Can you try batch cooking methods and use your freezer more?

I ended up with the neighbor's meal kit when he was on vacation. There was way too much sodium and the recipe card said 50 minutes preparation, so it doesn't save much time either. There was a bag of shrimp that smelled so bad that I threw it out immediately.

Some of the companies you named provide ingredients and a recipe that you have to cook. I liked hello fresh and blue apron years ago when I was childfree, but when I had my second baby last month I was looking for prepared meals I could simply reheat.

In the past 3 months, I’ve tried vegetable and butcher, mighty meals, and cook unity for 3 weeks each. V&B would be my favorite if I were vegan because it’s very healthy with lots of veggies, is delivered every 2 days so it’s very fresh, and everything tastes great. But I’m pescatarian and would like a fish option or at least real cheese. Considering how tasty the vegan option is, I’d guess the meat option is good too, so you may like it if you’re fine with vegan cheese. They have a weekly menu which is good because it’s always changing and you don’t have to spend time making selections. It’s bad, though, if you have a gassy baby like mine and would need to substitute all meals with kale, etc. You can only substitute from the other meals available in the next couple days, so it can be repetitive.

Mighty meals is my least favorite. It’s less vegetable-heavy than VB, there’s isn’t much variety. and the flavors are kind of boring. DH eats meat and he wasn’t that impressed with their meat options either. If food safety is your main concern, though, id go with MM. It mattered to me when I was pregnant and concerned about listeria. Their website has info about the extra steps they take for food safety, and it’s cooked in the DMV. VB is too. Cook Unity is cooked in NYC.

Cook Unity is my favorite. It’s not as vegetable heavy as I’d like, but most of the meals are tasty. Some like the lentil shepherds pie and arepas, are fantastic.

All 3 of these companies run intro deals, so you can try them out like I did at a discount to see which you like best. MM isn’t a subscription service, you just order when you want. The others are subscription based.

I have done vegetable + butcher on and off (when I need a break and also want to eat healthy) over the last year or so.

The upside is that it's fresh food that tastes surprisingly good and just needs to be heated. Also there is very little waste (and they will take the dishes back to be composted).

My only hesitation is that it's a lot of curry-adjacent dishes and salads (which start to blend into each after a couple weeks) and I am not sure if you have two younger kids how happy they would be with the menu (but you can check the menu online if you want). Also the portion sizes are not tiny but not huge (which could be a pro or a con).

We did Sun Basket for the past couple of years. Overall decent, but did become a bit repetitive and we did feel that the menu options have gone down some this past year.

We also did HelloFresh for a while. Meals were okay but a bit boring and starch heavy. Definitely preferred Sun Basket menu options.

If you're going for time saving, forget Blue Apron. When we did it several years ago, great fresh food, but the cook time was long - nothing under 45 minutes and most longer, despite what the menu card said.

We used Hello Fresh for years but the quality and customer service really went downhill about 6-8 months ago. We tried Factor and thought it was...not good. Switched to Home Chef a few months ago and while the quality is not as bad as Hello Fresh was towards the end, it's not exactly great either. Meals have generally been decent and we like that we can choose express options to speed the dinner process up. Currently undecided whether we will utilize long term which I know isn't exactly a ringing endorsement but is an accurate representation of Home Chef.

We liked Green Chef as it seems like less prep work than some of the others listed above. We use a local service similar to Eat Clean Bro (not local to DC) where the food is more “microwave meal” style rather than a meal kit, but is all fresh and local foods.

With kid #3 on the way, time is scarce and we're thinking of getting one of those meal delivery services. But there are like a million of them -- Hello Fresh, Hungry Root, Home Chef, Blue Apron, Phresh Gourmet, Daily Harvest, Mighty Meals... Any recommendations? There are no dietary restrictions in our family, and the main things I'd want are for the service to hopefully save time, save money, taste good, and be healthy.