The Best Vegetarian Meal Delivery Services for Flavorful Plant-Based Meals

Whether you’re a longtime vegetarian or looking to eat more plant-based meals this year, a vegetarian meal delivery service can make meatless eating easier and more exciting. Maybe you’re stuck in a veggie burger rut and need fresh inspiration? Meal kits can introduce you to new techniques, flavor profiles, or ingredients to take your veg-forward cooking to the next level. Short on time and looking to save yourself some trips to the grocery store (and the headache of meal planning)? A subscription means plant-based dinners are already waiting in your fridge.

The best vegetarian meal delivery services are serving up more than sad beans and rice. Our top picks offer tangy tofu banh mi, warming spinach saag, and shawarma-spiced tacos.

• Best vegetarian meal kit overall: HelloFresh
• Best prepared vegetarian meal delivery service: CookUnity
• Best for entirely plant-based options: Purple Carrot
• Best for a meal delivery–grocery hybrid: Hungryroot

Here at BA, we’ve spent years testing meal delivery services to find which ones truly excel at vegetarian options. Our top picks are services where vegetarian dishes are thoughtful, flavor-packed, and the main event—not an afterthought. Read on for the best meal delivery services for vegetarians according to our editors’ testing.

HelloFresh

Meal Kits

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HelloFresh

Tester: Jaia Clingham-David, research fellow

About Hello Fresh: “HelloFresh is one of the most ubiquitous delivery kit services in the US for a reason: Recipes come together fast, instructions are easy to follow, and the results are reliably tasty. When you are exhausted from the day and can’t conjure up a new recipe idea, this service does the heavy lifting by giving you all the ingredients you need for a weeknight meal. If you’re a vegetarian, you’ll love the wide array of balanced options that are both comforting and effortlessly simple,” Clingham-David writes.

What we love: “For vegetarians looking for quick no-fuss recipes, HelloFresh’s meals satisfy that need. Whether you’re looking to cook something you’ve always wanted to try or return to a reliable staple meal, HelloFresh delivers the necessary ingredients to your door and spells out each step of the cooking process. The recipes are straightforward, and everything comes ready to go, but you still feel like you’re doing all the prep and cooking yourself (for the most part, you are!),” Clingham-David writes.

As someone who formerly followed a vegan diet, Clingham-David is well familiar with the challenges of meatless meal planning. “For new vegetarians, this service is a wonderful way to learn how to have balanced meatless dishes. The meals feature colorful veggies, hearty legumes and proteins, and a reasonable amount of a carby base like pasta or rice. These recipes could easily translate to home cooks’ weekly routines for families and individuals alike,” she writes.

Unlike some other meal delivery services, HelloFresh doesn’t make you jump through many hoops to find vegetarian options—the second question when ordering allows you to choose “vegetarian” right away. When selecting her meals, Clingham-David enjoyed “the breadth of personalization, including useful preferences to save money, limit waste, eat healthy, meal prep faster, or discover new recipes.” She was also impressed by how “varied and lively” the vegetarian options were week to week: “pasta and veg bowls, hearty wraps and sandwiches, flavorful soups and salads. Some were simple, such as pesto pasta, and others were more inventive, like BBQ Pulled Mushroom Sandwiches. Clicking into each dish reveals the full ingredient list, making it easy to see what you’re signing up for. The variety alone made me excited for the week of meals to come. These aren’t simply meat dishes without the meat—they were intentionally thought-out meals with a balance of flavors and textures,” she writes.

Clingham-David’s favorite dish during her week of testing was the Tofu Banh Mi. “At first I was skeptical—bahn mi, one of my personal favorites, is a balancing act of sweet, sour, salty, and spicy with pickled vegetables, bright cilantro, a toothsome marinated protein, and a soft, fluffy baguette. The flavors of HelloFresh’s banh mi were spot-on. The instructions streamlined all the vegetable prep and allowed you to prepare your sauces well in advance of any cooking. The bread was pillowy and soft, and even though it didn’t fully hold up when stuffed with the tofu and vegetables, the texture was better than expected with bread from a plastic bag,” she writes.

What we’d leave: There wasn’t much Clingham-David didn’t like during her week of testing HelloFresh, but she does mention that some of the produce in her box went bad before she had a chance to use it.

Read our full HelloFresh review here.

