EveryPlate Review
Cheaper & just as tasty as pricier meal kits.
Pros:
- Great price
- Delicious meals
Cons:
- No special dietary options
- No add-ons available
My Verdict:
I wanted to try EveryPlate as soon as I saw that it was at least $2 cheaper (per serving) than most of the other meals kits I’ve tried. But could it hold up, taste-wise? After trying five of their recipes for a week and loving every single one, I’m happy to see that EveryPlate doesn’t skimp on great-tasting food just to make things easier on your wallet. I don’t have any dietary restrictions to worry about, so I found EveryPlate to be a delicious choice that made dinnertime stress-free.
My Subscription Addiction paid for this box. (Check out the review process post to learn more about how we review boxes.)
About EveryPlate
Plans & Pricing
- 2 Serving Plan: 3, 4, or 5 meals per week (each serves 2) for $4.99 per serving ($29.94, $39.92, or $49.90 per week) + $8.99 shipping
- 4 Serving Plan: 3 meals per week (each serves 4) for $4.99 per serving ($59.88 per week) + $8.99 shipping
EveryPlate delivers to the vast majority of the continental USA, but you’ll want to enter your zip code at the checkout to make sure they deliver to you.
LaserShip handles the delivery in my area but your carrier may differ. Here are some tips:
- Depending on your area, EveryPlate delivers only on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays.
- If you want to have your meals delivered somewhere besides your home, the delivery window is usually 8am-8pm. Keep in mind that if you ship to your office and it’s closed when the carrier arrives, your package will be left outside overnight.
- Late deliveries aren’t always the norm, but it’s good to note that you can’t always count on eating one of the meals for dinner on the day of your delivery, because it may arrive late. My box should have been delivered by 8pm but showed up around 9:30pm instead.
- If there is something you need to relay to the delivery driver, you can use the generic “delivery instructions” dropdown menu during checkout. They offer prompts like “leave with doorman,” but you can also write a short message as well.
- EveryPlate boxes come equipped with 2 large ice packs to keep ingredients cold and fresh for 48 hours. Even if you arrive home late, the contents should stay cold well into the night.
EveryPlate offers instructions on what to do with their packaging:
- Boxes and separators are 100% curbside recyclable.
- Gel ice packs: Use scissors to cut a small corner off of the pack and empty gel contents into the trash before recycling.
- Box liners: Cut the top off the plastic film, dispose of the cotton interior, and recycle the film.
EveryPlate Recipes
EveryPlate is a simple meal kit subscription with recipes I find myself craving. While I don’t think they have the fanciest or most obscure ingredients, I found EveryPlate’s offerings to be classic and filling. They remind me a lot of the type of meals my Mom made for my brother and me while growing up in the midwest. Burgers, steak, or chicken with veggies, potatoes, and rice. Give me ALL OF THAT.
Each week, EveryPlate offers eight recipes to choose from, including one “premium” recipe that costs a little more. While they do have one or two vegetarian options each week, I haven’t noticed many fish dishes besides the occasional shrimp recipe. Chicken, beef, sausage, and pork seem to be the mainstays here.
Here are some examples of upcoming meals from EveryPlate:
- Honey-Glazed Pork Chops with Roasted Broccoli and Ranch-Seasoned Potatoes
- Chicken Sausage Orzo Pilaf with Roasted Garlic, Lemon, and Tomatoes
- Chimichurri Steak Bowls with Jasmine Rice and Pickled Jalapeño
- Ancho-Chili-Glazed Meatloaves with Zucchini and Brown Butter Mashed Sweet Potatoes
You can always drop in on their website and click the “Weekly Menu” link at the top to check out the next three weeks of recipes before signing up.
EveryPlate sends you all of the grains, bread, meat, and produce you’ll need to make your meals. They do expect you to have a few “staples” on hand though and their list is a little longer than what I’ve seen from Home Chef or Blue Apron.
The ingredients to have on hand:
- Preferred Oil (I use olive oil.)
- Salt
- Pepper
- Butter
- Sugar
- Milk
- Ketchup
- Hot Sauce
The tools to have on hand:
- Pots
- Pans
- Baking Sheet
- Knife
- Cutting Board
- Zester
- Peeler
- Potato Masher
- Whisk
- Strainer
- Aluminum Foil
Preferences & Allergens
To keep costs low, EveryPlate doesn’t offer any preferences or special diet recipes. You have eight meals to choose from with fixed ingredients each week. They include allergen information on the recipe detail pages of their website, as well as on information cards in your delivery. If you have allergies, they suggest checking out the ingredients before ordering.
My EveryPlate Review
Why EveryPlate?
