Healthiest
Winner
Best Low-Calorie
Post-surgery meal delivery is more accessible now than ever, with so many meal delivery services to choose from. No matter what type of surgery you’re recovering from, a meal delivery service can take some of the stress out of your daily routine while you heal.
For a meal delivery service to be a good fit after surgery, it should be fully prepared and offer the appropriate nutrition to promote healing and taste good. These are our top recommendations for meal delivery services that will make your post-surgery recovery time a little bit easier.
Magic Kitchen
BEST OVERALL
There seems to be no debate online that Magic Kitchen is one of the best meal delivery services for people with medical needs, including recent surgery. Their large fixed menu allows you to order as a subscription or one-time purchase with A La Carte options.
The fully prepared meals from Magic Kitchen are designed for a number of health conditions, with plans including.
- Senior meals
- Diabetic friendly
- Dairy-free
- Portion controlled
- General wellness
- Low sodium
- Low carb
- Low fat
- Renal diet
- Dialysis friendly
- Gluten-free
- Heart disease
- Vegetarian
The choice to order meals online or over the phone is an underrated perk for seniors. If you order a meal pack with preselected menu items, you’ll save big! If you don’t have specific health concerns, there are also Signature Meals available to order. These meals are still clearly labeled with nutrition information, but they may not meet all your doctor’s requirements during the post-surgery time.
If you’re expecting minimal recovery time after surgery, the 15-meal trial pack is a great choice. You’ll get 15 meals to try at a discounted price while you recover. Then, you can continue with a flexible subscription if you enjoy the meals.
Magic Kitchen meal delivery services are frequently recommended by doctors when patients need complete meals that work with their lifestyle and medical conditions. Unfortunately, some of the most popular menu items are frequently sold out due to high demand.
Pay close attention to the nutrition label on the products. Many dishes are packaged with multiple servings in one, and you’ll have to separate the appropriate serving size before you heat and eat.
Key Features
- Pricing starts at $10.99 per serving
- Discount 15-meal trial pack
- Add a la carte items to personalize your food delivery
- Plan options for a variety of health concerns
- Meals can be ordered online or over the phone
BistroMD
BEST LOW-CALORIE
BistroMD is a meal delivery service offering health-specific plans that bring fully prepared meals to your door. The doctor-designed meals have been created with your health-specific plan in mind, so there’s no guesswork at mealtime.
Most of the healthy meals served by BistroMD are 400 calories or less to naturally support weight loss through a limited calorie intake. There are plans for gluten-free, low-carb, heart health, diabetes, and menopause diets.
The BistroMD menu offers breakfast, lunch, and dinner entrees, as well as optional snacks that can be added to your meal delivery plan. Customers can choose between 5 or 7 days’ worth of food per week. As you recover from surgery, you can decrease from 7 days a week of BistroMD meals to 5 days a week to ease yourself back into the kitchen.
Many weight loss surgery patients stay on BistroMD for an extended period of time because of the convenience, food quality, and calorie-smart meals that are essential following weight loss surgery. All meals arrive frozen and are ready to eat in 5 minutes or less.
Key Features
- Doctor-designed health-specific plans
- Optional snacks can be added to your meal delivery
- More than 150 meals in total
- Starting at $10.99 per serving
Trifecta Nutrition
HEALTHIEST
Trifecta Nutrition is a meal delivery service that isn’t specifically marketed to people with health concerns, but it just so happens to be a great choice. Trifecta makes healthy eating simple with weekly meal delivery. You can choose to get meals for 5 or 7 days a week with 1 to 4 meals each day. In a situation like post-surgery, you can easily get prepared meals for every meal while you recover.
Trifecta focuses on providing customers with filling, nutritionally balanced meals that will help them achieve their goals. Their various plans offer tasty meals that won’t mess up your diet. If you’re healing from surgery, the Trifecta Clean plan will likely be the best fit to fuel your body properly to promote quick healing.
Other meal plans include paleo, vegetarian, keto, Whole30, and plant-based meals that are fully vegan. Every plan features gluten-free meals made with mostly organic, sustainably sourced ingredients.Â
The unique thing about Trifecta is that you don’t choose your weekly meals. Once you select the desired plan and a number of meals, your food delivery is the chef’s choice, so you’ll always have something new to try. On the other hand, this may not be a good fit if you’re a picky eater.
