Best Vegan
Winner
Best Fast Meal Kits
It’s easy to take having a healthy meal together with your family for granted, but to new parents, it’s a concept that quickly becomes elusive. Time and energy are both in short supply for new moms, with meal planning and cooking not on the list of priorities. We looked at many options to find the best meal delivery for new moms and their families.
Factor Meals
BEST MEAL DELIVERY SERCICE FOR NEW MOMS
Fueling your body with good nutrition after becoming a new mom is essential to sustaining energy levels and being the best mom you can be. That’s why the types of ingredients used was one of the top considerations when reviewing the potential best meal delivery services for new moms. Factor Meals was the clear winner.
This meal delivery service offers a rotating weekly menu that features vegan, calorie smart, keto, high protein, and vegan meals. The chef prepared fresh, never frozen meals are made using sustainably sourced, high-quality ingredients with a focus on whole foods. All meals are made in a gluten-free facility too!
The heat and eat meals can be complimented with additional shakes and snacks on your order. To try Factor Meals, you’ll begin by choosing how many meals you want per week. The choices are 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, and 18 meals per week. Next, select your dietary preferences and wait for your delivery to arrive. The entrees have an excellent flavor and texture that customers love.
Tovala
BEST FAST MEAL KITS
Fast and easy meals are a must for a successful postpartum meal delivery service. If meals take too long to prepare, the convenience that you’re looking for from postpartum meal delivery services suddenly isn’t as convenient as you had hoped. If you’re concerned about meals not being quick enough, Tovala is the fool-proof answer that’s ideal for new moms.
Tovala is a meal delivery service that’s paired with a wi-fi connected smart oven to bring you restaurant quality meals in less than 20 minutes with only 1 minute of prep required. Each Tovala meal has a QR code on it. Scan the code, put the meal in your Tovala oven, and get ready to enjoy a delicious, nutritious meal.
You can select the number of meals you want per week to best fit the needs of your family during the hectic newborn stage. Meals are designed and prepared by chefs using only the freshest ingredients with expedited delivery so your meal is delivered at peak freshness for the highest-quality flavor and texture.
Daily Harvest
BEST VEGAN
Quick, easy, and nutritious is what matters when it comes to sneaking in a fast meal, especially right around breakfast and lunchtime when everything seems to be happening in a flurry with a new baby. Dairy Harvest is a way to get a nutritious meal that’s also simple and tastes great.
Daily Harvest specializes not so much in complete dinners but rather smaller meals that are built completely on fruits and vegetables, delivered to your door, and ready in minutes. Daily Harvest offers a completely vegan menu of smoothies, bowls, flatbreads, soups, and nibbles.
Daily Harvest delivers quick meals with fresh, not frozen, ingredients that require at most one step to prepare. Smoothies need to be blended. Some bowls, like the oat bowls, require simple heating. Because each meal is based on fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, they’re packed with nutrition. Plus, many of them can be eaten with one hand – helpful if you have a baby in the other.
Home Chef
BEST VALUE
Home Chef is a great meal kit delivery option when you’ve got a slightly larger crew to feed at home. If there are older children in the house, or maybe you have house guests there to help take care of things around the house and help as you recover, Home Chef is a perfect meal solution.
Home Chef offers both meal kits to prepare simple, delicious meals in your kitchen with precut and measured ingredients and a selection of oven-ready meals prepared and delivered in an oven-safe container. All you do is heat and eat, enjoying a warm, comforting meal with your family.
Home Chef’s menu also includes grill-ready meals, perfect for sitting outside and getting some fresh air while you enjoy a meal, along with healthy entree salads, a culinary collection, and more. Another reason Home Chef is good for whole family meals is their diversity and range of flavors.
Home Chef offers about 15 meal options each week, some of them being 15 minute or fewer meals. Many of the meals are classic but brought to life with new flavors. Think along the line of meatloaf with spiced brown sugar glaze or a chipotle lime cheesesteak sandwich—simple, well-liked favorites with a bit of a new twist.
For whole family meals, Home Chef is also a great option because of their pricing. You get fresh ingredients, tasty recipes, and satisfying portion sizes starting at only $6,99 per meal. Some meals can be customized, and you’ll be asked about dietary preferences when signing up.
Pete’s Real Food
BEST PALEO AND VEGAN OPTIONS
Paleo is a popular dietary lifestyle, but Paleo “rules” can make it difficult to easily plan and prepare meals when you’re at home with a new baby. When looking at the different Paleo options for meal delivery, Pete’s Real Food comes out on top for their fresh, delicious prepared Paleo meals.
Pete’s Real Food menu changes seasonally to provide the freshest, best tasting, prepared meals. With about 10 options on the menu each week, each meal is packed with a perfectly portioned 5 ounces of protein and 7 ounces of Paleo-approved veggies.
