You spent your Sunday catching up on Stranger Things instead of mapping out your week of meals. You planned to go to the grocery store after you hit the gym post-work but were too tired. It was raining. There are a million reasons why the best-laid plans for cooking a nutritious meal fall by the wayside, and in those especially busy times (like maybe, uh, the holiday season), meal delivery services can be life-saving.
The prepared meal delivery service Forkful caters to a wellness-minded crowd, offering recipes that are made with organic ingredients, are seed oil-free (according to the brand’s Instagram account), and align with a number of different eating styles. And with prep times as quick as two minutes—possible because all meals are delivered fully cooked and just need to be heated—it sounds like a great choice for overbooked folks who want a quick meal solution without sacrificing nutritional value.
I tried Forkful for three weeks to see if it delivers on its promise of quick-to-prepare, delicious, healthy meals.
Until 12/31, Forkful is offering BA readers 60% off your first box and 10% off your next three if you sign up with this link.
What is Forkful?
On its website, Forkful describes its meals as “fully-prepared, all natural, chef-cooked” and “dietitian-approved.” Natural is one of those healthy-eating buzzwords that can mean many things, but a bit of digging through Forkful’s literature tells me the brand is using it to mean organic ingredients—although it’s unclear whether all the ingredients are organic or just some.
All recipes are clearly labeled with their nutritional information and tagged with the diet types they fit into (e.g., low-carb, Paleo, keto, vegan), which makes it easy to choose recipes that fit your chosen style of eating.
Unfortunately, Forkful’s site doesn’t offer much information or transparency about the business. I couldn’t find information about the chefs who prepare these meals, the dietitians who approve them, how the recipes are created, where the service is based, or if there are certifications or third parties that support the brand’s health claims. (Forkful folks, if you’re reading this, I’d love to see this information in an easy-to-find place!)
Pros and cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Not very expensive; one meal costs less than a Chipotle bowl | Quality of proteins varies from dish to dish |
| Friendly to many types of eating styles and diets | Limited flexibility with delivery |
| Large portion sizes | Recipes lack originality |
| Can heat and eat in less than 3 minutes | |
| Microwavable meals are easy to heat in an office for lunch |
How does Forkful compare to other meal delivery services?
| Forkful | Hungryroot | CookUnity | Purple Carrot | Green Chef | Sakara | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cost per serving | $9–$13 | $9+ | $12+ | $13 | $11.99 | $27+ |
| Type of meal kit | Fully prepared and delivered fresh | Kit and grocery | Fully prepared | Kit; heat-and-eat meals available as add-ons | Primarily kit; heat-and-eat meals available | Fully prepared |
| Option for add-ons? | Yes; limited add-ons include desserts and snacks | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Vegetarian/vegan-friendly? | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes; vegan only | Yes | Yes; fully plant-based |
| Other diets they accommodate | Vegan, gluten-free, low-carb, Paleo, keto, high-protein | Dairy-free, gluten-free, pescatarian, allergen-free, plus various other nutrition preferences | Dairy-free, gluten-free, pescatarian, keto, paleo, plus various other nutrition preferences | High-protein, gluten-free | Protein-packed, keto, gluten-free, calorie-smart | Gluten-free, detox programs available |
Ordering and delivery
You've perused the sample menu, like what you see, and are ready to sign up. Just click Get Started to place your first order. (Note that the sample menu seems to be a new improvement to the ordering experience; older Reddit reviews indicate it wasn’t possible to see any meals before you enter your payment information.)
On the order screen, you’re first prompted to select your diet from the eight choices below. While many are self-explanatory, some do seem to cater to popular wellness trends; “GLP-1,” specifically, isn’t a particular way of eating.
- Traditional
- Plant-based
- Paleo
- Keto
- GLP-1
- Low-carb
- High-protein
- Gluten-free
On this same page, you select the number of meals you’d like to receive each week. The cost per meal varies by the number you sign up for, with more meals gaining you a per serving discount. The cost does not change based on your selected eating style.
| Meals Per Week | Cost Per Meal |
|---|---|
| 6 | $12.58 |
| 8 | $12.25 |
| 10 | $10.90 |
| 12 | $10.33 |
| 14 | $9.60 |
| 20 | $8.60 |
Now you click Proceed to Register and enter your payment and delivery information as well as any allergies you have. Then you select your meals for your first delivery from the week’s available recipes.
Boxes are delivered on Mondays (you can select when you would like your first box to arrive), and you have until Thursday each week to select your meals for your next order or to skip a delivery. While Forkful doesn’t provide flexibility with the day of the week you receive meals, it does provide you with a tracking link the morning your order is expected to arrive.
