuring 12 and 16 pieces. While the price of Little Caesars Hot 'n Ready and Extra Most Bestest pizzas have gone up a dollar in most places since the pandemic started, they're still one of the best deals in pizza.

We think the extra buck for the Extra Most Bestest is worth the extra cheese and toppings. There's a great deal on cheeseburger sliders at White Castle right now. Though there's no family meal at Jersey Mike's, the giant subs feed three to four people.

Related: Head to the Shore With These 9 Jersey Mike's Secret Menu Items. Like other fried chicken restaurants, Long John Silver's always has Family Meals available.

They come in packs of eight, 12, and 16 pieces of fried pollock or chicken tenders, plus family-size sides and, of course, hush puppies.

Lansing State Journal. Las Cruces Sun-News. Lebanon Daily News. Lubbock Avalanche-Journal. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Monroe News. Montgomery Advertiser. Naples Daily News. News Chief. News Journal. Northwest Florida Daily News. Ocala Star Banner. Oshkosh Northwestern. Panama City News Herald.

Pensacola News Journal. Pocono Record. Portsmouth Herald. Poughkeepsie Journal. Record Searchlight. Reno Gazette Journal. Rockford Register Star. Salina Journal. Savannah Morning News. South Bend Tribune. Springfield News-Leader. Cloud Times. Lucie News Tribune.

Star News. Statesman Journal. Sun Journal. Tallahassee Democrat. Taunton Daily Gazette. The Advocate. The Arizona Republic. The Augusta Chronicle.

The Bulletin. The Columbus Dispatch. The Daily Advertiser. The Daily News. The Daily News Journal. The Daily Record. The Daily Telegram. The Daily Times. The Daytona Beach News-Journal. The Desert Sun.

The Detroit News. The Enquirer.

EveryPlate and Dinnerly are the cheapest meal kits with most plans clocking in at under $6 per serving. HelloFresh and Home Chef are in the next Meal Kits Coupons and Deals ; Martha · $ to $ per person · $ ; HelloFresh · $$ · $ First shipping is FREE ; green chef logo · $ - Food Bundle Packages · Breakfast Special $ · AFTER SCHOOL BUNDLE $ · Bundle # 1 $ · Mike's Special only $ · Microwave Bundle - $

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Discounted cuisine packages - Welcome to our new website! Ordering FFG Favorites is now easy like Sunday morning. Place your catering order online and receive an automatic 5% discount EveryPlate and Dinnerly are the cheapest meal kits with most plans clocking in at under $6 per serving. HelloFresh and Home Chef are in the next Meal Kits Coupons and Deals ; Martha · $ to $ per person · $ ; HelloFresh · $$ · $ First shipping is FREE ; green chef logo · $ - Food Bundle Packages · Breakfast Special $ · AFTER SCHOOL BUNDLE $ · Bundle # 1 $ · Mike's Special only $ · Microwave Bundle - $

Meal kits will demand more of your time and energy but they'll also cost a little less per serving. Prepared meals require almost no time and energy, other than what it takes to actually eat the food, but typically run a few bucks more per serving.

While most meal delivery services have healthy options, some are much healthier than others. If you're keen on eating low-calorie, low-carb, plant-based or pescatarian food, certain meal kits and meal delivery services will be better than others.

Our list of the healthiest meal delivery services for is a good place to find all the most nutritious options. Number of meals per week. With almost every service, the more meals or servings your order per delivery, the cheaper it becomes per meal. But you'll want to hone in on exactly how much food makes sent for your household.

If you can't imagine yourself cooking more than twice per week, don't order more than two meal kits because they typically won't last more than a week in the fridge. Most prepared meals either arrive frozen or can be frozen after unboxing. That means it's less of an issue if you order too many meals on your first go around.

Most services allow you to change the number of meals or servings in your plan even after you've started. Our meal delivery experts have logged more than 5 years of cooking more than 75 meal kits and tasting more than prepared meals from various services to help land on our list of the best healthy meal subscriptions in While everything else has got more expensive, meal kit subscriptions seem to be getting cheaper.

The absolute cheapest meal kit is EveryPlate , and with consistently tasty meals -- we've tested it three times now -- that take as little as 20 minutes to cook, it's an easy pick for the best cheap meal service for Read more: Are Some Meal Kits Cheaper Than Buying Groceries?

I Did the Math. If you're looking for inexpensive vegan meals by mail or an affordable meal kit service that includes steak and seafood in the standard plan, we have picks for those, too.

The takeaway? Being budget-friendly certainly doesn't mean the food has to suck. If you're looking to eliminate a few weekly tasks -- grocery shopping, meal planning, prep, cooking -- without squeezing your budget, we tested more than 10 top wallet-friendly services to find the best cheap meal delivery for The bottom line : EveryPlate's meal kits were all solid and easy to make.

