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Seattle meal kits put an end to meal-planning mayhem
Hang up your car keys and meal-planning hat (at least for a little while). Ready for someone else to solve the perennially challenging daily question of what to make for dinner? Here are some innovative Seattle meal-kit services (and a few not-so-local options) to try. Not only is the meal planning taken care of, these kits can help you expand your family’s palate and your own library of favorite recipes.
Meal-kits are also a great way to get kids involved with cooking. Most come with step-by-step directions (with pictures) and pre-measured ingredients, allowing even young children to get involved with making dinner.
Tip: Most of these services have a deal or discount for first-time customers, and many also offer a discount for sharing with friends.
Up first: Seattle-made meal kits
Seattle Meal-Kit Delivery
Acme Farms + Kitchen
Launched in 2011 by two Bellingham-based mothers, Acme Farms + Kitchen is a fresh-ingredient and recipe delivery service that helps you shop and cook local, offering options such as a vegan box and a gluten and dairy-free box. Their kids prepped box includes three meals and snacks, with 2 servings per meal. (Some weeks it includes a special treat, too).
Sample meals/boxes: Acme provides ingredients and meal plans, but you still do the cooking. How much prep you need to do depends on the type of box. Box prices range from $65 to $149 for both the Greater Bellingham area and the Greater Seattle area. Acme offers one-time purchases, recurring weekly deliveries and the option to preorder a month’s worth of weekly deliveries.
Cool fact: Acme’s food products are all organic, and ethically, sustainably and locally sourced, meaning members know exactly who produces their food. Another plus? The food never travels far, eliminating the need for excessive, wasteful packaging.
Delivery fee: Acme offers free shipping for orders over $75.
Delivery range: Acme currently offers delivery to Whatcom County and select parts of Skagit, Snohomish and King counties in Washington state. They also deliver in Portland, Oregon, and neighboring areas, including Vancouver, Washington.
Westerly
Westerly Kitchen is a Seattle-based meal delivery service with expanded service in Tacoma and Puyallup. Customers can choose between the Plant-Based Menu and the Wellness Menu (or a mix of the two) to create a menu that fits their family’s diet preferences. Westerly Kitchen cooks and prepares meals with locally sourced fresh ingredients. The Chef’s Menu is updated weekly so you can plan the next week’s meals in advance. Meals are delivered Sundays and Wednesdays, and customers can choose which meals they would like delivered on which days. Each meal is ready to eat in two minutes, so there is no worry about prep time.
Cool fact: Every container, wrapper and sticker is completely compostable, and all of the meals are gluten- and dairy-free.
Delivery fee: Delivery is free with each order. A three-day meal plan for three dinners is $154 (for both the plant-based option and the wellness option). Note that a meal is a single serving. If you want dinner for a family of three, you will need to select three dinners.
Delivery range: Westerly delivers to most of King County as well as Tacoma and Puyallup. You can find more specific neighborhoods under the “Where do you deliver?” tab.
Shef
Shef works with talented home cooks to help them share their love of food and skills with the community. Start by entering your zip code and you’ll see incredibly diverse food options, from Southeast Asian, to African, to Korean. In each category you can browse main dishes, desserts, sides and appetizers to find your perfect meal. Food comes prepared, just heat and eat!
Delivery fee: All orders over $25 get free delivery.
Delivery range: Shef is available in many cities, including Seattle. Enter your zip code to see if they deliver to your area.
Up next: HelloFresh
HelloFresh
HelloFresh sends new recipes to your doorstep each week along with the premeasured fresh ingredients needed to create each meal, down to the spices, herbs and condiments. The recipes are designed by in-house chefs and nutritionists to be accessible to everyone, from novices to seasoned home cooks. Each recipe comes with step-by-step instructions and guiding images to help you create delicious meals.
Sample boxes and recipes: Choose from a Veggie plan (lemony spaghetti with brussels sprouts), Family Friendly plan (chicken fajita bowls) and a Quick and Easy plan (one-pan pork stir-fry tacos).
Cool fact: HelloFresh boxes come fully recyclable to keep your cooking as sustainable as it can be. They even have some quick tips to help you recycle the packaging.
Delivery fee: Shipping is $10.99 for each box without a promo code. You have to pay a weekly subscriptions fee, which can be paused or canceled easily online or from the mobile app. The family plans costs $9.99 per serving or $119.88 (for 4 people) per box.
Delivery range: HelloFresh delivers to the entire continental United States via their various delivery partners, and to select zip codes in Honolulu, Hawaii and Anchorage, Alaska.
