Best Meal Delivery for Picky Eaters 2023: Find One You’ll Love
Finding the best meal delivery for picky eaters can leave you feeling frustrated and confused. This can be especially true if you have certain allergies, want to avoid certain ingredients, or just have very strong preferences for a handful of ingredients.
I recommend choosing a meal delivery service that allows you a quick way to filter down your meal options. The best meal delivery services should have a large selection of meals, help you filter out allergens and other ingredients quickly, let you swap out different ingredients entirely, and tell you what each meal’s spice level is as well.
I’ve put together a list of the best meal delivery services that can help you find your perfect meal, no matter what your meal preferences might be. In my experience, Home Chef is the best thanks to its large menu and extensive customization options.
Short on Time? Here Are the Best Meal Delivery Services for Picky Eaters
Home Chef – Best for protein customization
Balance by BistroMD – Great choice for different dietary needs
Blue Apron – Best for menu diversity
Factor – Best selection of different meal types
HelloFresh – Most reasonably-priced family-friendly meal delivery
The Best Meal Delivery Services for Picky Eaters Reviewed
1. Home Chef – Best for Protein Customization
Key Features
Choose between standard meal kits, easy-prep meal kits and oven-ready dishes
25+ unique recipes per week
Dietary options include calorie-conscious and carb-conscious
Current deal: Get 60% off your first three boxes
Home Chef offers a huge menu with 25+ meal kits of varying degrees of difficulty, depending on how much time you have. This can help you try out new recipes you may not have thought of, or just save time by simply heating and eating your meals.
Something else I like about Home Chef is the ability to customize the protein in most of the meals. Don’t like chicken? Don’t worry. Pork, turkey, steak, shrimp, or “Impossible Burger” are some of the alternatives you’ll find. This makes it relatively simple to find something you’re much more likely to be happy with if you’re picky.
Home Chef also makes it pretty easy to choose the exact meal ingredients you prefer. You can also choose between carb-conscious or calorie-conscious meals, and if you want to avoid any ingredients like pork, beef, poultry, fish, shellfish, mushrooms, tree nuts, or peanuts. However, you can only select these preferences at signup as there aren’t any menu filters. Lastly, each meal comes with a “spice level” indicator telling you exactly what to expect.
2. Balance by BistroMD – Great Choice for Different Dietary Needs
Key Features
Choose from a large selection of prepared meals
80+ unique meals per week
9 dietary options including heart-healthy, gluten-free, and low sodium
Current deal: Free shipping on orders over $99
Balance by BistroMD is one of the best meal delivery services for picky eaters because of its extensive support for a lot of different dietary needs. In addition to catering to those who prefer heart-healthy, gluten-free, diabetic-friendly, and low sodium meals, it also caters to low-carb, menopause, dairy-free, Mediterannean, and vegetarian. That’s the most I’ve personally seen.
It also offers a very robust and powerful filtering system while you’re browsing the menu. You can choose from a large selection of ingredients to focus on including beef, chicken, turkey, pork, seafood, pasta, plant-based, and soups & stews. Combined with the large selection of dietary options, if you’re a picky eater, there’s bound to be something here for you.
You can also get access to other types of meals like breakfast, lunch, and snacks. The same filtering system and dietary options apply to those types of meals as well.
3. Blue Apron – Best for Menu Diversity
Key Features
Choose from prepared meals, meal kits, and add-ons such as desserts and salads
19 unique recipes per week
Menus options include Vegetarian and Wellness
Current deal: Enjoy $110 off across your first 5 orders
Blue Apron makes it easy to order the right meals if you’re a picky eater thanks to its massive selection of meal kits and prepared meals. I find it very difficult to not find something here for everyone, and you might find that you’ll never get bored with the menu.
You won’t find quite as many dietary options with Blue Apron as with some other competitors. However, I didn’t find this to be an issue as you can omit certain ingredients during the cooking process if you order meal kits. Some meal kits also offer a protein swap (such as swapping ground lamb for black bean patties).
If you opt for the prepared meals, each recipe card on the website offers you the ability to view every ingredient before you make a purchase. That way, you can avoid anything you can’t eat.
4. Factor – Best Selection of Different Meal Types
Key Features
Choose from a large selection of prepared meals
29+ unique recipes per week
Diet options include keto, calorie-smart, vegan, and vegetarian
Factor’s main strength here is the large number of meals it offers across several meal types including breakfast, sides, and desserts – which many competitors simply don’t offer. You won’t have any shortage of options as a picky eater, no matter what time of day you’re shopping for.
All of Factor’s meals are also prepared. This means all you’ll have to do is heat them up and eat them. If you’re in a hurry, this can be a real time-saver. The main dinner menu is quite vast and contains many different prepared meals for a range of diets including vegan, vegetarian, keto, and low-calorie. If you’re a picky eater, there are always plenty of options.
