Most Variety
Winner
Budget Friendly
Low-carb meal delivery can help you streamline mealtime while living your best low-carb life. No more meal planning or grocery shopping, plus you get to save all that time on the prep work! Meal kit services allow you to still spend some enjoyable time preparing a home-cooked meal, but without all the extra hassle and time. If you’re following the keto or another high-protein diet, several meal services offer a great low-carb meal plan to suit your needs.
We took on the task of finding the four best meal delivery companies that offer reduced-carb options in the form of meal kits. Here are our picks for the best.
Green Chef
WINNER
Green Chef is a meal delivery service specializing in nutritious meals for healthy lifestyles. Green Chef focuses on using quality ingredients that are locally sourced and sustainable, and they opt for organic whenever possible. Did we mention that they also have one of the best low-carb meal kit plans we’ve seen?
Aside from ingredient quality, some of the other reasons that Green Chef wins our top spot for reduced-carb meal delivery are the variety they offer, their customer service, and their affordability.
Low-carb options from Green Chef fall within their category of keto meals, along with a few from their paleo selections. The menu rotates weekly, and each meal is easily identified as being low carb with a Keto tag.
Some samples from Green Chef include Italian Shrimp with Pesto, BBQ Pork Patties with Jicama Slaw, Southwest Breakfast Beef Patties with Fried Eggs, and Ranch Steak with Truffle Sauce.
With Green Chef, you can choose from any recipes on their weekly menu. However, if you want only meals that are designed for a low-carb diet, you can expect about eight to ten meal options each week.
With Green Chef, you can choose to have lower-carb meals delivered for two, four, or six people. You then decide if you’d like three or four meals per week. The price varies slightly depending on the size of your plan.Â
The difference between the smallest plan of six meals and the largest plan of twenty-four meals is about $1.50 per serving.
Key Benefits
- Affordable for the quality and portion sizes
- Great taste and decent variety with a rotating menu
- Meals are quick to prepare, with most taking thirty minutes or less
- Most low-carb meals have about twenty grams of carbs or less
- Nutritionally balanced
Marley Spoon Low Carb Meals
BUDGET FRIENDLY WINNER
Marley Spoon, which is partnered with Martha Stewart, is one of the most popular meal delivery services for the taste, variety, and quality of the pre-portioned ingredients that are packed into each meal kit. Like the other services on our list, Marley Spoon doesn’t offer specific low-carb meal plans, but they have a great, budget-friendly selection of low-carb dinners.
When ordering from Marley Spoon’s menu, you want to look for menu options designated as low carb since Marley Spoon doesn’t have a specific low carb meal plan. Instead, you get to choose whichever meals you want from their menu of more than twenty meal kits.
Not all of these will be aligned with your low-carb diet, but the range of meal kit options makes Marley Spoon a great choice for people who are carb cycling.
Some examples from the Marley Spoon menu that are appropriate for the ketogenic diet include Crispy Parmesan Chicken, Grilled Steak and Romaine Salad, Sweet & Spicy Stir-Fry Beef, and Butter Braised Beef.
In addition to kits with pre-measured ingredients, Marley Spoon also offers some add-ons, including high-protein packages of beef, chicken, and seafood.
Pricing of the meal plans will vary slightly depending on how many meals you choose to have delivered each week. Your meal plan purchase can include servings for two or four people, and then you choose how many meals you want per week. Two and three meals per week are popular, but you can choose up to six meals per week with the largest meal plan.
Pricing for the smallest meal plan is $12.99 per portion, while the price with the largest meal plan drops to a very affordable $8.69 per portion.
Key Benefits
- Affordable meal delivery for your low-carb diet
- Each kit comes with colorful recipe cards
- Each low-carb dish can be prepared in six steps or less
- Add on proteins available for meal up-grades
- Martha Stewart does the meal prepping and planning for you!
Home Chef Carb Conscious Meal Delivery Service
Rounding out our top four choices for the best low-carb meal delivery is Home Chef. Home Chef is one of the most popular and widely enjoyed players in the world of low carb meal delivery service. They’re known for their easy-to-prepare, delicious, and healthy meals. Home Chef offers a carb-conscious meal plan specifically designed to support your low-carb lifestyle.
Home Chef’s low-carb menu features eight to ten menu options weekly. The menu includes kits with pre-measured ingredients and recipe cards to create your own restaurant-style meals in the comfort of your kitchen, but they also have a few options for oven-ready meals, which are great when you’re extra short on time.
A few examples of meals that you’ll create with pre-portioned low-carb foods from Home Chef include Tex Mex Style Pork Stuffed Peppers, Marsala Mushroom Smothered Pork Chop with Green Beans, and Onion Crusted Chicken.
