Is Purple Carrot Worth It? I Reviewed the Vegan Meal Kit Service

Whether you’re too busy to be bothered with grocery shopping or could just use a little extra inspiration when planning your weekly menu (it’s me, hi), a meal kit is an excellent tool for taking the guesswork out of cooking. It becomes even more clutch when you’re following a plant-based or vegan diet and need to put a little more effort into making sure your dishes check off all your nutritional needs.

Enter Purple Carrot, a food delivery service that offers meal kits, ready-to-eat options, and even a grocery-ordering service that makes it easy to shop for vegan pantry items (talk about full service). To find out if it’s worth it in terms of taste, time, and price, I tested Purple Carrot for a week. Here’s how it went and what you need to know if you’re considering trying it too.

For our review, we followed SELF’s meal kit buying guide, which was created using dietitian recommendations. Below, you can learn how Purple Carrot works and find out our thoughts on the service’s customizability, affordability, order and delivery process, ease of use, nutrition profile, and taste.

All Purple Carrot meals are vegan. Beyond that, there are a few ways to customize your experience: For each delivery, you can choose the specific meals you’d like from a menu of options. Each choice also lists any common allergens it contains, so you can easily avoid anything that’s off-limits for you.

When you sign up—before you select any specific meals—you’ll pick the type of plan that’s best for you (browse all of the options below). You can also select your preferences between less prep, gluten-free, and high-protein meals. If you ever forget or choose not to hand-select your upcoming meals, