Best Vegan Recipe Box
Winner
Best Vegan Prepared Meals
Vegan meal delivery (UK) has been soaring in popularity. As more people turn toward eating less meat and embracing a plant-based diet, vegan meal delivery services are providing a valuable service – not just in making mealtime easier but also in introducing people to new recipes, flavors, and ways to enjoy eating meat-free.
We took a close look at the best vegan meal delivery services we could find and discovered that plant-based meal delivery like Gousto, Mindful Chef, AllPlants, and more have something incredible and delicious to offer.
We looked at everything from taste and price to quality and sustainability. Here’s our ranking across several key categories, along with a few runner-ups that are too good not to share.
Gousto
BEST OVERALL VEGAN MEAL DELIVERY
We feel like we need to start this off by disclosing that Gousto isn’t a completely vegan meal delivery service. Their menu includes lots of delicious vegan food, but they do produce recipes on-site that contain meat and animal products.
If you’re ethically opposed to that, then Gousto isn’t the best option for you. However, if you’re ok with just steering clear of that portion of the recipe book, Gousto offers some delicious vegan meals.
We used the plant-based meal filter to find delicious food like one pot vegetable biryani with cultured coconut cream, pulled mushroom shawarma with chips, and a Nduja avocado & roasted peppers sandwich with potato salad.
Gousto lists right on the website everything you’ll need in terms of equipment, as well as every ingredient that you’ll find in your vegan meal boxes.
Cooking time is also listed, and you’ll be happy to know that while these dishes taste as expert chefs created them, minimal culinary skill is required.
When you subscribe, you can choose from a small or large box, depending on how many people you’re feeding. Once you choose the box size, you can then choose to have two, three, four, or five recipes. Three meals seem to be the most popular.
Key Details:
- Vegan recipe box that saves on food prep and food waste
- Filters for special dietary needs and preferences – including gluten-free and dairy-free (if you choose recipes outside of the plant-based category)
- About 15 plant-based meals to choose from each week
- Gousto is committed to sustainability
- Two box sizes to choose from – Small (feeds two adults) or Large (feeds for adults)
Mindful Chef
BEST VEGAN RECIPE BOX
Mindful Chef wins our hearts and tummies as being one of the best vegan meal delivery services for recipe boxes. We love their recipes, which are so flavorful and use only fresh ingredients, and many are high protein, too.
We would have loved to have named Mindful Ches as the best overall, but a couple of details held us back. First, while we think they have the best vegan meal kits, they don’t offer very many of them. There are only a handful of vegan options on the menu each week, and we would love it if they’d add a few more meals to the lineup.
The vegan food you have delivered to your door is one that most vegans will enjoy. A few examples include cajun spiced tofu salad and hoisin tofu skewers.
Even though the selections are few, the quality fresh ingredients stand out, and we don’t mind repeating a few dishes each week because they are so enjoyable.
Key Details
- One of the best vegan recipe boxes in our book
- Quality high protein for a vegan diet
- Vegan recipes that require minimum cooking skills
- Great flavors
AllPlants
BEST VEGAN PREPARED MEALS
In our lineup of the best vegan food delivery services, we take a turn away from vegan recipe boxes to focus on vegan-ready meals instead. We choose AllPlants as the winner in this category, and their menu absolutely makes our mouths water.
First of all, their menu of vegan-ready meals is huge. We counted more than 50 pre-prepared meals. The only downside to this is that it’s hard to choose. If you’ve had enough of the typical vegan menus that don’t extend far beyond the standard green Thai green curry, lentil soup, and brown rice, you’re going to be really pleased with this selection.
We also really like that AllPlants offers unique filters for choosing your meals. You can choose between oven meals or vegan microwave meals, and you can filter meals based on spiciness, cuisine, nutritional content, and more.
AllPlants meals are frozen at their peak of freshness, so you get the ultimate flavor and nutritional quality.
