EveryPlate

EveryPlate is branded as a budget-friendly meal kit service that lets you receive a variety of meals each week for $4.99 per serving.

The company promises to provide you with flavorful, pre-portioned ingredients that are easy to cook into filling meals. They make it clear that their goal is to give you access to high-quality, convenient dishes, not to turn you into a gourmet chef.

This meal kit service got its start in 2018, and the company brand representative we spoke with told us that the plan’s competitive pricing makes each meal up to 30% cheaper than the average meal kit. Today, the company delivers across the continental United States.

Is this budget-friendly brand the right meal kit subscription for you? Let’s look closer at the facts so you can decide.

How Does EveryPlate Work?

EveryPlate keeps things streamlined on their website by offering just two meal plans: three meals per week with either two or four servings each.

All your meals will arrive together in an insulated box, and you will get all the ingredients necessary for each meal, with the exception of everyday pantry items like salt and pepper. Your ingredients won’t be separated by recipe but will instead be placed into an in-box organizer. You’ll receive recipe cards with step-by-step instructions for cooking.

Once you have an account, the company website tells us that you can change your subscription details at any time, including your weekly servings, delivery day, and address.

It’s also possible to skip weeks as often as you like without getting charged. These adjustments can be made up to five days before your scheduled delivery date for them to take effect.

EveryPlate recipes are designed to be simple, so the company states that you won’t need much besides basic kitchen tools to cook them. Each dinner should take about 30 minutes to complete. For peak freshness, the company suggests making every recipe within a week of receiving the ingredients.

To ensure your ingredients stay at the peak of freshness in which they were packed, we recommend storing all fresh produce, proteins, and dairy in the refrigerator. Meals should be cooked within one week of delivery.

What Are The Available Meal Options?

At the time of writing, EveryPlate offered five meals a week, four at their standard pricing and one premium meal priced at $3 more per serving.

The meals available during the week we conducted our research included the following:

• Skillet apple pork chops with sweet potatoes and green beans
• Easy chicken fajitas with zesty sour cream
• Swedish spiced meatballs with roasted carrots and mashed potatoes
• Chicken sausage and tomato sauce
• Dijon-butter steak with herby potatoes and green salad (premium meal)

As previously stated, you can choose between receiving two or four servings of three meals each week.

In regard to their ingredients, the EveryPlate representative we spoke with told us that the company’s suppliers vary by week and region but that their priority when selecting them is ensuring they offer quality ingredients. The brand often offers vegetarian recipes. However, they can’t guarantee that they are available every week.

What Does EveryPlate Cost?

EveryPlate’s pricing at the time of writing was straightforward: $4.99 per serving, plus $8.99 in shipping per box. This means that the two-serving box costs $38.93 per month, and the four-serving option is $68.87.

Signing up for meals automatically enrolls you in an auto-renewing subscription service for weekly deliveries, but you can pause or cancel your delivery at any time through your account page. (Accounts must be canceled at least five days before your next scheduled delivery; otherwise you will still be billed for and receive a final week).

If you want to connect with the company directly to get answers to your questions, you can do so with the website’s chat feature or by calling them at (973) 210-4915.

Customer Reviews of EveryPlate

How is this low-budget meal kit fairing in the real world? We chose to look at customer reviews to see how real people rank EveryPlate.

According to the company’s Facebook page, EveryPlate averages four stars out of five. The comments we read show that customers think the service is affordable, delicious, and that it consistently delivers fresh, high-quality ingredients.

A few people noted that they wished the plan had more meal options each week, especially ones better suited to dieters are vegetarians, but they were willing to sacrifice variety for the low prices per meal.

“My only complaint is the lack of optional choices each week and variety from month to month. It would be nice to choose lower carb meals, and not have so much pork,” one reviewer wrote. “With that said, all the meals I have had so far have been delicious. I am single and one meal kit feeds me 6+ days. That is not bad for less than $50 per week.”

Trustpilot reviews told a similar story about meal quality and variety. A few people reported that the portions seemed small and that the company sometimes incorporated the same ingredients (like potatoes) into numerous recipes each week, which got repetitive.

According to one reviewer’s experience, “there’s a lot of recipes with potatoes. I like potatoes a lot but I would say there’s just too much… My only other criticism is the lack of variety in choices. But I have enjoyed all the meals I’ve gotten and have continued to order for a while.”

There are also a couple of incidences where subscribers received spoiled produce and had to request a refund from EveryPlate, but in most of these situations it seems that the problem was solved quickly.

Overall, these reviews seem to show that EveryPlate delivers on what it promises; a no-frills meal kit that doesn’t compromise on quality.

What are the Best Meal Kit Options?

There are dozens of meal kit options available these days, so deciding which one is best for you isn’t an easy decision.

As this chart illustrates, EveryPlate is a direct competitor of Dinnerly. Both meals cost significantly less per serving than the competition, and they each have the same shipping costs. The plans also offer the same two plans: two or four servings of three meals.

One key difference between the two is that Dinnerly offers eight meals each week, while EveryPlate provides four standard meals and one premium one. Likewise, Dinnerly doesn’t provide printouts of their recipes within each box and instead emails them to each member.

If you’re looking for more complicated recipes or a more extensive variety of ingredients than what’s offered with EveryPlate, there’s plenty of reason to consider the other three options on this chart.

Both Blue Apron and HelloFresh excel at offering a broad variety of meals that come together quickly.

Another factor for choosing the best meal plan for you is to consider your dietary preferences and restrictions. EveryPlate offers the fewest meal options each week, so it’s the plan most likely to cause problems for those who want to avoid meat, dairy, and/or gluten in their dinner.

Also, each plan besides EveryPlate and Dinnerly offer a vegetarian-friendly subscription option. Blue Apron provides options for meals that are ideal for those who want to lose weight.

To learn more about different meal kit services and how to choose the right one for your specific situation, check out our article on the top meal kit services of 2019.

The Bottom Line

This budget-friendly meal kit industry makes sense for a lot of people.

EveryPlate’s low pricing per serving means you might pay more at the grocery store for a few meal ingredients, which makes this plan especially appealing for those who live alone and tend to have groceries spoil before they can get to them.

For those who love to cook and look to meal kits for a way to add some variety to their culinary habits, EveryPlate probably isn’t the best option. The company limits its offerings to five meals a week, and they focus on recipes with simple ingredients that take little time to create.

However, if your goal is to get in and out of the kitchen quickly without it taking up too much brainpower, EveryPlate offers an attractive solution. Not only is the service simple to pause or cancel whenever convenient for you, but you might actually save money on your weekly grocery bill.

If you’re not ready to stop your search for the right meal subscription kit for your situation, we invite you to look through our reviews of Blue Apron, HelloFresh and Dinnerly to learn more about what they offer.