My box arrived as expected on the Monday after I placed my order, and the real-time delivery tracking was super accurate, so I knew my delivery would come in time for lunch and I wouldn’t need to prepare something else to eat.
What’s in a Forkful box?
Forkful’s meals are packaged in plastic trays that are sealed with plastic film. They’re stacked inside a padded cardboard delivery box along with cool packs to keep the meals from spoiling until you can get them to your fridge (my box of six meals had two large frozen cooling packs).
Preparation and taste
Each Forkful meal has instructions printed on its cardboard sleeve. But, spoiler alert, all the heating instructions are the same—essentially, heat in the microwave for two to three minutes or in the oven for 25 to 35 minutes (until the proteins’ internal temperature is 165°F). I would have appreciated if the directions were tailored to each meal, because heating a vegetarian pasta can be different than a chicken breast—certainly if you’re using the stovetop instead of a microwave (more on that later).
The quality of the Forkful meals I tried really varied from dish to dish. I found many of the sauces, including a vodka pasta sauce, coconut curry, and herby chimichurri, to be nice and flavorful. Some of the steamed vegetable sides, however, like the broccoli that accompanied a low-carb beef lasagna I tried, lacked seasoning. As part of its health-focused approach, Forkful states that all its meals are low-sodium—so in this case, what’s good for your heart might not be great for your palate.
Since one of Forkful’s biggest selling points is the speed with which you can get it into your gullet, I prepared my first few meals by microwaving them. While doing so with the Coconut Tofu with Brown Coconut Rice worked well, it was less successful for Chicken Penne a la Vodka—the chicken in the latter ended up rubbery and unappetizing. Other proteins did stand up to the microwave better: A pulled pork and rice dish was tasty and well-seasoned.
When possible, I tried to heat my meals on the stovetop in a sauté pan. Doing so resulted in a better texture for the poultry in subsequent dishes, including an Indian-inspired Tikka Masala chicken. As I unboxed a low-carb beef lasagna (meaning the pasta was replaced with zucchini ribbons) covered with a thick layer of cheese, however, I realized my stovetop cooking method had its limits. How, exactly, am I going to flip this thing over for a thorough cook without all the cheese sticking to the pan? I wasn’t. The microwave it was, then. The beef survived its nuke just fine; the issue with this dish was its mountain of unspecified “organic cheese.”
Cooking in the oven brought marginally better results than the microwave, but waiting half an hour for a premade meal is a tough pill to swallow. If you decided to try Forkful, it was likely because you’re short on time—heck, you could easily pull together a simple pasta dish in less than 30 minutes—so waiting that long essentially defeats the service’s purpose.
Portion size
While they might not look like much in the plastic tray, the Forkful meals I tried were filling—so much so that I often couldn’t finish the entire serving—because of each dish’s generous portion of meat.
I do think Forkful would be wise to include a weekly delivery option of fewer than six meals for people who are ordering for one. Between meals out I had planned and nights I had the energy to cook, I found it difficult to finish all six meals in a week. The limited range of flavor profiles in the available meals also made me tire of the offerings quickly.
The verdict: Is Forkful worth it?
Eaters who are looking to try something new or want more worldly, cheffier meals might be disappointed by the service’s menu selection. One reviewer on Forkful's website wrote: “Though this may not sound like a compliment, it is. Your food is…normal. SO many of the other plans have such ‘fancy’ approaches and thick with spices and richness that it just didn't work for me.” Macaroni and cheese, eggplant parm, chicken nuggets, pork chops with mashed potatoes—outside of a handful globally inspired dishes, Forkful’s menu is filled with comfort food classics. You could be like the reviewer and view this as a good thing! But you also might not.
At its core, Forkful aims to solve a specific problem: Help time-starved nutrition-minded folks get a healthy meal with no planning or prep work. In that I’d say Forkful delivers. Meals are clearly marked with the diets they serve, have readily accessible dietary information (including macros), and heat up in less than the time it takes to make a box of Annie’s. And, most important, many of them are tasty; although it’d be dishonest to say the meals weren’t hit or miss.
If you’re looking for a quick meal and want to feel confident that you’ll hit your macros but really have no time or interest in curating a weekly menu, Forkful might be worth a try.
Read more meal kit reviews
- Read our full review of meal delivery services and meal kits, including Blue Apron, Purple Carrot, Home Chef, and HelloFresh
- The best meal kits for families, according to our testing
- Gluten-free? There’s a meal kit for that
- Read our honest review of Blue Apron