Before I became a mother a year and half ago, mealtime mostly meant assembling “girl dinners” or overspending on Postmates. As a result, I was unprepared for the sheer logistical load of feeding a family every day: the planning, the shopping, the cooking, the cleaning. It’s a lot.
And because I came into motherhood with so little kitchen experience, my learning curve has been expensive. Trying new, often overly ambitious recipes my son won’t eat—and therefore I’ll never make again—means wasted food, time, and energy, all of which ultimately amount to lighting cash (and my sanity) on fire.
So when I learned about EveryPlate, the meal kit marketed as the most affordable on the market, I was intrigued. The premise is appealing: $6.99-per-serving meals that are straightforward and simple to prepare. But I was also skeptical. Could any meal kit actually be cheaper than shopping for groceries the old-fashioned way? I decided to find out.
My experience with EveryPlate
When you sign up for EveryPlate, it’s immediately clear that this is a meal kit built for cost control, not culinary theater. Recipes are familiar, streamlined, and built from a small number of components, which helps keep prices lower than most competitors. EveryPlate’s meals start at just under $7 per serving—lower than the typical price range for many other meal kits, which often land closer to $8–$12 per serving. The weekly menu offers roughly 30 rotating options that sit squarely in weeknight-dinner territory: chicken and vegetables, pastas, skillet meals, burgers, and stir-fries.
Steak and seafood do appear on the menu, but usually come with a small upcharge. And while some vegetarian meals are available each week, the service isn’t designed to cater to specific diets; there are no keto, vegan, gluten-free, or allergen-tailored plans. That said, there’s some flexibility: You can swap sides (for example, potatoes for green beans) in your chosen meals, and sometimes proteins too.
After placing my order, the box arrived with pre-portioned ingredients and printed recipe cards. Ingredients aren’t bundled by meal but rather thrown into the box unsorted, which requires a bit of organizing before you start prepping but results in significantly less packaging waste. Another way EveryPlate keeps costs down is by assuming you have basic kitchen staples on hand—like oil, butter, salt, pepper, and the occasional egg or splash of milk—so those ingredients are not included in your delivery.
To see if EveryPlate is, in fact, less expensive than ingredient-shopping, I ordered three meals from the brand (each meant to serve four people) and then shopped the same recipes at my local Ralph’s to compare costs. For each meal, I tracked what it would cost to buy every ingredient new as well as what I’d actually spend accounting for pantry staples I already owned, like honey or chicken stock.