EveryPlate meal kits are easy to prepare and I loved everything I made in multiple rounds of testing. You won't find a lot of foofy, upscale cuisine or complicated recipes, but you will get a lot of satisfying comfort food, such as hoisin meatloaf with mashed potatoes, cheeseburgers, umami pork chops and sweet potato quesadillas.

I tested EveryPlate and was pleasantly surprised with how much I liked the meals. Having tested all of the leading prepared meal delivery service options, Fresh N Lean ran away from the competition, ticking more boxes than any other.

The food is healthy, thoughtfully prepared, tastes fantastic, looks appetizing and is fairly affordable, depending on the plan you select. Fresh N Lean has five meal plans to help keep folks on track with their specific nutrition goals, including low-carb, vegan, paleo and protein-plus options.

The food I tried was all made exceptionally well, made from simple, whole ingredients. This is the perfect service for families with picky eaters trying to eat well on a budget. Much like EveryPlate, Dinnerly has a lot of comfort foods such as ravioli with spinach and parmesan sauce, carne asada tacos and chicken pad thai.

Dinnerly has an enormous menu of recipes -- typically more than 60 to choose from in a given week. The bottom line: This plant-based meal delivery service had some of the best, healthy prepared meals of any service we tried. I sampled about nine of Mosaic Food's plant-based prepared meal offerings and the vegetarian prepared meal delivery service had an astoundingly high hit rate.

Mosaic uses bold and interesting global flavors and employs creative use of meat substitutes such as tofu, jackfruit, cauliflower and vegan sausages to create tasty and satisfying vegetarian meals -- even for this omnivore. There are some vegan meals, but many of them use dairy products, so vegans must choose their Mosaic meals more carefully.

The bottom line: Blue Apron is a classic example of a quality meal delivery service. One of the original providers of this service, it also stands out for eco-friendliness. Blue Apron is one of the original meal kit services and it's also one of the best.

In fact, Blue Apron topped our list of best meal delivery services for with a wide range of excellent recipes, all for an affordable price. It's true, you can order bistro steaks and roasted trout dinners with Blue Apron's standard plan, where many services charge extra for those premium proteins.

In addition to solid meal kits, Blue Apron is the most eco-friendly service of the major players, according to a recent study. The heartier meals are great too, like the cauliflower rice and pesto harvest bowl with cashews and spinach.

You won't need more than a saucepan, toaster or blender to prepare most of the meals, and most can be made in as little as 5 minutes.

When I tried Daily Harvest , I loved the interesting smoothie combos such as a chocolate blueberry smoothie with greens, banana and almond butter. The bottom line : It doesn't get much easier than HelloFresh.

This service has tons of cheap meal kit options, more than 50 per week, and allows you to add proteins or extra servings to keep the whole crew fed and happy. HelloFresh has as many as 25 dinner meal kits per week, so it is nearly impossible not to find something you'll like.

HelloFresh also has five or six plant-based recipes a week, making it the best cheap meal kit service for vegetarians. Over the past few years, we've tested nearly every meal kit delivery and prepared meal delivery service we could get our oven mitts on, and that includes the best budget meal delivery services.

Many of the menu options for the meal delivery services we've listed include nutritious plant-based food or high-protein recipes with lots of veggies and lean meats.

To test each cheap meal delivery service, I tried at least four and sometimes as many as 10 meals from any given service. I always choose a range of meals from the various menu and meal plan offerings. For instance, if a meal subscription service offers vegan or vegetarian meals I was sure to try at least one.

I also mixed up the cuisine types to include pasta, meat dishes, bowls and other various styles offered by the brand. To test the best cheap meal kits, there was another set of standards and protocols to adhere to.

Here's more on how we test meal kits at CNET. The first big decision you'll make is whether you want meal kits, which require some prep and cooking, or a prepared meal service that sends fully cooked meals ready to heat and eat. Prepared meals require almost no time and energy, other than what it takes to actually eat the food, but typically run a few dollars more per serving.

If you're keen on eating low-calorie, low-carb, plant-based or pescatarian food, certain meal kits and meal delivery services are better than others. Our list of the healthiest meal delivery services for is a good place to find the most nutritious options.

With almost every service, the more meals or servings are in your order per delivery, the cheaper it becomes per meal. Ideally, you'll want to determine exactly how much food makes sense for your household. That means it's less of an issue if you order too many meals on your first go-around.

Services like Daily Harvest and Splendid Spoon have meals for similar prices but are focused more on grain bowls and smoothies and might be better for breakfast or lunch versus dinner. When it comes to meal kits, your options are many, and most services provide weekly recipes that are low on calories but still filling.