CookUnity Subscription

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CookUnity

Tester: Olivia Tarantino, senior commerce editor

About CookUnity: CookUnity's ready-to-heat meals are developed by real chefs like José Garces and Esther Choi, delivering restaurant-quality dishes without the work. Start by selecting your dietary preferences (they have both vegetarian and vegan), flag any foods to avoid, and pick your plan based on how many meals you want per week. There are about 30 or so vegetarian and vegan options available each week, and each dish includes user ratings and customer reviews to help you decide what to order.

What we loved: “Every time I eat my CookUnity meals in the office kitchen, I end up trying to sell all my coworkers on it—it’s that good,” Tarantino says. She’d tested CookUnity before, but this was her first time ordering vegetarian options. “These vegetarian meals matched the flavor, texture, and restaurant quality of CookUnity’s meat-forward dishes. CookUnity isn’t afraid of bold flavors, and this week of vegetarian meals was packed with them.”

One of her favorites was the Creamy Tofu Tikka Masala: “The tofu was tender and silky, the rice was perfectly cooked, and the sauce was rich and layered with spice. Honestly, I felt full before I could finish it.” What impressed her most was a detail she almost didn’t notice: the rice. “Some meal delivery services clearly batch-cook rice and portion it out, but this had cumin seeds in it. You can tell CookUnity doesn’t take shortcuts.”

Not all meals need reheating. There are also plenty of vegetarian salads, like the colorful Buffalo Cauliflower Bowl With Green Tahini-Herb Sauce. “This was on the lower end of the protein spectrum for me at 18 grams, but I’m a sucker for anything Buffalo-flavored, and I appreciated that it was paired with a light green tahini sauce instead of heavy ranch or blue cheese,” she says. She also liked that it was fully vegan: “I don't need cheese at every meal, so it was refreshing to have a vegan option. The colors were bright and beautiful, the tahini was herbaceous and tangy, and overall it was gorgeous to look at.” Tarantino also tried a chorizo chili that was entirely plant-based: “The cheddar ‘cheese’ was so convincingly good that I had to check the ingredient list to confirm it was vegan.”

CookUnity isn’t just lunch and dinner. The service also offers vegetarian breakfast items, like a Broccoli Egg Frittata served with roasted potatoes. Tarantino appreciated it as a satisfying high-protein option after early morning workouts, noting she was impressed with how well the eggs held up even after microwaving—and that the portion was generous enough that she couldn’t finish it.

What we’d leave: As with all meal delivery services, not every CookUnity meal is a winner. “The plantains in the Haitian Vegetable Stew were delicious, but the rice was overcooked and mushy, and at only 10 grams of protein, it‘s not something I’d order regularly,” Tarantino says. Protein content was a recurring issue. While she found enough high-protein options for a full week of meals, she noted that many vegetarian dishes fell short on the macronutrient.

Read our full review of CookUnity here.

Purple Carrot

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Purple Carrot

Tester: Alaina Chou, commerce writer

About Purple Carrot: Purple Carrot is an entirely vegan meal delivery service that offers traditional meal kits, heat-and-eat options, and grocery items. We’ve been testing the service for years and think it’s an excellent option for vegans and vegetarians alike.

What we loved: Of all of the meal kits I’ve tested, vegan or not, Purple Carrot quickly became one of my favorites—and I’ve tried a lot of meal kits. Everything from the ordering experience to the packaging feels well thought-out, making the service a joy to use. Of course, none of that matters if the food isn’t up to par, but the Purple Carrot meals I tried were all delicious enough to convince me that I could (maybe) go vegan someday without feeling like I was missing the meat.

Because the entire service is vegan, you’ll be able to add anything you want to your order without needing to double-check if it’s vegetarian—and with dozens of meal kits available every week, you’ll have a lot more options to choose from than with most other meal kits on the market (and on this list).

Some favorite meals from my two weeks of testing included the BBQ Burnt Ends, which were made from a mushroom-based protein and tasted convincingly like barbecued meat; a Winter Squash Soup with quinoa-speckled rice and a nice level of heat from some togarashi; and the Spicy Szechuan-Style Glass Noodles, which were packed with lots of tofu and kept me satiated for hours. In general, I found Purple Carrot was a great way to get introduced to new ingredients and cooking techniques that made the meatless meals genuinely exciting.

What we’d leave: While Purple Carrot offers dozens of meal options every week, some will sell out if you wait until the last minute to make your selections. I also had two instances of a meal I chose being swapped out for something else because, per the email I received, “the ingredients for the original meal didn’t meet our quality standards.” I had no choice to opt out of receiving this meal or choose a different one, which might be frustrating if you have allergies, specific dietary restrictions, or certain foods you dislike.

Read our full review of Purple Carrot here.

Hungryroot

Meal Kits

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Hungryroot

Tester: Olivia Tarantino

About Hungryroot: If you hate grocery shopping or meal prepping, Hungryroot is the healthy meal delivery service for you. It’s more of an AI-powered grocery delivery service than a meal kit, but if you choose to add “recipes” to your weekly order, your box will include a recipe card with suggestions for how to easily combine the grocery items into quick and easy meals.

What we loved: Hungryroot’s flexibility is its biggest strength. Unlike services with limited weekly menus, you can select from recipe kits (like Southwest Chopped Salad with Beyond Patties and Cheddar or Craveable Chorizo Street Corn Grain Bowl), prepared meals (microwave-friendly bowls, soups, sandwiches, and salads), and grocery items à la carte (snacks, yogurt, juices, bread, and more). Your plan determines how many credits you receive each week, and you redeem those credits for whatever you want; meal kits typically cost around 11 credits, while snacks run one to three credits.

“I appreciated being able to pick exactly what I wanted without feeling locked into a specific meal plan,” senior commerce editor Olivia Tarantino says. “Each recipe can also be edited, so if you already have cheddar cheese at home (like I did when shopping for a burger bowl recipe), you can remove it from your order and spend those credits elsewhere.” She also appreciated the freedom to repurpose ingredients: “I ordered a Marinara Ricotta Ravioli with Baby Mushroom dish and ended up using the mushrooms in an omelet instead of the pasta.”

The flexibility extends to timing too. “If I couldn’t cook one night, I wasn’t frantically worrying about my meal kit expiring before I could get to it,” Tarantino notes. “Because most of the ‘recipes’ are basically collections of grocery ingredients, you’re free to use them for whatever you want.”

What we’d leave: The credit system takes some getting used to. “You use credit rather than dollar values, and each item has an assigned credit value—it’s not immediately intuitive, though you can reduce or roll over unused credits to the following week,” Tarantino says.

Because Hungryroot functions as a grocery store with endless recipe-building possibilities, scrolling through all the options can be time-consuming. Tarantino found herself spending over 30 minutes selecting meals, even with filtering options. If that doesn’t appeal to you, Hungryroot’s AI quiz will learn your preferences and automatically fill your cart with suggestions each week.

Read our full review of Hungryroot here.

To test vegetarian meal delivery services, we drew on years of experience testing meal kits to narrow down a shortlist of top contenders. Then we enlisted staffers and contributors to try each service in their own homes for at least a week of meals.

When it came time to eat, we prepared each meal according to the provided instructions, paying attention to ingredient quality, how each recipe was packaged, the clarity of the directions, how seamless each recipe was to make, and, of course, how everything tasted when all was said and done. Because we were testing vegetarian meal kits, we also made sure to note the variety of vegetarian options available each week, as well as how satiating each meal was despite the lack of meat.

Green Chef

Meal Kits

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Green Chef

Tester: Joe Sevier, senior cooking and SEO editor

About Green Chef: Green Chef is the first CCOF-certified organic meal kit company, and places emphasis on high-quality ingredients, chef-crafted recipes, nutrient-dense whole foods, and sustainability.

What we love: With around 10 vegetarian options available every week (which includes some vegan meals), Green Chef is a solid choice for any non-meat eaters looking to get into the meal kit game. According to senior cooking and SEO editor Joe Sevier, “Green Chef is for people who want to eat a nice meal at home, but don’t have the time or knowledge for how to put it together. Green Chef portions everything exactly; occasionally, you’ll use half a packet if you’re only making a recipe for two (as opposed to four), or you’ll have to chop your own cauliflower, or provide your own butter. The Green Chef customer has a pretty well-stocked kitchen, but probably not all the bells and whistles.”

