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Meal delivery services are on the rise, especially as ingredients and preservation methods lead to tastier, healthier options across the board. However, you might be looking for a low carb meal delivery option as opposed to traditional meal.
What makes a low-carb meal delivery option…well, low-carb?
The majority of meal options that fit these criteria will have more meat, eggs, veggies, fruits, nuts, fats, and healthy oils to provide your body with the nutrients it needs for overall health. They also exclude traditional sources of carbohydrates like wheat, trans fats, and sugars. This isn’t to say that low-carb meal delivery options taste bad – quite the opposite!
In general, low-carb delivery meals have carbs less than 35g per serving. Let’s dig in to see which low-carb meal delivery options might be the top choices for you!
Low-Carb Meal Kits
There’s a bunch of high-quality meal prep and low-carb meal services for you to choose from. Many people looking to diet or just trying to eat healthy over the long-term will prefer to use meal prep services. These give them all the ingredients and portion sizes they need to create healthy, great-tasting food.
The benefit here is that the buyer gets to put the food together themselves, so they can enjoy the traditional fun of cooking and see how everything comes together. Lots of people also swear by how much fresher meal prep plans taste compared to pre-made meals that are just heated up.
Green Chef
BEST LOW-CARB MEAL DELIVERY SERVICE
Out of all the available ready to cook meal kits, Green Chef is by far the best. They offer an excellent spread of meal options, all created with non-GMO, organic produce and antibiotic-free and pasture-raised meats. This also allows them to service a wide variety of diets, including keto, and paleo.
Even better, Green Chef does most of the prep work for you. You still put the final touches on every meal, but there’s no denying that their service is a little easier to take advantage of. As a result, seniors may find is a great choice, as well.
Key Benefits
- Six low-carb meals in every weekly plan
- All ingredients are organic/non-GMO and delivered fresh
- Their keto and paleo plans are appropriately low carb and great-tasting, to boot
- Prices range from $11 to $12 per serving
- Weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly deliveries
Home Chef
BEST LOW-CARB MEAL DELIVERY FOR FAMILIES
Home Chef kicks it up a notch in terms of quantity, providing enough food to feed up to eight people per meal – this is notable since most other meal plan subscriptions only go up to four people. They also let you customize your protein option for most of the recipes, which tend to be classic or staple American options.
Like Green Chef, they use great ingredients (though some organic stuff is a bit pricier). Still, their flexibility and normally-free shipping make them a great contender if you need lots of food from a meal plan.
Key Benefits
- Some packaging is reusable
- 4-6 low carb options each week
- Recipes are usually easy to make
- Plates can be customized with various food items
- All delivered fresh to be cooked within 15-40 minutes
Blue Apron
Blue Apron is perhaps the most well-known meal delivery service around, and for good reason; all their food tastes pretty good and the recipes are easy to follow despite being detailed. They let you choose between plans for two people or for a family, though their prices might be a bit high for some to stomach.
On the plus side, Blue Apron provides free shipping for their plans and lets you choose which day the week your box will arrive. They have a rotating menu selection, though the options are limited each week. This means that your variety comes over the long-term instead of over a single, month-long subscription period.
Key Benefits
- 3-5 low carb options
- Wine/additional items available for purchase
- Family options are a bit limited
- All delivered fresh between 20-40 minutes
- Online cookbook available for all recipes
Marley Spoon
Marley Spoon is another great low-carb meal plan option. They provide possibly the most interesting variety of recipes to choose from, which is a big deal if you’ve used meal plan services before and want something fresh. Many of their meals are twists on ordinary dishes rather than generic “meat-and-veg” offerings like you might get from other providers.
Furthermore, most of the recipes can be ready in less than 40 minutes. They’re pretty easy to throw together in a hurry, as a result.
Key Benefits
- 2-4 low carb options
- 22 recipe choices every week
- Shipping is not free
- All meals cooked within 6 steps
- Can be cooked under 30 minutes
Dinnerly
Dinnerly provides fast and affordable meal delivery for those who like to cook with both limited time and budget. To this end, the majority of their meal recipes only use between five and seven ingredients. Prep work is essentially nonexistent, although this does mean that some of their flavor variety is a bit weak in comparison to other subscription plans.
Still, there’s a lot to like if you want to partake in a low-carb meal option without breaking the bank.
Key Benefits
- Only a few low-carb options every week
- Digital recipe cards instead of paper
- Very affordable – the cheapest around
- Able to skip weeks easily
- 6 ingredients in every dish
Low-Carb Prepared Meals
While the above meal plan options are fantastic, you might be looking for something even more convenient but still healthy overall. Low carb prepared meal services use the same caliber of high quality and fresh ingredients for all of their meals, but they come in pre-portioned, ready-to-eat packages.
All you have to do is heat up the food and you’re set! This can be a great option if you have a very busy lifestyle and don’t have time to cook, or just don’t like to do so. These plans also make portion control even easier, as each individual package has only what’s allotted for a single meal.
