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With menus balancing nutrition, portion size, and flavor, these 9 services take the guesswork out of weight loss meal planning.

One of the challenges to losing weight can be the amount of meal planning required to support your goals. Consuming more vegetables, whole grains, and lean proteins sounds easy enough — until you need to think up flavorful, interesting meals again and again and again.

Enter meal delivery services. In addition to convenience, meal delivery for weight loss can add variety to your meal times while taking the guesswork out of eating a balanced diet and managing portion sizes.

Are these services expensive? Some, but not all. Do they taste good? Actually, some meal delivery for weight loss tastes quite good, including the services that made our list.

Read on to learn more.

Disclaimer: Many of the services tested below were tried by Healthline writers or editors, who received the meals for free. All opinions are our own. Read more about how we test meal kits.

In addition to the nine services that made our list of favorites, we also considered and tried Green Chef, Blue Apron, Daily Harvest, Diet-to-Go, and Epicured.


Type of mealsPrice per servingShippingDiet friendliness
BistroMD
prepared$10.99+$19.95• gluten-free
• heart-healthy
• diabetes-friendly
• vegan
CookUnity
prepared$11.09+$9.99• keto
• paleo
• low carb
• low calorie
• gluten-free
• dairy-free
• low sodium
• vegetarian
• vegan
• Mediterranean
Factor
prepared$10.99+$10.99• vegetarian
• gluten-free
• keto
• low carb
• paleo
• dairy-free
Mosaic Foods
prepared$5.99+• free with 12 or 18 items
• $9.99–$19.99 otherwise
• vegan
• vegetarian
• wheat-free
• nut-free
• high protein
Purple Carrot
• meal kit
• prepared
• Meal kits: $11+
• Prepared: $13+
• free for orders $99+
• $10 otherwise
vegan
Splendid Spoon
prepared$9.99+• free with 14 or 21 meals
• $12.99 otherwise
• vegan
• vegetarian
• gluten-free
• dairy-free
• higher protein
• higher fiber
• low calorie
• low carb
• low fat
• low sodium
• low sugar
Sunbasket
• meal kit
• prepared
• Meal kits: $11.49+
• Prepared: $9.99
$9.99• gluten-free
• vegetarian
• pescatarian
• paleo
• keto
• low carb
• Mediterranean
• diabetes-friendly
Territory Foods
prepared$11.95+$9.99–$17.99 • paleo
• keto
• plant-based
• <500 calories
• Performance Nutrition
• Whole30
• low carb
• Mediterranean
Trifecta Nutrition
prepared$13.79+$9.99• paleo
• keto
• Whole30
• vegan
• vegetarian

Why you can trust us

Our experts have carefully researched and vetted over 11,000 products to make sure everything we feature meets our standards. We fact-check health claims, evaluate ingredients, and look into each brand’s reputation before sharing products on Healthline.

In addition, to select the nine services on this page, we have:

  • evaluated 70+ meal delivery services
  • evaluated products from 65+ different meal delivery brands
  • tested 31+ meal delivery services ourselves
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At Healthline, we know that meal delivery services are a significant investment, which is why we’ve taken the time to test more than 30 of the most popular meal delivery services on the market.

Testers select a week’s worth of meals from multiple menus to get a well-rounded view of the types of flavors and ingredients offered.

During testing, we consider several factors, including the ease of signing up and choosing meals, the variety and nutritional composition of the meals offered, ingredient quality and freshness, ease of cooking, and, of course, the taste.

You can learn more about our testing process.

  • Price: Make sure to choose the meal delivery service that best fits your weekly or monthly food or grocery budget. Don’t forget to consider shipping costs and whether you’ll have to shop for additional meals or foods.
  • High quality ingredients: Look for services that prioritize fresh ingredients and use little or no artificial additives or heavily processed ingredients. Some people may also prefer a service that offers organic produce, sustainable seafood, or grass-fed beef.
  • Nutritional information: Look for services that offer nutritionally balanced meals or disclose each meal’s nutritional information. That way, you’ll better understand your calorie and macro intake.
  • App compatibility: If you use an app to keep track of your calories or macros, it can be helpful to choose a service with meals already entered into your app.
  • Variety: Look for alternatives that offer a varied menu, which can help you from getting bored with their dishes. It’s also important that they accommodate your specific diet, be it omnivorous, vegan, gluten-free, low carb, etc.
  • Convenience: Whether you have time to do a little cooking or just have a few minutes to warm up and eat, choose an option that meets your convenience needs. This can help you avoid wasting food and time.

If you’re looking to lose weight, meal delivery services can be strategic allies for several reasons, including:

  • Set portion sizes: Meal delivery services offer pre-portioned meals with a fixed and known total calorie and macronutrient content. Portion sizes are directly linked to energy intake, so reducing them can be helpful for creating a calorie deficit to support weight loss.
  • Adherence: Whether you lack the time or resources, following a diet can be difficult because it requires careful meal planning. Meal delivery services can make adherence to diets like the Mediterranean diet or keto easier by delivering diet-compliant meals or meal kits directly to your door.
  • Improved diet quality: Depending on the recipe, meal delivery services can provide meals that are more nutritious than what you might typically eat. In particular, these meals can provide lean proteins and good sources of fiber, like vegetables, to help keep you full. Protein is also important for preserving muscle mass.

What’s more, research shows that exposure to greater healthful food variety — which is the case with most meal delivery services — can increase the intake of low calorie, energy-dense foods like fruits and vegetables, helping support and sustain weight loss.

Check out our article for more science-backed tips on losing weight healthily and sustainably.

Trifecta Nutrition is our choice as the best overall meal delivery service for weight loss because of its portion-controlled, nutritionally balanced meals. We also like that each meal contains at least 20 grams of protein and that there are menus to suit a variety of dietary needs, including paleo, vegetarian, and keto.

If you prefer a meal kit to cook yourself, Sunbasket is our best overall meal kit pick because it offers menus to suit a variety of dietary patterns that may be helpful for weight loss, including Mediterranean, diabetes-friendly, vegetarian, and carb-conscious.

HelloFresh offers six plans, including a lower calorie option called Calorie Smart, which provides meals under 650 calories per serving.

Consuming 650 calories per meal can help you maintain a calorie deficit, which may support weight loss. However, this also depends on what the rest of your diet looks like and how many calories you consume daily.

Additionally, physical activity, height, and age, among other factors, influence calorie needs, and weight loss is not guaranteed.

If you’re looking to lose weight but the idea of planning and preparing all your meals feels overwhelming, you might consider a meal delivery service. There are plenty of good options available, including all the services on our list.

Depending on your preferences, you can choose from meal delivery for weight loss:

  • at a variety of price points
  • that support different dietary preferences
  • that offer easy heat-and-eat prepared meals or meal kits that provide everything you need to make nutritious meals at home