If you’re dying to try some of the best meal kit services in 2021, you can, and you don’t have to cough up very much dough to do it. Meal kit companies are always baiting potential subscribers with laughably low sign-up offers, some as cheap as $2 per serving. New-customer deals are nothing new, but with so many fledgling meal kit operations hopping into the category and vying for your attention (and email address), you can try them all at major discounts — just as long as you remember to cancel after you do, or you’ll keep getting boxes at full price.
Companies such as EveryPlate, Blue Apron, HelloFresh, Sunbasket and Home Chef are poised and ready to send perfectly portioned, ready-to-cook dinners to your doorstep, at per-serving prices that often beat what you’d pay dining out or getting takeout. Whether you’re looking for ways to eat healthily, learn to cook new recipes or just make fewer trips to the grocery store this winter, a healthy, versatile and budget-friendly meal kit can help with all of that.
Pro tip: Because all these meal kit companies let you cancel for free after the trial, you can try them all at hugely discounted sign-up offer prices and see which one you like the best.
Read more: The healthiest meal kits and meal delivery to try in 2021: Sun Basket, Home Chef, Freshly and more
A few meal kit companies in particular have click-worthy deals that are live now, including a sign-up deal from EveryPlate that’s as low as any meal kit is bound to go. Daily Harvest, a healthy prepared meal delivery service (not a traditional meal kit), is also offering a sweet sign-up offer that I discovered can be combined with a second discount code for a total of $50 off the first few boxes.
So which meal kit is best? I’ve tried most of them and they’re all pretty solid, with differences to consider depending on your budget, diet, taste and kitchen skill level. You can check out CNET’s roundup of the best meal-kit delivery services and best healthy food delivery services for a more detailed, er, taste. It’s worth noting that most meal kit companies also let you pause or cancel anytime, so the risk and commitment when signing up for a meal kit service is minimal.
These offers were valid at the time of publication, but they can end at any time and may be restricted by geography and other cookie-based conditions in your browser. If you don’t see a deal populate, try in a new window or private browser. In the meantime, if you’ve already tried one or more of these, tell me which ones and what you liked or didn’t like.
HelloFresh
HelloFresh has more total meal kit selections than any other service and most of them are pretty easy to prepare. You can check out my recent deep-dive review of HelloFresh to learn more about the easy meal delivery service.
HelloFresh is offering an enticing sign-up deal that amounts to $58 in total savings over the course of your first four deliveries. This offer will bring meal kits to $4.57 per serving, plus free shipping on the first box. One catch in securing the sign-up deal is you have to provide a phone number, which it admits will be used for marketing purposes, but you’d have to provide that either way if you planned to sign up for HelloFresh. You can pause or cancel your subscription anytime after the four weeks.
If you’re a health care worker, you’re probably both tired and hungry with no time to cook. HelloFresh is giving qualified health care workers 15% off any meal kit deliveries for the next year and 50% off the first box too.
Daily Harvest
Daily Harvest is quite possibly the easiest way to eat healthily without ever having to learn to cook. Sign up and you’ll get steady (or onetime) shipments of vegan soups, smoothies, bowls, flatbreads and snacks. Daily Harvest meals are chock-full of healthy, organic ingredients and trendy superfoods like kabocha squash, kale, berries and avocado. All you have to do is blend or heat and eat.
I had to do a little digging and live testing to make sure this worked, but right now you can combine the brand’s standard first-time order discount ($20 off a box of 24 items and $10 off a box of 14 items) with another promo code TAKE30, which nets another $10 off your first three boxes. That’s a grand total savings of $50 on your first three boxes of 24 items or $40 off three boxes of 14 Daily Harvest meals.
EveryPlate
EveryPlate is one of the best meal kit services for families sticking to a budget. You won’t see a lot of haute cuisine, but I’ve tried its pork sloppy joes and its chicken and linguine in a tomato cream sauce. All the meals I tried were delicious, easy to prepare and light on the wallet.
You can score EveryPlate meal kits that break down to just $1.99 per serving and $18 off your first box. (Note that some of us here at CNET don’t see this offer anymore, so it may be location-based.) Once you click this exclusive link you’ll have 30 minutes to claim the offer, so you might want to think it over first or check out a sample menu here before the clock starts ticking.
Home Chef
I tested Home Chef recently and loved the highly customizable meal kits and comfort-food recipes with a healthy bent, all of which were easy to prepare. Home Chef is also one of the more affordable meal kit companies — starting at $7 per serving — and is even more so if you sign up using this offer.
For new subscribers, Home Chef is offering $80 off when you sign up for four weeks of meals. The savings are spread out over four weeks’ worth of meals, but if you’ve been wanting to try a meal kit subscription, this is a fantastic time to give Home Chef a shot. You can pause or cancel anytime, so the risk is low.
Brandy Yowell
Gobble is quite similar to the other services, except that many items come already chopped, peeled, marinated and so on — which can definitely save you some prep time. The two meals I received, Yankee pot roast and cacio e pepe, were terrific. Dinner prices are normally a flat $12 per serving, however, so you do pay a bit extra for that convenience.
Right now when you sign up for the two-person plan with three meals per week, you’ll get your first six meals for just $36 plus free shipping.
Sun Basket
Sunbasket is the best meal kit service I’ve tried and I’ve tried them all. It’s a little pricier than some of the other services, with meals ranging from $11-$13 per serving, but in return you’ll be getting a lot of organic, non-GMO ingredients and thoughtful recipes, all of which I loved.
This $35 sign-up discount definitely makes trying Sunbakset more affordable, and it nets you your choice of four free gifts in the form of items from the extensive Sunbasket market. Use the link below, then click Activate Offer to score the discount and freebies.
Shelby Brown/CNET
Blue Apron offers two- and four-serving boxes with two to three or two to four recipes per week, respectively. Prices range from $7.49 to $10 a serving, depending on how much you order, with shipping included free with all orders except the two-person, two-recipe option.
There’s no promo code for this offer; just click the “redeem offer” button when it pops up and you’ll save $20 per box over the course of your first five Blue Apron boxes.
My advice: Take advantage of each and every one of these offers (making sure to pause or cancel after, unless you want to continue). You can see which service you like best and get supercheap takeout-style meals for weeks at a time.
Your thoughts?
More food service recommendations
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