A Dietitian’s review of EveryPlate meal kit delivery. Is it healthy? Is it worth the cost? This review covers the pros & cons of this budget-conscious service!
You know what the number one question I hear as a Dietitian is? What meal delivery service do I recommend? For many years, I got questions from clients and readers asking which meal kit delivery service I recommended. I couldn’t really make a solid recommendation because I didn’t use any of them. So, I set out in 2020 to start reviewing some of the most popular services, including Sun Basket, HelloFresh, Daily Harvest, Green Chef, Home Chef, Blue Apron, Smoothiebox, and Hungryroot (my favorite.) Today I’m reviewing a budget blogger favorite: Every Plate from a Dietitian’s perspective.
Keep in mind I’m slightly biased when reviewing these companies because, in a way, they do compete with my What to Eat? Weekly Meal Prep Guide & Meal Plans. Transparency is always important to me at Hungry Hobby, and if you came to read this post from a source such as Google or Pinterest, you might not know that. And I think it’s essential that you do.
Like Green Chef, EveryPlate is owned and operated by the well-known parent company Hello Fresh. I didn’t know this at the time (until it showed up at my door with it written on the side of the box), but in an array of offerings by Hello Fresh, EveryPlate is intended to be the budget-friendly option.
Note this post is not sponsored review, but I did sign up as an affiliate for Every Plate. This means some links in this post are affiliate links and I will be eligible to earn a small compensation if you chose to sign up using one of those links. Thank you!
TOP 3 PROS OF USING EVERYPLATE MEAL DELIVERY SERVICE
- Budget-friendly meals with ample portion sizes.
- Time conscious meals, some options to buy pre-prepped ready to bake meals.
- Minimal packaging compared to other services.
TOP 3 CONS OF USING EVERYPLATE MEAL DELIVERY SERVICE
- You must “know what you’re looking for” when picking healthy recipes.
- No options for special dietary concerns such as gluten-free, paleo, vegan, etc.
- Uses lower-cost ingredients with an upcharge for anything premium.
HH readers can try Every Plate for $2.99/meal & 20% off your first two boxes by clicking here!
CUSTOMIZABLE VARIETY & DIETARY PREFERENCES
Pros: Even with only eight options to chose from each week, there was a good deal of variety in flavor. I think the limited options compared to other services is positive, too many choices results in spending too much time just trying to select the meals.
Cons: No meal plans, dietary preference information, and limited, restricted diet options such as vegetarian. The meals were not labeled with common dietary preferences such as vegetarian, paleo, gluten-free, dairy-free, etc.
NUTRITION
Pros: Ample portion sizes!!!! I find meal kit delivery services to skimp on the portion sizes, which is SO annoying. Everyplate offers ample portion sizes. There are healthy balanced options available, but you have to know what to look for, and you might need to be willing to make some modifications. For example, do you have some frozen veggies you can use to bulk up the meal or a side salad? That kind of thing. Most people are ordering a meal kit because they don’t want to do that, though, so it’s hard to say if this is a pro. That being said, I believe these home-cooked meals to be much better than fast food and other options.
Cons: The ample portion sizes mentioned earlier are mostly because they overload the meal with excess carbs. If you have blood sugar concerns at all, this is not the meal kit for you. Also, I wouldn’t want to eat like that every day. Excess carbs lead to weight gain, blood sugar fluctuations, etc. I appreciated the presence of protein and veggies at every meal but would like to see more vegetables—a complaint I have with all meal kit delivery services. However, the benefit here is if you are willing to add veggies to the meals you receive, you can get more servings out of each meal! I show and example of this in the Shepherd’s Pie Meal below.
DELIVERY
Pros: I loved the minimal packaging design used with EveryPlate. Many meal kit delivery services package out each meal for you, presumably to save time. However, I’d much instead save money and quickly separate the meals myself. Also, when ingredients are pre-separated out by bags like in Sun Basket and Green Chef, you still have to go through the bags and pull out the items that don’t’ go in the fridge. So, it’s nice that EveryPlate didn’t do that.
