The best food subscription boxes for every home

Overview

This content originally appeared on Mashable for a US audience and has been adapted for the UK audience.

Food is magical stuff. If it tastes good, we just can’t get enough. And we know we’re not alone in feeling this way. We all know that eating is one of life’s true great pleasures.

In an ideal world, those who live to eat would have a bountiful selection of exciting ingredients and all the time in the world to cook up a storm. But many wannabe chefs aren’t able to source tasty ingredients, and don’t have the time or natural knowhow to create something impressive. It’s far too easy to chuck something in the microwave.

Don’t despair if you’re stuck in a culinary rut, because we have a solution. Food subscription boxes are here to save the day by injecting some much-needed pizzaz and inspiration into your midweek and weekend meals.

How do food subscription boxes work?Food subscription services are regular deliveries of food, glorious food. You can select your favourite recipes or snacks, and everything is delivered to your door. It’s that easy.

Most of the best services offer flexible subscriptions, so you’re in total control of the amount of food, the frequency of deliveries, the time of day your receive your delivery, and the food that’s included. The menu from which you select your ingredients should change regularly so you have plenty of new and exciting options, and there should be something on offer for every palate.

There are generally three types of food subscription services: snacks, ingredients, and meal kits. The first two options provide you with the raw ingredients to snack or create your own meals. The last option is a little different in that you get specific quantities of ingredients and recipe cards for making meals from scratch.

What are the benefits of food subscription boxes?There are a lot of advantages to subscribing to a food box service, but there are two key benefits that everyone should experience: variety and convenience.

Food subscription boxes provide some much needed variety to your daily dinners. It can be really difficult keeping things fresh, so these services help you out by providing new ingredients, recipe ideas, and interesting combinations. If you feel totally flat about what you’re making for yourself or your family, these subscription services can break you out of your tasteless funk.

The other reason that these subscription services are so popular is that a lot of people simply don’t have the time to source ingredients and create a recipe. These services take the pressure off your shoulders, and do all of that work for you. This lets you relax and actually enjoy the process of cooking and eating your creations.

What is the best food subscription box?There are plenty of food-themed subscription boxes out there that can help you out on a daily basis. Some are useful for planning your meals, while others are great for trying something new. There really is something for everyone out there, with popular options from top brands like Mindful Chef, Graze, SimplyCook, and more.

The process of picking a food subscription box is not that easy, especially with so many strong options on your plate. We have tried to make things slightly easier for you by researching everything on offer, and highlighting a short selection of your best options. Take your pick from this tasty bunch.

These are the best food subscription boxes in 2024.

Mindful Chef provides healthy and delicious recipe boxes and offers something that offers do not — one-person boxes.

With Mindful Chef you’ll be sure to eat loads of nutritious vegetables and natural food. The recipes are designed to encourage you to eat food that benefits you and your body — not to mention be good to the environment. Recipes take under 30 minutes and aim to use as few pots and pans as possible. So things are easy to follow even for real beginners. 

The menu is updated every week with 40 recipes to choose and every meal is 450-650 calories. You’ll be eating lean, dairy-free, gluten-free, and organic food that can help you to lose weight without feeling like you are on a diet.

As an added bonus, for every meal that Mindful Chef sells, they donate a school meal to a child living in poverty. Mindful Chef is the only recipe box to operate this one for one charity model. Mindful Chef customers have donated 18.6 million meals to date.

You can choose from healthy, vegan, and family box options.

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Take your pick from Abel & Cole’s seasonal weekly menu where there’s something for everyone.

It’s primarily a veg box service, delivering fresh veg – or meat, fish, and cooking essentials depending on your tastes – but there’s also a meal kit option. Just choose tour meals and Abel & Cole with deliver directly to your door. You can make any changes up to midnight two days before your delivery. You can select more or fewer recipes, the choice is yours. Simple and delicious.

With 12 inspirational recipes to pick from every week, and top-notch organic veg, meat, and spices, you’ll have access to the best organic ingredients with easy-to-follow recipes and less waste.

So if you want a sustainable, organic, and tasty option, Abel & Cole should be top of your wish-list.

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Allplants makes it quick and easy to eat 100 percent plant-based meals as part of your busy day-to-day routine. 