Up next: Blue Apron
Blue Apron
The leading fresh ingredient and recipe delivery service in the United States, Blue Apron solves your dinner problem by delivering step-by-step recipes and seasonal, pre-portioned ingredients sourced directly from farms and suppliers. In other words, you still do the actual cooking and mixing, but they take most of the work out of it (and provide inventive meal ideas).
Every week, Blue Apron creates seasonal, chef-inspired recipes that are not repeated within a year. By working with a network of family farms that champion sustainable farming practices, Blue Apron gives customers access to hard-to-find seasonal produce such as fairytale eggplants, cone cabbage, Apache potatoes and zephyr squash.
Tip: Because the meal kits come with beautifully designed directions and everything is pre-portioned, the meal prep could be done by kids, with or without supervision, depending on their ages.
Sample meals/recipes: Hot Honey chicken with mashed potatoes and carrots, one-pan pork and udon with peanut sauce and bok choy, lemon-caper salmon with scallion mashed potatoes and roasted asparagus
Cool fact: Recipes are created by the Blue Apron culinary team, comprised of chefs who previously worked for some of the New York City area’s most distinguished restaurants. To ensure that the recipes will be easy to follow, employees who do not have professional culinary backgrounds also take part in the recipe-testing process.
Delivery fee: Shipping is $10.99 for each box. Blue Apron is a subscription service, although you can skip a week or cancel by giving a week’s notice. On the Signature 2-Person Plan, the average cost is $12.49 per meal, and on the 4-Person Plan, meals are $9.99 per meal.
Delivery range: Blue Apron ships to 99 percent of the continental United States, including all of Washington state.
Up next: Home Chef
Home Chef
Home Chef, the Chicago-based meal kit and food delivery company, delivers pre-portioned ingredients and recipes, so users can prepare homecooked meals in roughly 30 minutes. The hardest part might just be picking your weekly menu items from the rotating menu. The ingredients are sourced locally when possible. The menu always includes calorie-conscious, carb-conscious and vegetarian options.
There are two meal plan options: the Home Chef Plan and the Family Plan. The Home Chef Plan includes traditional meal kits you create from start to finish. The Family Plan has some of the same types of meals as the standard menu some new offerings like Taco Kits. All meals on Family Plan and menu are Family Meals and sold in increments of 4 servings.
Sample recipes: southwest-style Roasted veggie quesadilla with black beans and corn; seared trout with romesco sauce and garlic aioli roasted potatoes
Cool fact: Launched in 2013, Home Chef delivered more than 300 million meals.
Delivery fee: The minimum weekly order value, including shipping cost, is $50.95 for Home Chef Plan and $82.91 for Family Plan. Meal prices start at $9.99 per serving. Home Chef meals are also available in Kroger grocery stores.
Delivery range: Home Chef ships to 98 percent of the United States.
Up next: Green Chef
Green Chef
Specialty diets are the main focus of the USDA-certified organic company Green Chef. Meal plan choices include Keto + Paleo, Balanced Living and Plant-Powered. Recipes are designed by in-house chefs, and the step-by-step instructions mean meals are ready in roughly 30 minutes. Every ingredient is free of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), and Green Chef sources food from sustainable farmers and food manufacturers who reinvest in the environment.
Sample meals: There are lots of plans to choose from, including Mediterranean, Gut and Brain Health, Plant-based, Keto, Gluten-free and more.
Cool fact: Thanks to its meal plan options, Green Chef was the first meal kit company to receive Gluten-Free Certification through the Gluten Intolerance Group’s GFFS program.
Delivery fee: Shipping is $9.99 for each box. The 4-Person box contains two dinners for a family of four for an average of $12.99 per serving.
Delivery range: Green Chef delivers anywhere in the continental United States. They do not deliver to Alaska or Hawaii.
Up next: Gobble
Gobble
A healthy, tasty dinner ready in just 15 minutes. Really? That’s what Gobble says you can expect when you use their meal-delivery service. Each week, choose from a variety of meals (including meat, fish and vegetarian options) and the ingredients will be prepped by its team of chefs and delivered to your door.
Gobble offers more than just dinner. You’ll also find a selection of gourmet sides to add to your box, including soups, salads, breakfasts, cookies and more. Choose either the Classic or Lean & Clean plan, and then say goodbye to staring blankly into your fridge every night and hello to a little more free time.
Sample meals: Miso glazed salmon with soba noodles and snow peas; fish fajitas with whole wheat tortillas and guacamole; braised lamb shank with hearty bean stew.
Cool fact: All the dinners they offer can be prepared in just 15 minutes.