“This was the best packaged kit I've ever reviewed. Each meal was bagged in its own brown paper sack (which can be used as a garbage bag as you cook through the meal), and ingredients were really fresh and well packed,” Sevier writes. He was impressed by the meals, and writes that “by and large they seem well thought-out, well composed, and complete,” with some “smart moves” that he sees himself repeating in his own cooking—like mashing a tube of polenta with premade creamy mushroom broth to make a creamy polenta porridge to go with the Trumpet Mushroom Stew.

What we’d leave: Sevier notes that during the two weeks he tested vegan and vegetarian meals from Green Chef, he noticed a lot of cauliflower-forward dinners. “I love cauliflower, but I don’t want it four nights in two weeks,” he says. He also noticed that some meals needed a bit of bulking up to be filling enough, like a Blackened Cauliflower dish he added potatoes to. The Trumpet Mushroom Stew, while his favorite dish, did require three pans, which felt a bit excessive on a weeknight (“but was worth it for the butter-basted mushrooms,” Sevier writes).

Read our full review of Green Chef here.

Factor

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Factor

Tested and reviewed by: Olivia Tarantino

About Factor: Factor is a meal delivery service offering premade, microwavable meals geared toward health and wellness-minded individuals. Most meals, including vegetarian options, are high in protein.

What we love: If you don't want to scrutinize nutrition labels for every meal, Factor makes it easy to get balanced, prepared meals delivered to your home. The company partners with dietitians to craft recipes with solid macros. While the vegetarian selection isn’t as extensive as the meat options, there were enough recipes that Tarantino found appealing. What stood out to her was that, unlike the more formulaic meat meals—chicken, rice, veggie—the vegetarian dishes felt more thoughtful and composed.

“The Japanese Tofu and Sesame Brown Rice was my favorite. The tofu was fluffy without being tough or rubbery, and the rice was perfectly al dente,” Tarantino says. The meal came with a creamy peanut sauce that tied everything together. She was also impressed by the breakfast egg bites, which tasted homemade despite being reheated in the microwave.

Factor recently partnered with plant-based meal delivery service Sakara to introduce veggie-packed salads. There are two vegan options: a Spiced Chickpea Chaat Salad and a Miso Edamame Tofu Salad. The salads deliver bold, balanced flavors—think soy-glazed tofu, savory carrot-miso vinaigrette, and tangy tamarind-coconut yogurt dressing. “The vegetarian salads were lower in protein than I’d prefer (only 12 grams for the chaat salad and 16 grams for the miso edamame), but they were incredibly flavorful and a bright spot in my work lunch rotation,” Tarantino says.

What we’d leave: “Factor meals don’t have the same depth of flavor I’ve experienced with other meal delivery services,” Tarantino notes. Many meals came with underseasoned vegetables that turned soggy after reheating.

Read our full review of Factor here.

Mosaic Foods Meals

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Mosaic Foods

Tested and reviewed by: Kelsey Jane Youngman, senior service editor

About Mosaic: Mosaic specializes in frozen, fully cooked plant-based meals. Everything they offer is vegetarian, and meals range from grain and veggie bowls or vegetable-crust personal pizzas to bottled smoothies, soups, pre-topped oatmeal, and large-format family-style meals.

What we love: “These are really high-quality meals for being frozen dinners. They are properly seasoned, and include a variety of well-cooked vegetables and a range of flavor profiles,” writes Youngman. Of the 12 Mosaic meals she tested, a favorite was the Mushroom Lover’s Pizza: “They nailed the toppings on this personal pizza. The Fontina melted and browned beautifully, and you could really taste its flavor in each bite. The mixed mushrooms were tender, meaty, and well-seasoned,” says Youngman. Other meals she enjoyed were a Curried Lentil Soup she deemed “delicious,” a filling Spinach Saag & Tofu, and a Vegan Carbonara with a creamy tofu-based sauce and savory, smoky tofu “bacon” that packed in 27 grams of protein.

While eating frozen meals for days on end gets old quickly, no matter how high-quality those meals are, Youngman writes: “Moving forward, I’d keep a few on hand in my freezer for nights I don’t want to rely on takeout but don’t have time or energy to cook.”

What we’d leave: Youngman was generally impressed by how tasty each Mosaic meal was, but notes, “They’re still precooked frozen dinners. There’s not much texture on offer, and I personally could not rely on these for the majority of my meals.”

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