Key Details
- Choose a one-time order or a flexible subscription
- Great options for a work or school meal as long as there’s a microwave available
- All the goodness of delicious vegan meals without mess and cooking
- AllPlants offers frozen vegan meals delivered to your door
Green Chef
BEST VEGAN MEAL DELIVERY FOR FAMILIES
Green Chef is our top choice if you’re looking for a vegan meal plan that the entire family will enjoy. We know firsthand that finding something everyone around the table will eat with zero complaints is a challenge, especially if you have a young child living with you.
Green Chef consistently offers flavors that are well-liked, and it’s all really good food. Plus, the recipes are easy enough that the kids can get in on preparing the vegan meals with you.
Green Chef isn’t a 100% vegan meal delivery service, but they do offer a great selection of weekly vegan options. The Fish-Less Pie with Butterbeans is a popular recipe, as is the Sundried Tomato Tofu Tacos and Creamy Mushroom & Truffle Fusilli.
Key Details
- Most vegan meals offer at least 20g of plant-based protein
- Good selection of family-friendly vegan meals each week
- In addition to vegan meals, vegetarian, flexitarian, and pescatarian meal plans are available
- All the packaging is either recyclable, reusable, or compostable
- Choose a meal plan for two or four people, then choose two to five meals per week
- The more you order, the more you save
Soulful Food
BEST BUDGET-FRIENDLY VEGAN MEAL DELIVER
If you’ve looked into vegan meal delivery but have found that most companies that offer plant-based meals are priced out of your budget, Soulful Food is the answer. They offer pre-made meals for as low as 2.99, and you’re not sacrificing anything in terms of flavor or quality with the vegan ready meals.
Each ready meal can be heated and ready to land in your tummy in just a few minutes, which makes them great for on-the-go. In fact, they even offer a special variety box, especially for lunches.
A few examples o meals you can try out include West African Peanut & Chickpea Stew, Chestnut Mushroom Stroganoff, Cajun Spiced Jackfruit, and Temphe Katsu.
We also really like that they offer flexible ordering. You can fill your box up as much or as little as you want, order one time, or subscribe.
Key Details
- Most budget-friendly vegan food delivery
- Great selection of ready meals
- Variety boxes available
- Flexible subscriptions
- Free shipping with orders of 34.99 or more and with a variety of boxes
Fresh Fitness Food (London Only)
BEST FITNESS VEGAN MEAL DELIVERY
We’ve found that while many vegan meal delivery services offer healthy options, not all of them are really designed to help people reach their health and fitness goals. Fresh Fitness Food is an exception. They go beyond meal delivery to offer a complete nutritional and fitness program that includes delicious food that’s delivered to your door.
It starts by choosing a fitness goal, whether it’s to shed some weight, sculpt those muscles, or finally overcome that energy slump you’ve been suffering from the last few months. From there, a nutritionist designs a plan that’s specific for you. The plan takes into consideration your health and fitness goals, nutritional needs, and food preferences.
What happens next is that your food is prepared by chefs, with recipes that are designed by a Michelin Star-trained menu consultant. Then, they are delivered to your door, so you can gobble them up and fuel your body for success.
Key Details
- Plans include Fat Loss, Build Muscle, General Health, and Less Grains.
- Plans are designed for you as an individual considering your food preferences.
- Meals are prepared the day before delivery and are delivered daily
- Track your goals and success in the Fresh Fitness Food App
- Ongoing nutritional support is provided
Planty
It’s hard not to love Planty. They offer a great selection of plant-based meals with an awesome variety of flavors. The meals can be prepared either in the oven or microwave, and some are even chilled, so they require nothing in terms of cooking at all.
The meals from Planty are all chef-prepared, and you can choose to receive either six or twelve meals per week. A few examples of their great-tasting meals include mushroom & spinach lasagne, yaki-miso udon noodles, shakshuka with plant-based feta and green olives, and aubergine moussaka with butternut steak, black olive and cashew bechamel.
Key Details
- Great menu that includes plant-based entrees, desserts, and a few breakfast options
- Meals are fully prepared – just heat & eat
- Vegan meals don’t contain any palm oil
- Delivery is free unless you opt for Saturday delivery
- Planty is a subscription-only service, so you don’t have the option to order just once
Planthood
Planthood offers healthy meal kits that are different from what other meal delivery services offer. Instead of sending a box of portioned ingredients for you to prep and cook, Planthood sends pre-portioned ingredients that are already fully cooked. All you need to do is toss it all together and heat it up.