I’ve tried a lot of different meal kits in my day, but they can be really pricey to get every week. Since EveryPlate is only $4.99/serving, I found the weekly deliveries to be lot easier on my pocketbook. EveryPlate doesn’t give you tons of options to accommodate dietary restrictions, but I don’t really need those features—I’m able to enjoy most foods. EveryPlate keeps things super simple when signing up, too. Sometimes not having to create a detailed profile or go through several prompts can make taking the plunge into meal kits that much easier.
Since I don’t live super close to a grocery store and my weeknights can get busy, having EveryPlate meals ready and waiting for me at home made me feel less anxious about preparing dinner. And I felt less guilty knowing nothing in my refrigerator would go to waste. (EveryPlate pre-portions its ingredients, so you only get as much as you’ll need for your weekly recipes.) Even though each meal has two servings, I was able to take leftovers to work for lunch (when I couldn’t convince someone to come have dinner with me).
Signing Up
Unlike meal kits that have a sea of options, EveryPlate makes signing up incredibly easy:
- Go to their website.
- Click on one of the buttons to either “Sign Up” or “Get Started”.
- Choose a plan.
- Enter your email address and create a password.
- Add your delivery address and choose a delivery day.
- Put in your payment info.
- Voila! You’re done!
My EveryPlate Menus
Once I signed up, EveryPlate randomly selected five meals for me.
A little further down the page, they offered three additional options, if I wanted to change it up. No matter how many meals you choose for your plan, EveryPlate offers eight recipes per week. I was able to change my meals by clicking the “Edit Meals” button.
Here’s where I landed for my five selections. Note that they also offer a “premium” meal each week that has a $2.99/serving upcharge (making it $6.99/serving). I couldn’t resist that Party Thyme Steak… I had to have it!
Skipping a Week
In addition to choosing your meals, you can always skip a week if you want. I find this to come in handy when I’m going out of town or know ahead of time that I have dinner plans out. Depending on your delivery day, you’ll have to skip several days ahead, so I find it’s best to set a reminder weekly to login and make changes.
My Meals
I was really hungry when I signed up for EveryPlate and so many of the week’s recipes looked good… So I decided to go for the maximum of five meals with the two serving plan. I’m a single gal, and my roommate is away, but I thought I’d invite friends over for dinner or simply take leftovers for lunch to work the next day. My plan worked out great! It took me a little over a week to make all five meals since I tend to have dinner plans out a couple of times a week, but even the last recipe tasted as fresh as the first.
(Swipe right on each picture to see photos of the cooking process!)
My experience with EveryPlate so far has been great! I’ve been using the service for around 6 weeks. While I have to agree with some of the other reviews stating that the flavor profiles can tend to be similar, this is obviously a trade-off in terms of pricing. When I began to notice this, I simply changed up my options – I had been choosing mostly rice-based meals, and by expanding my horizons a bit I got a lot more variety!
Shipments have been timely, and I haven’t experienced any problems with temperature – which is saying something, since I live in Arizona and my delivery generally arrives 2-3 hours before I get home. The packages are insulated well enough that the food survives that long in the Arizona summer sun!
One of my only complaints is that there are generally only 2 vegetarian options each week. I usually don’t prepare meat (not vegetarian, just don’t like dealing with meat and try to minimize my environmental impact). Had it not been for COVID-19, I probably wouldn’t have tried this service because of this one shortcoming. The addition of just one more veggie meal each week, or even the option to customize other meals to exclude the meat in favor of a veggie protein, would make this a lot more appealing in the long run.
It was good at first, but then I started to notice that the veggies were either flimsy or getting old by the time I received them. I let it slide, but then two packed chicken meat busted two separate times and the ants were all over my box. Finally, this last box there was black liquid at the bottom of the meat and I cancelled my acct today. I liked the idea of the service and it was good the first 2 weeks, but the quality went down fast. I wouldn’t recommend them.
Where can I find out what kind of meat they send in the meal list. Is it organic? Or which company uses organic meat?
Thanks
I was wondering the same thing, is the meat organic and where does it come from. Does anyone know?
Just got our first (and LAST!) delivery. Box was warm, soaking wet inside, missing items. Went straight to the trash. Some stuff like whole onions probably OK, but no idea what’s in the cold packs which is what i assumed made everything inside the box wet. Tried to contact EveryPlate through their website chat and got no response. Tried to call and after being on hold 20 min or so, gave up on that. Initiated chargeback through credit card company – tried to give EveryPlate opportunity to make it right, but can’t contact them and not going to wait around forever for them to answer a phone. Emails just bounce……
MY RECOMMENDATION IS: AVOID!!!!! Maybe my order was just a fluke and 99.99% of the time they’re perfect? No idea, but I feel ripped off and very irritated there is no way to contact them in a reasonable amount of time.