The Pete’s Real Food site helps you view each seasonal menu, and it gives you a breakdown of the macro count of each dish. If you’re trying to juggle Paleo meal planning with a newborn, Pete’s Real Food is a lifesaver.
Pete’s Real Food costs a little more than most other meal delivery services. Prices range from about $14-$16 per meal. For that, you’re getting perfectly portioned Paleo meals that are fresh and ready to heat & eat. Pete’s Real Food uses organic ingredients, along with hormone-free and grass-fed proteins whenever possible. A vegetarian and keto menu are also available.
Baby Food Delivery
Eventually, that new baby of yours is going to be ready to explore the world of solid foods. There’s an undercurrent of debate between those who make their own baby food and those who choose premade baby food options. Regardless of the side you’re on, the truth is that fed is best, but you still want to make sure you’re filling that little tummy with only the highest-quality foods.
Two services, Cerebrlly and Little Spoon, stand out for offering prepared baby food delivery that will completely simplify your life while allowing you to rest easy, knowing your baby is getting top of the line nutrition and ingredients from the first day real meals start to become part of your child’s daily routine.
Little Spoon
Little Spoon offers everything from fresh, organic meals for your baby to vitamins and child-friendly natural remedies. Their baby foods are made in small batches, with no heat processing, preservatives, or additives. Plus, they have a menu of more than 100 rotating flavors.
Little Spoon’s baby food menu can be filtered out by texture, making it easy to find meals for your baby’s stage of development. They use interesting flavor combinations with seasonal ingredients to expose your baby to new, healthy foods in a way they’ll enjoy.
They almost always have a few special seasonal blends to try, like the Gingerbread “Cookie” made with pumpkin, squash, sweet potato, pear, and spices. Introducing these flavors now can help prevent picky eaters in the future.
Babyblends start at a low cost of $2.74 per meal. Once your little one advances beyond the blends, you can order from Little Spoon’s selection of meals for toddlers. Each nutritionally balanced meal cost less than $5.
What’s Important To New Moms
When coming up with this list of the best meals for new moms delivered, we considered all the details that really matter to new parents. If you’re thinking of simplifying your life with a meal delivery service or giving a gift to the new parents you know, these are the things to consider.
Prepared Meal Delivery
Meal delivery comes with two options – meal kits with ingredients that are prepared and cooked in your home or completely prepared meals that are heat & eat. Freshly is an example of prepared meal delivery, while other services like Sunbasket offer both.
Many new parents prefer prepared meal delivery. The less time they spend in the kitchen cooking, the more time they can spend with the baby – or even sneaking in the elusive shower or nap. Prepared meals are an excellent choice for new moms because they involve less standing on their feet, helping them recover from childbirth or C-section delivery.
Nutritious Meals
The sleep deprivation, new demands, and healing involved in the post-partum period put incredible stress on a mother’s body. We all require nutrition but a new mother really needs it. It’s simply too easy to reach for whatever is fast and convenient, and those options aren’t always the healthiest.
The meal services on this list all do a good job of providing balanced nutrition, even for new moms who are following a special diet. Pete’s Real Food will help her stick to her Paleo eating plan while Daily Harvest will ensure she has a quick, nutritious, fruit and veggie-packed breakfast or lunch.
New mothers are told to rest and take it easy but for many women, worrying about when and how the pregnancy weight will fall off is something that’s on their mind right after the baby is born. These meal delivery services can help her achieve her health-centered goals, all while making sure nutrition never takes a back seat.
No Meal Planning
There are all sorts of planning that goes on before a baby is born. Sometimes elaborate meal plans and meal prep take place, but it’s another story once the baby is here. No new parent has the time or energy to meal plan, and this can cut into the nutritional quality of their food and their grocery budget.
With a meal delivery service, most of the planning is done for you. You choose the meals you want, and the company takes care of the rest. Most meal delivery services provide several options for how many meals you want to be delivered each week.
No Grocery Shopping
The last place a new parent wants to spend any time is the grocery store, especially if they have to bring the baby with them. This past year has brought additional concerns of Covid exposure, and overall, it’s just a good idea to limit grocery shopping as much as possible.
Meal kits are delivered right to your door with no contact, no risk of exposure, and no need to change out of your comfy clothes to go to the store.
Bottom Line
What’s the best meal delivery service for new moms? Well, Factor Meals is the overall winner here, but each company on this list provides a great service to new parents. Personal preferences and lifestyle factor into which one is best for you. The next time the baby is asleep, take a few minutes and look over the menus. It’s a guarantee you’ll find one that appeals to you.
If there’s a new mom in your life that you need a great gift for, consider purchasing a postpartum meal delivery service. A change like not having to cook every day can make all the difference in the world for new parents!