If you’re looking for a great best deal on meal kit delivery, Blue Apron has one of the best offers for September. There is no shortage of excellent meal kits and prepared meal delivery services for every type of budding home chef or busy person from vegan and vegetarian meal kits to budget-friendly services and even meal subscriptions geared toward a low-carb, keto or paleo lifestyle. And you can try all of them for cheap if you take advantage of the best meal delivery deals for September.
Most meal kit services, including Blue Apron, EveryPlate and Sunbasket, will let you try their food for a major discount, while others run promotions to entice new and existing customers to order boxes of meals. I’ve rounded up the best meal delivery deals for September in case you’ve been tempted to try one.
Read more: Buying Groceries Online vs. In-Store: Which Is Cheaper
What are the best meal delivery deals right now?
This all depends on what you’re looking for. If it’s the lowest possible cost, EveryPlate and Gobble will send meal kits that are ready to cook with some clocking in under $2 a serving when you sign up. Blue Apron is turning 10 and celebrating by giving new customers an eye-popping $210 in total savings. Other popular prepared meal services such as Splendid Spoon, Freshly and RealEats are ready to send premade, ready-to-eat dinners to your doorstep, at per-serving prices that are far cheaper than takeout.
Read more: Want to Try Every Meal Kit for Cheap? Here’s How
Blue Apron
Blue Apron is turning 10 years old, and the brand is celebrating with the best signup offer I’ve ever seen from the original meal kit service.
The service already has affordable meal kits, with plans starting at $8 a serving. But sign up between now and Sept. 11 and you’ll get a whopping $110 off across six orders and free shipping on the first box. Order before Sept. 23 and you’ll get an extra $100 gift card to spend on more meal kits or Blue Apron’s new prepared meals.
That’s a grand total of $210 in savings and about the best meal delivery deal you’re likely to find anywhere.
Thrive Market
Thrive Market is less of a meal kit or prepared meal service and more of a specialty online market with excellent snacks, pantry staples, beauty supplies, pet food and loads more. Thrive has a $5 monthly membership fee but if you have a taste for high-end groceries or seek organic foods, you won’t likely find them cheaper than on Thrive. Plus, Thrive Market will price match anything you do find cheaper at another retailer.
Order from Thrive Market in September and you’ll get 30% off your first shipment of groceries.
Fresh N Lean
This isn’t the biggest sign-up offer we’ve ever seen, but it is for one of the best meal delivery services we’ve tried. Fresh N Lean is healthy, tasty and won’t break the bank, with some meal plans clocking in at around $9 a serving.
Sign up now for any plan and Fresh N Lean will knock $20 off the tab. Read my full review of Fresh N Lean here.
EveryPlate
EveryPlate is already our pick as the best meal-kit service for families on a budget, but it’s bordering on ridiculously cheap when you give it a try in August. You can score EveryPlate’s already cheap meal kits for just $1.49 per serving for your first delivery.
You won’t see a lot of haute cuisine, but I’ve tried its pork sloppy joes and its chicken and linguine in a tomato cream sauce. All the meals I tried were delicious, easy to prepare, and light on the wallet. Read our EveryPlate review.
Sunbasket
Over the past year, we’ve tried just about every meal kit service there is and one of them outpaced the rest of the field as our clear favorite. Sunbasket recipes were the most consistently delicious, interesting and fresh-tasting, landing it the No. 1 spot on our best meal kits of 2022 ranking.
If you’ve never tried Sunbasket, we’ve got an exclusive offer that’s too good to pass up. Sunbasket meals usually break down to about $13 per serving depending on your plan. If you’re trying it for the first time, you’ll save $100 across your first four deliveries, plus free shipping and four free gifts. Read our Sunbasket review.
Freshly
Freshly is one of the most consistent prepared meal delivery services we’ve tried. The meal subscription service offers a wide range of recipes from comfort classics to lean and healthy meals. They all arrive fresh, ready to be eaten or stored in the fridge for the next time you need a quick lunch or dinner but have no time to cook.
Right now, CNET readers can score $25 off each of their first five orders with promo code CNET25. That’s $125 in total savings if you go for all five boxes. But there’s no commitment and you can give Freshly a try (with the discount) and pause or cancel after the first week if it’s not for you.
ButcherBox
OK, so ButcherBox isn’t exactly a meal delivery service, but you can certainly make some excellent meals with what this online butcher service sends in its monthly boxes. ButcherBox is an online meat subscription service specializing in Australian grass-fed beef. But you can also have heritage pork and organic chicken in your monthly box depending on the subscription you pick.