Factor Meals
BEST PREPARED LOW-CARB DELIVERY SERVICE
Factor75 is the best low-carb prepared meal service we found. Each meal is focused on your nutrition above all else, and they let you choose between 4 and 18 meals in total every week. As a bonus, this provider gives you cheaper prices the more meals you order from them.
The majority of their meals make use of plant-based carbohydrate substitutes like zucchini noodles, spaghetti squash, or cauliflower rice. As a result, it’s also a great choice if you follow the keto diet.
Key Benefits
- 11-12 low carb meals
- Keto-diet friendly
- Easy to pause or cancel delivery
- Subscriptions include 20-minute nutrition coaching
- 4, 6, 8, 12, and 16-meal/week plans available
Trifecta Nutrition
Trifecta is another great organic meal delivery service, offering a wide variety of dishes that can serve plenty of diets like vegan, vegetarian, keto, or paleo. Seven meals minimum go into every box, and prices are pretty reasonable overall.
Shipping is generally fast, and all the meals are packaged neatly for storage purposes and so there aren’t any messes in transit. However, note that you don’t get to pick each meal option, so you’re somewhat limited to what they decide to give you every week.
Key Benefits
- All meals are low-carb
- Some meals taste too similar to one another
- No choice in plans – Meals chosen for you
- No gluten, dairy, or added sugar
- Includes free shipping/money-back guarantee
The Good Kitchen
The Good Kitchen focuses on providing you with sustainable and nutritious meals, so they source most of their ingredients from organic or grass-fed plants and animals, effectively. Portions are usually pretty small, and you can benefit from à la carte menu items if you want to customize what you get in your box.
Free shipping is another solid bonus. However, those who need a bit more to eat might find themselves hungry too often.
Key Benefits
- The Good Kitchen focuses on providing you with sustainable and nutritious meals, so they source most of their ingredients from organic or grass-fed plants and animals, effectively. Portions are usually pretty small, and you can benefit from à la carte menu items if you want to customize what you get in your box.
- Free shipping is another solid bonus. However, those who need a bit more to eat might find themselves hungry too often.
Pete’s Real Food
Pete’s Real Food, of course, also targets those following a paleo diet. All the meals are crafted from both organic and seasonal components, so you never get something out of season or rubbery tasting because of preservatives. This also means that the menu rotates weekly and seasonally, so you are unlikely to get bored with their options.
The flavor is pretty good across the board. For an added bonus, they offer a 21-day sugar detox program to help people get rid of their craving for processed sugar.
Key Benefits
- 20 planned or à la carte menu items that are low-carb + dairy and soy-free
- Great for those looking to simpler foods
- Great food and flavor variety
- Can skip weeks any time
- Shipping takes about 2-3 days
Paleo On The Go
Paleo on the Go is one of the best paleo delivery services around thanks to the fact that their entire menu works with dietary restrictions. They’re great for people who want to improve their gut health or who have various food sensitivities.
Menu rotation switches around frequently and, of course, all the ingredients are sourced from local and responsible origins. Their prices are a bit higher than average, however.
Key Benefits
- Entire menu is low carb
- Shipping is pretty quick but easy to stall
- Additional “express” shipping available for extra
- Accommodates a wide variety of diets
- Meal bundles available for quick bulk ordering
Buying Guide
We’ve talked about all three of the above terms a few times in this guide, but what are the differences?
In general, you’ll hear all three terms tossed around as the primary no-bread or bread-light diets that are currently being enjoyed or tested by millions of people. The diets aren’t new, but they’re seeing widespread approval and use thanks to the Internet and new nutritional information.
A “low carb” diet is a catchall term for any diet where you eat fewer than average carbohydrates every day. The “average” used by these diets is around 45 to 65 percent of your daily caloric intake. Put another way, a low carb diet is any diet where less than 45% of your energy comes from carbs.
Note that this means you can still enjoy some carbs every day and still maintain a low-carb diet.
A “Paleo” diet aims to have you eat like the Paleolithic ancestors of modern Homo sapiens. In a nutshell, humans during this time period were thought to have scavenged for their food instead of through hunting or agriculture.
That means any kind of cultivated food items (including wheat, many types of nutritious vegetables, many types of fruit, dairy, salt and sugars, and refined oils) are excluded from your menu. Paleo diets will instead have you eat things like fish, other types of seafood, grass-fed meat, eggs, fruits, and unrefined vegetable oils, in addition to nuts and seeds.
“Keto” diets are based around kicking your body into a “ketosis” state, which is a state characterized by your body burning fat for energy instead of carbs. The result?
Many people on keto diets have excellent results in terms of weight loss and report other beneficial side effects. Thus, these diets will have you eat zero processed carbs most of the time, focusing on protein and fat for your caloric intake needs.
Key Takeaways
Ultimately, all of these meal plans’ low-carb options make them great choices for people on keto and paleo diets. And, most of them don’t sacrifice flavor or convenience to make this happen.
Go with Green Chef’s Keto or Paleo plans if you enjoy cooking and don’t mind paying a bit more for organic ingredients. If you’re looking for a quick heat and eat solution, Factor75 delivers tasty low-carb meals already prepared.