Which ready meals

You may be wondering how these differ from the standard meal kit delivery service s. While the meal-kit revolution, which led to household names like Blue Apron and HelloFresh, was all about providing you with the basic ingredients and instructions on how to pull together a delicious meal, you may not have the time or patience to do all that cooking.

Oven-ready meal kits are just that: A fresh meal ready to be assembled and cooked without any complicated recipes or tiresome prep. Read more: Best cheap meal delivery services in These "oven-ready" meal delivery plans, which fall somewhere between a classic meal kit and meal delivery, are uncooked but preassembled to be thrown together to be baked, roaster, stir-fried or dropped into the slow cooker with no major prep required for a healthy, fresh-cooked meal.

Think simple dishes like roasted chicken breast with precut vegetables and a flavorful sauce. Home Chef even provides the cooking tray in many of its meal kits so there is exactly zero cleaning to do after.

Just a reminder: While many of the meal plan services we sorted through are fully prepared, the meal-kit services like Home Chef and Gobble are not yet cooked , so know you'll still be turning on the oven.

Please don't eat any raw chicken. Having tried offerings from every company on this list and many more , I've determined the best prepared meal service for each type of diner from vegans to those seeking a more restaurant-quality experience. Luckily there's a meal delivery service geared to almost every person, with budgets ranging from the affordable to the total splurge. As you'll read, some of these meal delivery services and meal kits are centered on a particular concept.

Home Chef, for instance, has simple meal kits down to a science with fresh ingredients and recipes that are already prepped and ready to be cooked in as little as 15 minutes.

Other operations such as Veestro specialize in premade or prepared vegetarian and vegan meals for those going meatless or dairy-free but still looking for an alternative to cooking.

I'll concede, there's still nothing quite like a home-cooked meal, but some of these simple and affordable services just might be the thing to lighten your cooking load and cut down on trips to the market this fall and winter. Read more: Best seafood delivery services in After bravely testing the most popular services available in , we settled on this list of the absolute best prepared meal delivery services your money can buy. Having tested all of the leading prepared meal delivery service options, Fresh n' Lean ran away from the competition, ticking more boxes than any other.

The food is healthy, thoughtfully prepared, tastes fantastic, looks appetizing and is fairly affordable depending on the plan you select.

Fresh n' Lean has five meal plans to help keep folks on track with their specific nutrition goals including low-carb, vegan, paleo and protein plus options.

The food I tried was all made exceptionally well, made from simple, whole ingredients. Save for one dry chicken breast, everything I had was at least good, and most better than good, with some meals even bordering on restaurant-quality.

My favorite was a tender braised beef with vegetables and coconut-cilantro sauce. Pricing : Price per meal varies greatly depending on the plan you select as well as the number of meals per week. It's not the cheapest, but not the most expensive either and totally worth the extra few bucks, in my opinion.

Home Chef is a popular meal delivery company and recently launched a line of oven-ready meals like cajun chicken with rice and beans, meant to take nearly all the work out of dinner but still delivering home-cooked food, technically speaking.

Plus this meal delivery service offers grill-ready meals for summer, minute entree salads for those craving lighter fare or slow cooker meals that likewise require very minimal preparation and cleanup.

This new category from Home Chef is designed to be low technical skill and is a good option if you're wanting a home-cooked meal delivery plan but not interested in enlisting at a culinary institute to make a delicious meal happen. But you can choose as few as six servings and as many as 12 and will save slightly more with a larger order. Read our Home Chef review. Pete's won me over in a week-long taste test, notching its place as one of the best healthy, organic meal delivery services I've yet to try.

While it's not the cheapest service we've tried, it is actually cheaper than other meal services that use organic ingredients and quality meats and was better than most of them. The Pete's Paleo meals I had were all well-prepared: meats were tender, vegetables mostly cooked to proper doneness and all the flavors worked.

The food wasn't overly seasoned and the recipes were mild and maybe even on the safe side -- but that's nothing a few shakes of hot sauce can't fix. If you're in training or keeping to a paleo plan and looking for lots of protein, healthy fats and nutrient-filled carbs such as sweet potatoes and beets, Pete's Paleo should hit the spot.

Pete's has lots of ordering options and the meals are made to freeze so if you don't want to subscribe, you can keep an inventory on hand for those moments you need a quick fix. Read my full review of Pete's Paleo here. I sampled about nine of Mosaic Food's plant-based prepared meal offerings and the vegetarian prepared meal delivery service had an astoundingly high hit rate. Mosaic uses big and interesting global flavors and employs creative use of meat substitutes such as tofu, jackfruit, cauliflower and vegan sausages to create tasty and satisfying vegetarian meals -- even for this omnivore.