Home Chef low-carb options don’t have the lowest amount of net carbs that we’ve seen. Some of the meals reach into the range of 30g+ net carbs per meal. For those just wanting a low-carb dish so they can keep their carbs in check, Home Chef is a great low-carb meal delivery service.
If you’re strictly following the keto diet and want to maintain a level of carbohydrate intake that puts or keeps you in ketosis, some of the meals might be a little high in carbs for that.
Key Benefits
- Low-carb meals that are suitable for picky eaters
- Great for carb cycling and keto maintenance
- Meals feature nutritious produces, quality protein, and healthy fats
- Ability to limit some ingredients from meal deliveries
Sunbasket Paleo Meals
MOST VARIETY WINNER
Sun Basket is a meal delivery service that’s perfect for low-carb diets. Each Sun Basket is packed with nutrition, USDA-certified organic produce, and incredible taste. Even with all of that, one of the best features of Sun Basket is its great variety of recipes to choose from.
Sun Basket offers breakfast, lunch, and dinner options. Sun Basket caters to a good range of dietary preferences. Those living their best low-carb life will want to look for Sun Basket’s paleo meals, which also happen to be gluten-free and dairy-free, although the kits are prepared in a facility that also handles gluten and dairy allergens.
Sun Basket offers great diversity with the flavors on its menu. There are typically six to eight lower-carb dishes on the menu each week, but the variety is incredible. On any given week, you might find low-carb menu items such as Seared Steak with Roasted Red Pepper & Cauliflower, Chicken Breasts with Olive Leek Sauce, Middle Eastern Chicken with Spinach Salad, and Creole Gumbo with Cauliflower Rice.
They also offer add-on protein packs to create your own low-carb dishes or add some extra lean proteins to your Sun Basket meal. Sea scallops, shrimp, sole, salmon, chicken, and various grass-fed beef and pork cuts are available as a la carte protein selections. They also offer some plant-based options for those wanting to avoid animal protein.
Keep in mind That Sun Basket these meals are designed for paleo diets and not necessarily a low-carb diet, although these two dietary lifestyles often go hand in hand. If you need to keep your carbs at 20 grams or less per meal, it’s smart to check the nutritional information for the total net carbs before ordering.
Key Benefits
- Carb-smart meals start at $9.99 per serving
- Great variety of unique but well-liked flavors
- High-quality, fresh ingredients
- High-protein add-ons are available
- Most recipes take 30-40 minutes
- No artificial ingredients
Buying Guide
Low-carb meal delivery services can be game changers, especially if you’re coming up short with the time and motivation to devote to low-carb meal planning, recipe hunting, grocery shopping, and meal prep. Low-carb meal delivery also has other advantages, such as cutting down on food waste and the ability to access fresh, seasonal produce that might not be available locally.
Still, with several really good low-carb meal delivery services to choose from, there are some details to consider that are more important than others.
Carbs Under 20g
If you’re following a low-carb lifestyle, you want to ensure that your meal delivery service is aligned with your goals, whether for weight loss, body sculpting, gaining energy, or addressing another type of health issue. With keto and low carb diets, the amount of carbs consumed daily is very important.
For those who are strictly following keto and want a low-carb meal delivery service that will help them keep their net carbohydrates low, look for meal plans that feature meal options with 20g-25g of carbs or less. This is the level that most people need to either enter or sustain ketosis. GreenChef offers great meal choices that fit within this range.
Others are still considered low ln carbs but might not be the best for maintaining ketosis. Low-carb plans that top more than 30g of net carbs per serving is best for people who just want to limit carbs without any specific ketosis goal. It’s also always a plus if a meal delivery service offers dietician-approved meals that are aligned with keto ideals.
Easy to Make Low Carb Meals
Convenience is another huge factor. While you might actually enjoy spending time in the kitchen, chances are you don’t want anything that’s too complicated when you’re searching for the best low-carb meal delivery service.
All kits come with pre-portioned ingredients, and most come with bright, colorful recipe cards that detail every step. You can also usually find recipe instructions online.
Marley Spoon’s meals can all be prepared in six steps or less, although there might be some range in how long they take to prepare. Sun Basket and Home Chef both offer options for ready-to-eat meals in addition to their meal kit menu.
Meal Variety and Selection
Finally, it doesn’t matter how good a low-carb meal delivery service is if they fall short in the variety department. Boredom is the most common cause of throwing in the towel in practically every well-intentioned dietary change. We love Sunbasket for its variety, but each low-carb meal plan on our list offers a good variety of meal options.
Key Takeaways
Our money and taste buds say that Green Chef is the best low-carb meal service, but Sun Basket, Marley Spoon, and Home Chef all rank high on our list. If you’re focused on your health and keeping carbs low, we recommend all four of these great options. Who says low carb equals boring and repetitive? These four services prove that it’s anything but.