The meals aren’t customizable, so you should check the ingredients for each meal before ordering to make sure it suits your needs. However, in my opinion, the very large menu selection makes up for this. You’ll probably end up finding quite a few meals here that match up with your preferences.
5. HelloFresh – Most Reasonably-Priced Family-Friendly Meal Delivery
Key Features
Choose from a large selection of 20-30 minute meal kits
30+ weekly menu options
Dietary options include vegetarian, low-calorie, and low-carb
Of all the meal delivery services on this list, HelloFresh is the most family-friendly and budget-friendly service that’s great for picky eaters. It offers a variety of dishes that are relatively low in spices, and most of its meals are Americanized and not too exotic.
The meals themselves are all meal kits, so you’ll be required to spend some time cooking, but that could work in your favor. Even if a meal has a particular ingredient you’re not fond of, you can always choose to omit it since you cook your own meals.
You’ll also only be getting mains here for dinner, so no sides or breakfasts, but a large number of options for dinner are something I liked seeing.
6. Freshly – Great Meal Delivery for a Balanced Diet
Key Features
Choose from a large selection of prepared meals
40+ weekly menu options
Dietary options include gluten-free, high-protein, soy-free, and dairy-free
Freshly offers several high-quality prepared meal options on a weekly basis. They’re all quite balanced, so if you’re a picky eater looking for healthy options, Freshly could suit you well. You can also choose from several dietary options as well, depending on your preferences.
Everything Freshly offers is prepared, so you won’t have to spend any time cooking at all. There are several meals on the menu including vegetarian, gluten-free, dairy-free, and high-protein options, so you’re bound to find something you’ll like.
Lastly, meals are created with whole foods. This includes ingredients with less processed components and sugar overall. You can’t customize the meals but with such a large menu, you’ll likely have no trouble finding meals that work for you.
7. Dinnerly – Most Affordable Meal Delivery Service
Key Features
One of the most affordable meal delivery services
40+ weekly menu options, plus desserts and extra protein packs
Dietary options include vegetarian, balanced, family-friendly
Dinnerly keeps it simple, which is great for picky eaters. You’ll find some of the most affordable meals here, and most of them are quite basic with not too many ingredients or spices.
However, you’ll only find meal kits here – unfortunately, no prepared meals. But that’s not a big deal if you don’t mind spending a small amount of time cooking. Each meal only takes about 20-30 minutes to prepare which, in my experience, is pretty reasonable.
I like that there really aren’t too many ingredients, so you won’t have to spend a long time reading each list to see if there’s something you can’t eat. You’ll be able to enjoy your meal with the knowledge that it suits your needs.
8. RealEats – Best for Full Meal Customization
Key Features
Choose from a large selection of prepared meals
30+ unique meals per week
8 dietary options including calorie-smart, soy-free, dairy-free, wheat-free, and vegetarian
RealEats has the best meal customization options I’ve come across in this industry. This is one of the best options for picky eaters since you’re able to swap out any component of your meal – whether it be the veggies, carbs, or protein. In this way, if you’re picky, you’ll be able to make any meal your very own.
In addition to having excellent customization options, you can also filter out ingredients you don’t want in your meals, or ones you want to include more of. Dietary filters include calorie-smart, high-protein, soy-free, dairy-free, wheat-free, vegetarian, spicy, or not spicy. The choice is yours in terms of what you like to eat or avoid.
There are also several meal categories you can choose from including breakfast, soups, sides, snacks, and protein add-ons, as well as entrees. This will help you get a meal for any occasion, or add something else that you want.
9. Epicured – Best for Low Fodmap and Gluten-Free Meals
Key Features
Choose from a large selection of prepared low-FODMAP meals
30+ unique recipes per week
6 dietary options including pescatarian, IBD, IBS, EPI-friendly, and GERD-friendly
Epicured does things very differently from other competitors. The most important thing you should know about it is that Epicured caters specifically to those who are looking for low-FODMAP-friendly ingredients and meals. This is great to see if you suffer from any kind of intestinal issues like irritable bowel syndrome or disease, GERD, or EPI.
As a prepared meal delivery service, Epicured allows you to filter down your menu options which is great to see if you’re picky or have specific dietary requirements. In addition to IBD & IBS-friendly, EPI-friendly, and GERD-friendly meals, you’ll also get access to vegetarian, pescatarian, and vegan meals – all of which are gluten-free as well.
Lastly, you can sort your meals by any allergens – or ingredients – you wish to omit as well. Examples here include soy-free, fish-free, egg-free, dairy-free, peanut-free, shellfish-free, and tree nut-free. Basically, for those extra finicky and picky eaters, there’s bound to be something here from Epicured that you’ll both be able to eat and actually love.