There are some vegan meals, but many of them use dairy products, so vegans must choose their Mosaic meals more carefully. While everything I had from Mosaic was at least good, some standouts included the bean and jackfruit chili, tomato olive and feta ragout and a tangy Thai noodle dish.

All the food arrives frozen but still tastes surprisingly fresh upon defrosting and eating. Mosaic meals are also simple to order from with a clear, concise website and no overly complicated plans.

You can change the meals, pause or cancel your subscription at any time. Mosaic recently added family meals too meant for three or four people. You can read my full review of the plant-based meal delivery service here.

Vegan meal offerings from Veestro include dishes like tofu with red curry sauce, carrot osso buco and country-fried chick'n. Veestro uses more meat alternatives than say a Mosaic or Purple Carrot in the meals, so if you like seitan, tempeh, Impossible Beef and other faux meats this is a good meal delivery service to check out. The carnivore in me has to admit that many of the vegetarian options and plant-based meals I tried from Veestro were as satisfying as the food I'm used to.

I would suggest this meal plan for anyone trying to cut back on meat but not going full-fledged vegetarian, as much of the food is designed to replicate a carnivore's diet and makes for a soft landing. Daily Harvest launched in with an army of frozen and ready-to-blend smoothies, premade soups and hearty grain bowls to keep stocked in the freezer. Some of the bowls and soups could pass as dinner, but I like these best for a quick lunch or breakfast.

Depending on the specific meal, you either drop it into a saucepan or skillet to heat and eat. Or add nut milk and blend it up, for Daily Harvest's protein-packed smoothies, oat bowls and lattes. This is a completely plant-based meal delivery service and is great if you want to simplify your week and keep meals healthy. Daily Harvest uses lots of ancient grains, oats and trendy superfoods like chia, avocado and kabocha squash in its recipes, which are satisfying and mostly well-balanced in flavor.

But although they might be convenient, do they also provide the nutrients your body needs to live well? Whether you know them as microwave meals, frozen meals, convenience meals or TV dinners, there are lots of reasons why you might opt for a ready meal over a home-cooked one.

One study analysed UK supermarket ready meals and found not even one fully complied with nutritional guidelines set by the World Health Organization. Ready meals are often high in salt and fat and low in other nutrients.

Eating foods high in calories often may cause you to gain weight, while eating too much salt could increase your blood pressure. These may be lower in calories, fat, salt and sugar, but are also still low in other important nutrients.

Lots of supermarkets also have a luxury or premium range of their own-brand ready meals. The traffic light labelling found on the front of some food packaging can help you to compare the nutritional content of different ready meals and guide you to make a healthier choice.

This lists the amount of calories, fat, salt and sugar in the food and categorises these as either red, amber or green depending on whether the level is high, medium or low. Opt for as many green categories as possible where you can. So if fat, salt and sugar are listed high up, this means that the product is made up mostly of these ingredients. For example, the label may display calories per g, but the product might weigh g. One of the easiest ways to make any meal healthier is to add at least one portion of fresh vegetables or salad to your meal.

So this is a great way to boost the nutritional content of a ready meal. Boil some veg like broccoli while you wait for your meal to cook, or keep frozen peas, sweetcorn and spinach on hand in the freezer.

You could also try buying a portion of fresh fruit to have for dessert. Cooking a healthy meal may take less time than you think - try my delicious vegetable pasta recipe below to help you get started. Note: This delicious and simple dish can count as over two servings of your five-a-day.

Do you know how healthy you truly are? Really not bad at all. I'd like the meat pieces to be slightly bigger, but it's a great mix of ingredients and good colours.

Very nice. The meat is dry, but the spices are good. I like the idea and the almonds taste lovely. Not particularly offensive and not particularly nice, but it looks appealing and I like the crust. The sauce is creamy and the tarragon is coming through nicely, but the chicken is dry. Manna organic beef braised in red wine g, pounds 4. Nice balance of ingredients - good cut of meat and it tastes like it's been cooked with care. Graig Farm organic beef casserole g, pounds 5. Looks and tastes nice and homemade.

Made well with good ingredients - and you can taste them all. Patchwork beef in Offa's Dyke ale with chestnut mushrooms g, pounds 7. I like the fact they've left the skin on and they get points for using trout.

Would be good with a green salad. It's certainly creamy!