HelloFresh has the most recipes per week of any meal kit service, so that might be your best bet for finding consistent meals that keep your diet goals on track.

But all services list the calorie content for each recipe, along with carbs, protein, sugar and sodium. Depending on your weight loss goals, a healthy prepared meal delivery or meal kit service can help.

Fresh N Lean, Pete's Real Food and Daily Harvest all have low-calorie meals to choose from. Some of the services listed here are healthy prepared meal delivery services , sending fully cooked meals -- often frozen or partially frozen -- and ready to eat when you receive them.

Others include health-focused meal kits with premeasured ingredients all boxed up and ready for easy weeknight cooking. There's a stark difference between meal kits and meal delivery, but both make dinnertime easier and can translate into healthier eating choices for you in Plus, we sussed out the best healthy meal services for those on special diets like keto or paleo or for those who wish to eat organic prepared meals and meal kits.

Wellness Nutrition. Written by David Watsky. Our expert, award-winning staff selects the products we cover and rigorously researches and tests our top picks.

If you buy through our links, we may get a commission. Reviews ethics statement. David lives in Brooklyn where he's spent more than a decade covering all things edible, including meal kit services, food subscriptions, kitchen tools and cooking tips. Since earning a BA in English from Northeastern in Boston, he's toiled in nearly every aspect of the food business, including as a line cook in Rhode Island where he once made a steak sandwich for Lamar Odom.

Right now, he's likely somewhere stress-testing a blender or researching the best way to make bacon. Anything with sesame is his all-time favorite food this week. Expertise Kitchen tools, appliances, food science, subscriptions and meal kits. See full bio. You think the employees would bat an eyelash if you ordered orange chicken for all three?

Related: Every Dish on the Panda Express Menu, Ranked. Bojangles has a new family meal special right now, and it's no-frills but inexpensive. You'll also get four family-sized sides, four biscuits, and a half gallon of iced tea.

Boston Market is good if you want a homestyle family dinner of comfort food. The Family Meals feed three to six people, and the most popular option comes with a whole rotisserie chicken as the main, plus three to six sides depending on the size of the meal.

You can also get meals with barbecue ribs, roasted turkey, or meatloaf. Del Taco offers Fiesta Packs that can feed four or more people easily. The cheapest Fiesta Pack comes with six bean-and-cheese burritos and six value tacos, but you can swap the tacos for bigger Del Tacos or grilled chicken tacos.

If a chicken dinner sounds good but you'd rather not have it fried, El Pollo Loco's eight-piece Family Dinner comes with grilled, citrus-marinated chicken, three large sides, tortillas, and salsa. If you need to feed up to eight people, there are bigger meals featuring 12 and 16 pieces.

While the price of Little Caesars Hot 'n Ready and Extra Most Bestest pizzas have gone up a dollar in most places since the pandemic started, they're still one of the best deals in pizza. We think the extra buck for the Extra Most Bestest is worth the extra cheese and toppings.

There's a great deal on cheeseburger sliders at White Castle right now. Though there's no family meal at Jersey Mike's, the giant subs feed three to four people. Related: Head to the Shore With These 9 Jersey Mike's Secret Menu Items. Like other fried chicken restaurants, Long John Silver's always has Family Meals available.

They come in packs of eight, 12, and 16 pieces of fried pollock or chicken tenders, plus family-size sides and, of course, hush puppies.

Taco night is about to get easier at your house with the Family Meals from Qdoba. Everyone knows that dark meat is the juiciest, so why not save a little money and skip the white meat altogether? Look for more meal deals on the coupon page of the website. Moe's has developed a build-your-own taco kit as a fun way to feed a family that doesn't want to venture out.

The kit comes with 12 soft flour tortillas a choice of two proteins such as steak or chicken, and lettuce, cheese, pico de gallo, and sour cream for toppings.

Plus, there are sides of rice and beans and chips and salsa for a full meal for up to six people. Nacho and fajita kits are also available. Einstein Bros. has a meal kit for brunch-loving families. It includes a farmhouse egg sandwich, two bacon and cheddar egg sandwiches, four twice-baked hash browns, four blueberry muffins, six assorted bagels, and a tub of plain cream cheese.

Pollo Tropical is known for its citrus marinated- and Cuban-inspired food. The Super Family Meal Deal at Fazoli's is an Italian feast.

It comes with a large spaghetti and meat or marinara sauce, large fettuccine alfredo, a whole pizza, 16 garlic breadsticks, and a half-gallon beverage. If a whole pile of fried goodies is what you're after, head to Jack in the Box, because the Mega Munchie Box is back.

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February 05, by Lacey Muszynski. updated by Lacey Muszynski. fact checked by Erin Kuschner. Cheapism is editorially independent. We may earn a commission if you buy through links on our site.