Allplants delivers totally plant-based dishes — all prepared by expert chefs — straight to your door. Meals are ready to eat in minutes from frozen, and all the packaging used is 100 percent recyclable, partly compostable, and mostly reusable. 

When you hear frozen, it’s easy to think that the food isn’t as nutritious, but Allplants disagree. The company state that freezing the food “locks in your nutrition for longer” and makes each dish available on your schedule.

The cost for a one off order from £44.96 for six single portions, with lots of bundles to choose from — Veganuary, Meat Lovers (with meat substitutes), Plant Hero, and Cheesetarian.

Bundles come with main meals, sides, and desserts. 

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With HelloFresh, you can tailor your deliveries and meals based on how many people you’re cooking for and the amount of recipes you want to receive on any given week. 

You can choose from various plans and meal types – Rapid for busy weeks, Family Friendly for easy-to-cook crowd pleasers, Global Flavours and Veggie for specialist tastes, Premium and more.

Pricing is broken down per meal, with options for one to six-plus people – just enter your preferred plan and you’ll get very affordable options. You can get 60% off your first box, then 25% off for two months plus three free gifts with the code HELLO60AFF.

You’ll be able to choose from 37 new recipes each week, and the pre-measured ingredients always take less than an hour to prepare — between 20 and 50 minutes. Choose recipes that fit into your diet, or opt for new flavours you’ve never tried.  

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SimplyCook offers you the chance to cook with authentic flavour ingredients that are hand-picked and blended by expert chefs. Each recipe comes with an accompanying cartridge of spice and stock pots but you will need to buy the other ingredients.

You can expand your repertoire with over 50 chef-inspired recipe kits that guide you to create dishes from all over the world in just 15-20 minutes. The SimplyCook chefs create unique flavour blends that contain as many as 18 different ingredients. The carefully measured kits can include culinary pastes, infused oils, garnishes, rubs, specialist stocks, and herb/spice blends that you won’t find in the supermarkets

Boxes come with four recipe kits, each designed for 2-4 people — which depends on portion size. This allows for customers to choose whether they cook for one and save the rest for later or add a few more fresh ingredients to feed the whole family.

SimplyCook boxes are just £9.99 each, meaning meals cost around £3 or £6 for both the kit and fresh ingredients.

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With Riverford recipe boxes you have a lot of options, with the choice between simple, light, foodie, vegan, vegetarian, meat, and prime cut packages. The only thing that isn’t flexible about your recipe boxes is being 100% organic.

Riverford organic recipe boxes provide all the ingredients you need to cook inspiring seasonal meals for two people from scratch. Riverford cooks create inspiring seasonal recipes with simple step-by-step instructions. They then deliver exact quantities of every ingredient free, and you don’t need to be home when it’s delivered.

Each recipe is easy to follow and takes around 30 minutes to cook. Options change weekly so you’ll definitely find something you love. Riverford is ideal for those who’d like to try out their first recipe box because each box is available as a one-off purchase.

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Graze is for all you snackers out there — you know who you are (all of us, basically). Graze lets you customise a own snack profile based on your snacking habits or health preferences. 

Twice weekly, weekly, or fortnightly, you’ll receive a curated box of different treats and goodies based on your profile. It’s a great way to try new snacks and stock up on some faves.

The great thing about Graze is that nutrition and great taste are combined — it’s all about health-conscious snacking. You also subscribe or shop, allowing you to stock up on your faves.

Some of their flavour combos are seriously cool. Expect to get things like bagel sesame sticks, black pepper popcorn, and even salted fudge and peanut cookies. Subscriptions begin at £4.49 per box.

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Carlos is a New York-based ecommerce content writer ready to tell you what to buy. He has previously written for Adventure Publishing Group with toy and movie reviews as well as Anime News Network on anime interest articles because liking anime is the least nerdy thing about him. When not reviewing products, he’s probably doing sociological analyses on pop culture that no one asked for. He has been told on several occasions that he does a really good Mickey Mouse impression.

Joseph joined Mashable as the UK Shopping Editor in 2018. He worked for a number of print publications before making the switch to the glittery world of digital media, and now writes about everything from coffee machines to VPNs.

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