Cons: Still plenty of packaging to throw away. While the packaging is reduced, it’s still present. Again, we are an Amazon Prime household, so this doesn’t bother us!
Clean Up
Pro: As I always say, pre-packaged ingredients do away with a lot of measuring and therefore measuring cups. Clean up was infinitely easier for that reason. I love this about meal kit delivery services, and EveryPlate has less clean up than other services.
Con: Lots of extra plastic trash holding the ingredients.
EVERYPLATE COOKING
Pro: All the meals were fast, efficient, and easy to do. I enjoyed this because other services I’ve tried, the whole time I’m cooking the recipes I’m thinking of 7 ways to Sunday, I could make it faster.
Con: Most recipes I ordered were hands-on type recipes, so there was no downtime to clean up. I like “set it and forget it type recipes,” BUT, these were available from EveryPlate, I just didn’t order them.
Ingredients
Pros: Emphasis on cuts and ingredients you are probably familiar with. It can be fun to try exotic ingredients, but it can also be overwhelming. You are sure to work with stuff you are familiar with in EveryPlate.
Cons: Emphasis on less expensive meat, anything premium will be an upcharge.
HH readers can try Every Plate for $2.99/meal & 20% off your first two boxes by clicking here!
EveryPlate Cost
Pros: Meals cost 4.99 across the board, a smoking deal!
Cons: They charge 8.99 for shipping.
HH readers can try Every Plate for $2.99/meal & 20% off your first two boxes by clicking here!
1 Week of EveryPlate Meals
Meal 1: Skillet Apple Pork Chops
I’m not a pork chop person, but I LOVED this meal, so did Mr. Hungry. We got three servings out of a two-serving meal. From a nutrition standpoint, I’d love to see another zucchini added to this, but it was delicious and on the healthier side.
Meal 2: Hearty Steak Shepherd’s Pie
This was Mr. Hungry’s favorite meal. He LOVED the idea of having steak instead of ground beef in one of his favorite meals of all time, shepherd’s pie. I added some leftover broccoli to the meal because I felt the meal was a little low in veggies, but it was very delicious! Shepherd’s Pie is not my favorite, but this was good! It was also fast and easy to make!
Sweet Chili Chicken
This was my favorite meal, not sure why, but I LOVED it! From a nutrition standpoint, it had plenty of carrots and lean protein. White rice wouldn’t be my first choice (prefer a whole grain like quinoa or brown rice), but that’s okay. I still felt like it was a delicious meal I’d make again!
HH readers can try Every Plate for $2.99/meal & 20% off your first two boxes by clicking here!
EveryPlate: Is It Good For You? Is It Worth It?
In making my conclusion statement, I’m thinking specifically of my friend who’ve I’ve known for 15+ years. He’s struggled with weight for a while now. As a single guy on a tight budget, he often defaults to eating out, although he does make an effort to cook when he can. I’m thinking of him when I say, yes, I would recommend EveryPlate.
I feel a cost-effective service like this would help him eat more home-cooked meals that he would want to eat. Some of the fancier, organic, healthy conscious services, make a lot of exotic, weird meals that even I, as a healthy living dietitian food blogger, don’t like sometimes. In contrast, classic dishes are comforting and guaranteed to be loved.
That being said, you’ll still need to do your due diligence to be health-conscious when you are picking your meals for the week. Although I don’t think calories are the essential part of a meal, I did go through and look at both the calorie/carb content for all the meal options. This helped me select the most balanced meal.
All the meals had adequate protein (at least 20 grams) and fat, so I just looked for the lowest carb meals from there. Or, I planned to split the meal up and add the veggies I had on hand. For example, we ate broccoli with Shepherd’s pie, which stretched that meal to four servings instead of two! In a way, this is a better/more cost-effective strategy then directly ordering from health-conscious services like Sun Basket or Green Chef.
I hope you found this review helpful! I have HomePlate, Hello Fresh, and Blue Apron up next! Let me know if there are others you’d like me to try!
HH readers can try Every Plate for $2.99/meal & 20% off your first two boxes by clicking here!
hello KELLI,
good diet plan after working out, going to try some of these.
why didn’t you mention red meat?
going to share this on my wall