Planthood is conscious of food waste, so the portions are sized perfectly. They’ve been featured in many popular publications, and after seeing the menu, we completely understand why. The mushroom burria tacos look delicious, as does the fresh pasta with sweet and spicy pumpkin sauce.
Key Details
- Planthood offers a new seasonal menu each week.
- Each recipe box includes fully prepared and/or cooked ingredients for you to assemble and heat
- Meals take 10-15 minutes to prepare
- Flexible subscriptions
- 100% recyclable and compostable packaging
Vegan Meal Delivery Buying Guide
Ingredient Quality
When you’re eating a plant-based diet, the quality of ingredients is especially important. You usually don’t have heavy, fatty, overly salted sauces or heavy dressings to mask the quality of the food. You want vibrant, vegan dishes, and that means quality matters – a lot.
We found that many plant-based meal delivery options offer at least some organic ingredients, but not a single one on our list is 100% organic. Fortunately, most are transparent about the sourcing of their ingredients, so you can make choices based on your personal preferences and ethics.
Nutrition
Taking a look at the nutritional profile of the dishes offered is always a good starting point in choosing a meal delivery service that works best for you. This is especially true if you have health and fitness goals. For this reason, we really like Fresh Fitness Food’s menu because they don’t shy away from plant-based protein, and they make sure that the macros are aligned with your goal.
Variety
We’ve tried enough meal delivery services to know that seeing the same dishes on the menu over and over again gets tiring and old really fast. We love variety and support companies that offer it.
It’s also important that the variety aligns with your taste preference. AllPlants is great for variety, offering anywhere from 50 -100 dishes to choose from each week.
Recipe Boxes or Prepared Meals
Finally, consider how involved you want to be in the cooking process. Prepared meals are great when you want something simple or a meal that transports easily.
The downside is that the texture and taste can sometimes suffer during the process. Although many services say their meals can be prepared in the microwave, you might find that tossing them into the oven for a few minutes instead has a huge impact on flavor and texture.
On the flip side are recipe boxes or meal kits. These include all the preportioned ingredients you need to make a tasty meal. Having more control over the process, combined with the fact that the meal is freshly prepared, almost always guarantees a more pleasurable meal from both a taste and texture standpoint.
However, this does involve spending a little time in the kitchen and, as a result, a little mess. The recipes across the board aren’t difficult, but they are definitely more involved than heat & eat meals.
FAQs
Does HelloFresh have a vegan option?
u003ca class=u0022wpil_keyword_linku0022 href=u0022https://mealdeliverypro.com/hello-fresh-review/u0022 title=u0022Hello Freshu0022 data-wpil-keyword-link=u0022linkedu0022u003eHello Freshu003c/au003e family recipe boxes are offered with some vegan options, but Hello Fresh is not well-known for vegan meal delivery. You might find a few selections each week that works for your vegan lifestyle, just don’t expect a great variety.
Is Gousto vegan?
Gouston is not completely vegan, but they do offer a great variety of vegan boxes. The meal kits are easy to prepare, taste great, and can fit into your vegan lifestyle.
What is AllPlans UK?
AllPlants is one of the best vegan meal delivery services in the UK mainland that offers prepared, animal and meat-free meals that can easily be heated in the microwave or oven. They offer a great variety on their menu, which is only one reason why they’re so popular.
Key Takeaways
- Gousto, Mindful Chef, and AllPlants are among our top choices for Vegan meal delivery in the UK.
- Finding a completely organic vegan meal delivery service is a challenge – many companies use some organic ingredients but aren’t completely organic recipe boxes.
- Look for companies that have eco-friendly packaging, including recyclable materials – cardboard, recycled denim, and non-toxic ice packs.
- We looked at popular healthy meal delivery services like The Good Prep but found their vegan options to be lacking.
- The popular PEP Kitchen is no longer in operation.