Delivery fee: There is an $8.99 shipping fee each week. Fees for meals vary based on the number of dinners per week and the number of servings. You can select a minimum order of 2 dinner kits (4 meals), but there is no maximum. Customers have been known to host full dinner parties by simply ordering more dinner kits for the week. There are no long-term commitments and you can cancel or skip a week any time.
Delivery range: The service delivers anywhere in the contiguous United States, with the exception of Montana (service is limited in Nebraska, New Mexico and Kansas).
Up next: Sunbasket
Sunbasket
Special diets are the specialty of this USDA-certified organic company Sunbasket, which delivers premeasured and mostly prepped meals to your home each week. Meal plan choices are customizable and include paleo, gluten-free, pescatarian, Mediterranean, vegetarian and diabetes-friendly options. Recipes are designed by in-house chefs, and the step-by-step instructions mean meals are ready in roughly 30 minutes. Every ingredient is free of genetically modified organisms (GMOs).
Sample boxes and recipes: Sunbasket offers nine different meal plans, including Carb-Conscious (Thai turkey lettuce cups), Mediterranean (Salmon with roasted new potatoes and charred broccoli), diabetes-friendly (Seared pork with blueberry-apricot sauce and sautéed greens) and pescatarian (Shrimp tacos diablo with cabbage slaw and queso fresco).
Cool fact: Executive chef Justine Kelly appeared on “Iron Chef” and was also corporate chef de cuisine at San Francisco’s James Beard Award–winning Slanted Door restaurant. She works closely with farmers, ranchers and fishermen, which means ingredients are fresh and sustainably sourced.
Delivery fee: There’s a $7.99 shipping fee per order (first week delivery is always free). Meals start at $9.99 per serving.
Delivery range: Sunbasket delivers to most zip codes in the United States, excluding Alaska, Hawaii, Montana, North Dakota and parts of New Mexico.
Up next: Maven Meals
Maven Meals
Maven Meals is a weekly meal delivery service. They create a menu every Monday which you can browse until the following Sunday at midnight. Unlike other meal-delivery services, Maven Meals offerings come already cooked and ready to serve. Most meals don’t come frozen, so there isn’t worry about “freezer taste.” Their focus is on seasonal dishes made with fresh ingredients marketed to busy families that deserve delicious meals.
Cool fact: Maven Meals creator Heidi Finley appeared in a Forbes article talking about her success as a female entrepreneur.
Delivery fee: There is a $4.99 delivery fee for all delivered meals. Because it is not a subscription service, you simply pay for each meal you want delivered. Meal prices range from around $3 to $11 per serving.
Delivery range: Maven Meals delivers to select zip codes in the Seattle-Metro area. You will receive your delivery on either Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday, depending on your location.
Up next: Dream Dinners
Dream Dinners
Launched in 2002 in Snohomish, Dream Dinners is a food preparation service with franchises in 22 states. There are three options for getting your meals: assemble your own meals at a local store, pick up meals that their team assembles for you or have meals delivered to your home. Enter your zip code on the website to see what options are available in your area.
Sample Meals: Favorite entrée options include pub-style chicken with mashed potatoes; and layered ravioli bake. Sides vary by location, but include bacon-ranch green beans, oven-roasted broccoli, and salt and pepper fries.
Cool fact: Time magazine called Dream Dinners “the grandmother” of the fix-and-freeze businesses. It was created by local working mothers Stephanie Allen and Tina Kuna.
Location range: In Washington state, Dream Dinners has franchises in West Seattle, Mill Creek, Kennewick and Vancouver. Pop in your zip code or address to see if there is a delivery option near you.
Up next: Yumble
Bonus: Yumble
While figuring out what’s for dinner can be a challenge, packing a school lunch for your kids is no picnic! But never fear, Yumble is here to save the day. They ship sack lunches full of your kid’s favorites straight to your door, no refrigeration necessary. Whether you need a lunch to send on a field trip, and easy snack after school or a sack lunch five days a week, Yumble has you covered.
Sample meals: You can customize your lunch sack or choose from the meat, veggie, or fruit inspired preselected choices. Customizing a lunch is easy — simply pick an entree and two sides from the fruit or veggie inspired options, and don’t forget to add a delicious snack!
Cool fact: While not required, there are membership and subscription options to keep the lunches coming.
Delivery fee: Shipping is free on all orders The costs vary depending on the lunch you select.
Delivery range: Currently, Yumble delivers within the contiguous 48 states of the United States.
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published several years ago and has been updated most recently in February 2024.