10. Sunbasket – Best Ingredient Filtering System
Key Features
Choose between prepared meals or meal kits, whichever suits your schedule
35 unique recipes per week
Dietary options including gluten-free, soy-free, vegan, dairy-free, diabetes-friendly
With Sunbasket, you’ll have the ability to select your exact dietary preferences if you’re a picky eater. Your preferences must be submitted at sign-up. You can choose from high protein, high fiber, low carb, low calorie, low added sugar, and low sodium – or, you can select what you want to avoid eating including dairy, soy, lamb, pork, beef, shellfish, fish, and poultry. Select as many or as few options as you want.
You can also filter the full menu down to nine dietary-specific menus including paleo, Mediterranean, gluten-free, vegetarian, low-calorie, pescatarian, diabetes-friendly, carb-conscious, and keto-friendly. There are also many soy-free and vegan options.
If you eat meat, most meat dishes also allow you to swap out your protein for something else. For example, the Mediterranean lemon chicken recipe allows you to swap the chicken for fish, shrimp, scallops, steak, or pork chops. This isn’t possible with every dish and is mostly only available for dishes including meat.
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| Starting Price | ||||||||||
| Starting Price | $6.99 Per Serving | $8.24 Per Serving | $5.74 Per Serving | $6.19 Per Serving | $3.32 Per Serving | $5.99 Per Serving | $1.49 Per Serving | $8.50 Per Serving | $6.90 Per Serving | $6.99 Per Serving |
| Minimum Order | ||||||||||
| Minimum Order | 2 meals for 2 people | 10 prepared meals | 2 meals for 2 people | 6 prepared meals | 2 meals for 2 people | 3 meals for 2 people | 3 meals for 2 people | 3 meal kits for 2 people/6 prepared meals | 4 prepared meals | 2 meals for 2 people |
| Meal Types | ||||||||||
| Meal Types | Kits, speedy kits, oven-ready, prepared | Prepared meals | 20 - 60 min. meal kits | Prepared meals | 20 - 30 min. meal kits | 30-minute meal kits | 30-minute meal kits | Meal kits, prepared meals | Prepared meals | Oven- & grill-ready, kits, prepared |
| Prep Time | ||||||||||
| Prep Time | 5-50 min | 2-3 min | 5-45 min | 2-3 min | 15-40 min | 25-40 min | 20-45 min | 3-40 min | 3 mins | 15-30 min |
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Tips for Choosing the Best Meal Delivery for Picky Eaters
When you’re selecting a meal delivery for picky eaters, I recommend ensuring that you get the following:
Customizability: I recommend selecting a service that lets you customize your meals. That way, you can ensure you get exactly the ingredients you want if you’re a picky eater.
Dietary options: Some meal delivery services offer certain dietary accommodations, and some offer others. It’s a good idea to always ensure your meal delivery service of choice caters to your particular dietary need.
Spices: Again, some meal delivery services display how spicy their meals are, and some don’t. If your chosen service doesn’t publish this information it’s a good idea to take a close look at the ingredients of each meal.
Number of meals: Lastly, choosing a meal delivery service that offers a large number of meals is a great idea for picky eaters since you aren’t limited to ingredients you may not like.
Bottom Line: So, How Do You Decide on a Meal Delivery for Picky Eaters?
Finding a great meal delivery service for picky eaters is no easy task. It takes some effort to locate a service that offers your particular dietary needs and offers the ingredients you prefer.
But with the help of the options on this list, you should be able to choose one that offers the exact meals that work for you – or any other picky eaters in your household. Whether that be gluten-free, dairy-free, paleo, keto, low-FODMAP, vegetarian, pescatarian, vegan, or even diabetes-friendly, there’s something here for everyone.
FAQ
What meal delivery service is best for picky eaters?
I’d say there’s not one single best meal delivery for picky eaters – but don’t let that discourage you. Depending on what dietary preferences you have, what ingredients you like, how spicy you like your food, and whether you have any allergies, there’s something for everyone, you just have to find the perfect match.
What is the cheapest healthy meal delivery service for picky eaters?
Though many meal delivery services are affordable, the least expensive one on this list is Dinnerly. It offers a large selection of meals that aren’t too spicy and don’t contain very many ingredients which could be the perfect option if you’re a picky eater.
What meal delivery service lets you customize your meals?
Though there are several services that allow you to customize your meals, not all of them do, and not all of them let you do so to the same extent. If you want the single best meal delivery service with the best customization options for picky eaters, might I recommend RealEats – it lets you customize every part of your meal including the protein, carbs, and veggies.