Key Features
- Meals feature organic, sustainably sourced ingredients
- Multiple plans to fit special diets, including vegetarian options
- Flexible weekly ordering
- Delicious, nutritionally balanced meals
- Most meals are low-calorie
Silver Cuisine by BistroMD
BEST FOR SENIORS
Silver Cuisine is the sister company to BistroMD. When BistroMD wanted to create meals specifically for seniors, Silver Cuisine was born! Each prepared meal is designed to be flavorful, balanced, and nutritious.
Most of the recipes are simple things that could be made with ingredients from the local grocery store, but Silver Cuisine eliminates the need for meal planning and prep.
There are around 150 menu items to choose from each week. Some reviewers even compare Silver Cuisine food to mom’s meals, and we all know nothing helps you heal faster than mom’s cooking.
The best part? There’s no subscription! You don’t have to remember to choose meals by a certain day or skip a week. Simply log in to your Silver Cuisine account when you want to place an order and wait for the meals to arrive. You can set dietary preferences for things like low-carb, dairy free, vegetarian, and diabetic-friendly.
BistroMD and Silver Cuisine were founded by a doctor with more than 20 years of experience working with bariatric patients. Those years of experience make for a menu that gives customers just what the doctor ordered every time.
You don’t have to be a senior to enjoy Silver Cuisine, but younger customers tend to prefer the traditional BistroMD menu.
Key Features
- No subscription required
- Meals designed to provide the right nutrition to seniors
- Chef-prepared meals eliminate the need for grocery shopping or cooking
- Different plans available to meet dietary preferences
- Familiar comfort food flavors
Splendid Spoon
BEST FOR A BLENDED DIET
Splendid Spoon is a 100% vegan, gluten-free, soy-free, low-sodium meal delivery service that could be the solution to your weight loss surgery needs. Bariatric patients who undergo bariatric surgery are typically on a liquid diet following surgery. That diet gradually increases as your body gets used to digesting post-surgery.
Instead of the same boring liquids in your diet, try the smoothies and soups from Splendid Spoon! Their smoothies arrive fully prepared and chilled. When you want one, all you have to do is take the lid off and start sipping. These nutrient-rich smoothies are packed with the nutrition your body needs to heal, and they taste great too!
In addition to smoothies, Splendid Spoon has cold-pressed juices that can help relieve inflammation with superfood ingredients. As your diet progresses after bariatric surgery, the Splendid Spoon soups bring flavors from around the world into one delicious prepared meal that’s gluten-free and low sodium.
There are noodle bowls, grain bowls, and other solid entrees available when you’ve been cleared to indulge in solids by your doctor. Splendid Spoon deliveries allow you to choose 7, 14, or 21 menu items per week. If you do the maximum amount of 21, you could have something from Splendid Spoon for every meal while you heal!
Key Features
- All meals are vegan, gluten-free, soy-free, and low sodium
- Choose from 7, 14, or 21 menu items per week
- Meals are packed with plant-based protein
- Great variety of smoothies, soup, and juice if you’re not on a fully solid diet after surgery
MealPro Medical Meals
MealPro Medical Meals provide meals for a variety of medical conditions ranging from kidney disease to celiac, chrons, and more. They do something that few companies offer – custom meals. Once you select your nutritional needs, you can create a custom meal that meets those needs and features foods you know you like!
The menu highlights lean proteins, vegetables, and fresh flavors with an easy online ordering process. MealPro Medical Meals are backed by science, with a team of doctors and dietitians behind every recipe. You can ask your doctor about the preferred diet during your post-surgery time, and MealPro Medical Meals is sure to have a meal plan that fits the bill.
Customers love the no-subscription design and delicious meals they can feel good about eating. Meals are vacuum sealed and shipped fresh to maximize the flavor and nutrition in every serving. Affordable pricing begins at just $10 per serving, which is much less than what you’d spend to hire a registered dietitian to create a meal plan for you.