Similar story. Ripped off. No delivery. No way to contact them. Had to dispute the charge.
HORRIBLE! I was scheduled to receive my order on Wednesday and when I didn’t, I tracked the package, and the delivery date was changed to Thursday (with no notification). The order arrived late in the day and EVERYTHING was HOT. Both packages of cheese were even melted! Given this, I would never consider consuming any of the meat. I contacted customer service, was on hold for 37 minutes, and was disconnected. I called back, and am now on hold for what is 53 minutes with no answer. My daughter’s delivery was also scheduled for Wednesday and she has not yet received her’s as of today (Thursday). BUYER BEWARE!!!!
I just tried Everyplate and I have to say I was disappointed. Here are my reasons for not liking the service:
1) At $4.99 per serving, the meals were inexpensive compared to other meal delivery services, but as they say, you get what you pay for. The menu choices contained lots of cheap potatoes, rice, and chicken. Most recipes containing beef (except a few with ground beef) or seafood cost extra. It seemed like I would quickly bore of eating these same ingredients every night.
1) No time savings – The ingredients still needed to be chopped, peeled, washed, measured, etc. I still had to wash pots and pans afterwards. In addition, I had to open individually wrapped packages of rice, sauces, and other condiments. Doesn’t seem like a big deal, but the time to open all those little packages adds up. Since so many grocery stores deliver nowadays, having the ingredients delivered to my door really was not a time saver.
Actually, since the recipes were much more complex than what I usually cook (although in my opinion tasted no better), I ended up spending more time preparing meals.
2) Cost more than shopping myself – Everyplate is cheaper than the other meal kits, but still the cost for the meals is considerably more than if I had shopped myself at my local store. And like I said above, since the local stores deliver, it really was not worth paying a premium for the service.
3) Subpar Meats – In my opinion, the meats delivered by Everyplate were subpar compared to what I usually buy. For example, I eat a lot of pork. I usually pay $2.88 a pound on sale and $3.99 a pound when not on sale for boneless pork chops. $5 or $6 bucks buys a pack of 4 big, thick chops trimmed of excess fat. Each chop is large enough to feed 2 people. Compare this to the thin, fatty sorry-looking boneless pork chops that Everyplate sent me. There is no comparison! Same with the chicken breasts. Thin, fatty, and nothing like the plump breasts that I buy at the store.
Many of my complaints about Everyplate would be the same with any of the other meal kit services, so I guess my real problem is that I just don’t see the point of these services…paying a premium to have individual ingredients delivered to my door but still having to do just as much work as if I bought them at the supermarket. I guess I just expected the ingredients to come already prepped (i.e. chopped, peeled, etc.).
Compared to other recipe boxes, every plate has a lot of comparatively cheap ingredients — onions, garlic, potatoes, rice, etc. There also isn’t a ton of variety (again, thats the company trying to keep costs down while offering sufficient weekly choices). Some recipes — like the ground pork sandwiches — don’t even have a real vegetable side. Other recipe services might have shipped something low cost like cabbage for coleslaw with that mean, but every plate didn’t even do that!
If price is the #1 decider, then it is the cheapest… but it doesn’t seem very healthy. Marley Spoon is perhaps a little healthier and has vegetarian options, but they mess something up (forget something) at least 1/3 or 1/2 of the time. Purple Carrot and Sun Basket are great for vegetarians but a significantly more expensive.
EveryPlate SUCKS!! WE have been with Home Chef for two years…ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT! Based the price we decided to try every plate. We just got our first box. All three meals are tossed into one box looking like a two year old threw a fit. Then after sorting out the box, we found we were MISSING the most expensive item; steak for ponzu steak bowls. After chatting with them they tell me they will credit my next box. They dont tell me how I will eat ponzu steak bowls without steak. I tell them this wont work, I am cancelling this crap so I need a REAL CREDIT back on my card. They tell me they cant give me credit but will cancel my account. So I got three meals…missing the main ingredient of one and their only option is to give me credit on the next box??? WHAT CRAP!! The food is inferior, the organization is non existent, and their service sucks!! DONT BUY THIS SERVICE!!
I agree with you, Steve! The ingredients looked like a child just threw everything in the box, willy-nelly! I had to go through & separate all of the ingredients for each recipe. I know, how hard can that be? I’m spoiled because I have been getting Hello Fresh for sometime now & they put each recipe together for you. I just wanted to see what the competitors offered. I see why Every Plate is so cheap, Hello Fresh isn’t expensive either. I canceled right after I received my first box & am happy with Hello Fresh & won’t be trying out other home delivery meals.