Monthly shipments of 8 to 11 pounds of meat start at $137 but If you sign up now, ButcherBox will include two pounds of free-range, organic chicken breasts at no charge in every order for a year.
RealEats
If you’re ready for simple, prepared meals at a big bargain, Real Eats has one of the best offers going this month. I tried the meal service and thought most meals were prepared well, fresh and flavorful. While Fresh N Lean (deal above) is still my top pick for prepared meals, RealEats is another solid pick.
Sign up before Oct. 15 and you’ll get 15% off your first five boxes of meals. Pause or cancel anytime.
HelloFresh
HelloFresh has more total meal-kit selections than any other service and most of them are pretty easy to prepare. You can check out my deep-dive review of HelloFresh to learn more about the easy meal delivery service.
HelloFresh is offering a major sign-up offer but it requires a commitment of seven weeks. Order seven weeks of meals and HelloFresh will give you 16 meals for free over the course of the promotional trial.
Brandy Yowell
Gobble is quite similar to the other services, except that many items come already chopped, peeled, marinated and so on — which can definitely save you some prep time. The two meals I received, Yankee pot roast and cacio e pepe, were terrific. Dinner prices are normally a flat $12 per serving, however, so you do pay a bit extra for that convenience.
Gobble will send your first six easy meal kits for $36 total. That’s about as cheap as you’ll find high-end meal kits anywhere. For more, read our Gobble review.
Splendid Spoon specializes in deliveries of quick smoothies, soups, rice bowls and other smaller noshes that are great for breakfast and lunch. Some work well for dinner too, but I like this service better for those first two meals of the day. The meal delivery service has some interesting recipes along with classics, so there’s a little something for everyone.
If you want to give Splendid Spoon a try, you’ll get $35 off each of your first three boxes. Read our Splendid Spoon review.
Hungryroot
While it’s not a traditional meal kit or meal delivery service, Hungryroot melds artificial intelligence and healthy groceries to send a curated heap (based on your preferences) of high-quality groceries, snacks and proteins for quick meals — or more intricate meal-making. This is a good option if you like cooking and are looking for some healthy kitchen inspiration, but find meal kits too restrictive. Like, maybe you just don’t want tilapia tacos with lime crema tonight.
Hungryroot is offering new customers 30% off to try the service and a free gift in every delivery for life. If you’re hoping to try it out, know you can pause or cancel the service anytime. Even if you pause and reactivate, your free gift remains intact. Read my full review of Hungryroot here.
Home Chef
I tested Home Chef last year and loved its highly customizable meal kits and comfort-food recipes with a healthy bent, all of which were easy to prepare. Home Chef is also one of the more affordable meal-kit companies, starting at $7 per serving, and is even more so if you sign up using this offer.
For new subscribers, Home Chef is offering $110 off when you sign up for four boxes of meals. The savings are spread out over four deliveries — $30 off the first two and $25 off the next two. If you’ve been wanting to try a meal-kit subscription, Home Chef makes it easy (and cheap). You can pause or cancel anytime, so the risk is low. Read our Home Chef review.
So which meal delivery service is the best?
I’ve tried most of them and they’re all pretty solid, with differences to consider depending on your budget, diet, taste and kitchen skill level. You can check out CNET’s roundups of the best meal-kit delivery services and best healthy food delivery services for a more detailed, er, taste. And remember, nearly all of these meal-kit companies let you pause or cancel anytime, so the risk and commitment when signing up for a meal-kit service is minimal.
Whether you’re looking for ways to eat healthily, learn to cook new recipes or just make fewer trips to the grocery store this winter, a healthy, versatile and budget-friendly meal delivery deal can help you do it on the cheap.
These offers were valid at the time of publication, but they can end at any time and may be restricted by geography and other cookie-based conditions in your browser. If you don’t see a deal populate, try in a new window or private browser. In the meantime, if you’ve already tried one or more of these, tell me which ones and what you liked or didn’t like.
My advice: Take advantage of each and every one of these offers (making sure to pause or cancel after, unless you want to continue). You can see which service you like best and get super cheap takeout-style meals for weeks at a time.
Do meal kit sign-up deals have commitments?
Nope. Virtually all of them allow you to pause or cancel any time just in case you don’t love it, so there’s almost no risk after the deal is up. Although you may have to unsubscribe from their email blasts. The point is, most brands just want you to try out the meals and see if you dig them and those brands are willing to make it very easy (and cheap) to do that. To make things easier, we already tried the top meal kits and meal delivery services so you’ll know exactly what to expect and you can pick the best food delivery deal for you and your tastes.