Key Features
- Ability to create custom meals
- A la carte menu
- No subscription required
- Meal plans for specific health conditions
- Meal plans are created by a team of dietitians and doctors
Mosaic Foods
BEST PLANT-POWERED PROTEIN
Mosaic Foods is a 100% plant-based meal delivery service that’s shaking up the way we look at meal delivery. The founders wanted to create veggie-centric meals that are convenient and taste good enough that even a meat eater would be impressed. It’s safe to say they succeeded!
All the menu items from Mosaic Foods are ready in 5 minutes or less, with an average of 10 to 20 grams of plant protein per serving. Hitting protein goals is especially important post-surgery, so Mosaic Foods is a good option to explore. They have strict clean-label standards for all ingredients.
High-protein veggie bowls, family-size meals, and pizzas are some of the customer favorites from Mosaic Foods’ menu. Soups, smoothies, and oat bowls are also available. Don’t think because you’re eating plants that, you’ll be hungry either. In fact, it will be the opposite! Mosaic Foods has generous serving sizes that will leave you feeling satisfied at the end of every meal.
Mosaic Foods is very transparent about the nutrition information of its meals and how its high-quality ingredients are sourced. Their goal is to serve 200 billion meatless meals by 2035, and they’re well on their way! Every time you order a box of food from Mosaic Foods, a box of nutritious food is donated to someone in need.
Key Features
- 10 to 20 grams of protein per serving
- Excellent food variety
- Generous serving sizes
- Food is donated for every box purchased
- Family-size meals are available
Buying Guide
No Cooking or Limited Meal Prep
When you’re shopping for meal delivery services for post-surgery, you should avoid meal kits that require a lot of prep work or cooking. Meal delivery services that offer complete meals you can heat and eat are ideal. Taking the time and energy to prepare a meal yourself will use a lot of energy that could be used to further your post-surgery healing.
If a meal delivery service requires meal prep, it should be very limited and take just a couple of minutes.
Short-Term Subscriptions
Post-surgery healing is a temporary thing. If you know you’re only interested in meal delivery services during your recovery, look for a short-term subscription. Some companies don’t require a subscription at all, which is another option, but you’ll have to remember to order your meals each week if you go that route.
Other brands, like Magic Kitchen, have short-term bundles that can provide enough meals to get through your recovery time at an affordable price.
A Doctor or Nutritionist Designed
When you’re healing post-surgery, getting the right nutrition is essential. Meal delivery companies that consult a doctor or nutritionist when crafting their menu are preferred for that reason. A doctor or nutritionist will know the most accurate information about what type of diet is needed for certain medical conditions.
Any reputable company will be clear about how its menu is curated and what sets one meal plan apart from the next. If you don’t know what your dietary needs are, you should start by asking your healthcare team before ordering a meal plan.
Programs for Specific Medical Conditions
If you have a chronic medical condition that requires a special diet, find a meal delivery service with a plan designed with that condition in mind. Diabetes, menopause, dialysis, and weight loss surgery are some of the factors that can require a specific type of diet.
A company offering meals with a certain medical condition in mind is the easiest way to know you’re getting what you need and nothing that you don’t. The last thing you want to do post-surgery is to eat something that will set back your progress.
FAQs
What are post-discharge meals?
Post-discharge meals are meals you eat after being discharged following hospitalization or surgery. Your doctor typically sends recommended intake guidelines upon discharge, so the meals should match those guidelines.
What is the most nutritious meal delivery service?
There are a lot of nutritious meal delivery options. Look for whole, clean ingredients, clear ingredient labels, and chef-prepared meals.
Is meal delivery after surgery a good idea?
Yes, meal delivery after surgery takes away the stress of cooking and gives you more time to focus on healing.
What is a rotating menu with meal delivery?
When a company has a rotating menu, that means the full menu is not always available. Instead, select items are on the menu one week and different items the next.
Key Takeaways
- Convenience is key with post-surgery meals – stick to prepared meals.
- Many companies offer health-specific meal plans for chronic health conditions.
- Programs designed with doctors or registered dietitians are preferred during surgery recovery.
- Short-term or flexible subscriptions can be canceled when your post-surgery healing is complete.
- Meal delivery for post-surgery is a helpful tool that can lower stress levels while you heal.