I have been getting this for five or six weeks now, and just had a meal tonight. Once again it was delicious. I get the three meal plan, and with shipping it is 6.49 a meal with no premiums. I have gone to getting it basically every other week to reduce the sameness factor. There is a lot of similarity in their sides and even the entrees, just with different sauces. I make sure I don’t order unless there are three meals I really want to get. I haven’t gotten any duplicates yet, though I am starting to see a few repeats in the upcoming weeks. At 6.50 it makes me feel good about the price and about not running out to get fast food that would cost as much or more. This is not a diet subscription, but it does have good portion control. I have only been tempted by flavor to eat more than one serving, but have never done it.
Thanks for sharing, Tammy! It’s good to hear from people who have been subscribed for a little while. 🙂
I’m interested in trying week Oct 12-18, do I have to wait to sign up to select that week. I during checkout it doesn’t let me select that far into the future, can you change after?
Hi Rachael!
You will probably just have to wait a couple of weeks before signing up. I’m not 100% sure if you can skip your first week since my assumption is that it charges you as soon as you sign up. Best case is to reach out to customer care and they’ll be able to give you a day you will need to sign up by to get that week!
I ordered with the half off code and am really excited to try. Seems a lot less expensive than competitors. Thanks MSA!!!
Half off is hard to beat to try something, right?? Hope you like it!!
Yes, these meals are very repetitive. If I a am going to spend the extra money on this, I do not want the same offerings again and again. Too many dishes with various types of hot peppers in the sauce or the meal itself!
So I have got this subscription ALOT only problem is my ten year old is what’s this um what’s that. She just can’t with the weird stuff wish they had more friendly options. Anyone remember the bacon Mac n cheese mmmmmm
I’d like to see a comparison of this with Dinnerly.
Hey Alison,
That is a good call out since Dinnerly is the only other meal kit I can think of with a similarly low price point. Though it may be slightly out of date, I did review Dinnerly 2 years ago in August of 2017! Check it out here: https://www.mysubscriptionaddiction.com/2017/08/dinnerly-meal-kit-subscription-box-review-august-2017.html
(I’ll see about checking that info to make sure it’s up-to-date in the near future.)
Why is shipping cost not added to the coast of each serving?
That’s a good point, Sim. I didn’t really do a value breakdown here. Since I got 2 servings and 5 recipes (one of mine was premium which added a total of $5.98 @ $2.99/serving), the total would be $55.88 + $8.99 flat shipping which makes the total $64.87 (and each serving $6.49). If I hadn’t chosen a premium meal, it would’ve been $5.89 per serving with the shipping cost figured in. This was my first box, so I got a 50% discount on the meal cost.
Since shipping is always $8.99 flat, the final cost per serving will vary depending on the plan and meals you choose.
If your question was more “why the company doesn’t just build the shipping cost into the per-serving cost?”, that seems to be a question as old as time. I’m sure there are many variables/reasons companies don’t do so. Having it this way behooves you to order more servings/meals since it would make the final cost per serving cheaper, so that may be one reason.
Hi Marne
Sorry for asking late but if you don’t mind could you tell if they have vegetarian options?
Thanks 😊
They do have vegetarian offerings.
Unfortunately although they do have one veggie offering each week, they don’t allow you to get multiple copies of the same recipe to reach your servings. So if you have a 6 serving plan, you have to get 2 servings of three different recipes, and there aren’t three veggie recipes ever. This inability to double up on recipes is the only complaint I have about them. I order from them and dinnerly every week, no longer eat out, and somehow also save money on groceries because I no longer buy the convenience groceries I used to get instead of actually cooking meals. It’s a life saver! But I can’t recommend to my many vegetarian friends 🙁 and even I would order more if I could double up on favorite recipes that my son will eat.
I don’t know if it’s changed since you posted this, but you definitely can get the same recipe more than once now. This past week I got my whole box as one recipe because I love it so much.
Hey Natasha!
Kimberly beat me to it but as she said, they only have 1 veggie option per week so it’s not ideal for vegetarians, unfortunately. You’d get stuck with 2 meat selections every week even if you subscribed to the minimum amount of meals.
I love every plate! I will say the recipes are repetitive. But if your main reason for meal delivery is convenience, it’s the way to go!
It does suck they don’t have dietary plans but it makes absolute sense for the cost. I’ve tried other more expensive boxes and this one was one of the best. Marley Spoon ALWAYS FORGOT items and sent moldy items.
Thanks for weighing in, Robyn! It’s good to know that it may get repetitive over time since I only had used it for a week when writing this. I do look fwd to my upcoming meals though!
We like every plate, but don’t do it too often because they tend to be pretty high carb (in my opinion) compared to other boxes (lots of potatoes and rice).
My family loves Every Plate!