Meal kits are revolutionizing the way Canadians eat dinner. Fewer trips to the grocery store and everything you need to make dinner for the whole family are delivered right to your door. Their pre-portioned, fresh ingredients and recipe cards that give you step-by-step instructions to make preparing delicious home-cooked meals fool-proof.
The most difficult part of a meal kit is choosing which one! It seems like every week there's a meal kit on the block and it's hard to cut through the noise to figure out which is best for your family.
Our Editors picked the top meal kits in Canada and compared the deliciousness, convenience, and overall experience from thousands of user reviews.
We looked at meal kits with similar prices (starting around $10 per meal) to keep it fair, so we could focus on the things that really matter, like taste, variety, and customer service. In our official comparison, there was a clear winner (tldr; it's HelloFresh), so read on to find out why they came out on top.
Family-friendliness
Most meal kits have a wide variety of options and HelloFresh is no exception with choices for everyone from families to those living alone. They have Pronto, Family, and Veggie plans so there's something for every household! Most services also allow you to pick your meals in advance, from a menu of anywhere from 5-20 meals per week, which gives you the freedom to choose meals that you'll love!
The HelloFresh Pronto plan offers a large host of new weekly options, so you can get anything from a Crispy Chicken Parmigiana with Arugula and Yellow Pepper Italian Salad one week and a Turkey Burrito Bowl with Avocado Pico de Gallo and Cilantro-Lime Rice the next.
Cooking Time
Most meal kit recipes can be cooked in about 30 minutes, but many kits now offer faster options for when time isn't on your side. Every box comes with individually packaged ingredients and step-by-step recipe instructions. With HelloFresh, cooking was simple and easy, while we found some of the other kits had super confusing recipe cards.
Customer Service
HelloFresh has been delivering fresh pre-packaged ingredients to homes since 2011, so they've nailed the process. Some of the newer kits have more negative reviews regarding difficulty cancelling the service, missed deliveries, and expired food. With HelloFresh the food arrives fresh and on time, but in the case of scheduling errors, they're quick to make it right! With other services, it seems like a constant circle of food sometimes arriving spoiled, the wrong recipe cards, or even the wrong ingredients.
The Taste
Honestly, all of the food is super delicious. Each company has a variety of more classic recipes and unique cultural flavors. We love seeing when people take pictures on social media of their dishes next to the images on the recipe card, and they look exactly the same! HelloFresh listens to their customers' feedback, and are constantly improving and building on recipes to make them even better. The food is great, but the positive comments on social media applauding the great customer service make HelloFresh our top pick.
For us, HelloFreshis the clear winner. They have delicious recipes, consistent deliveries, fresh ingredients, plus their customer service team is just phenomenal! Some of the kits were similar, but as one of the biggest meal kits on the market, HelloFresh has perfected their shipping process so it consistently arrived on time, without a hitch. So, if you're looking to try the editor favorite, HelloFresh is the meal kit for you.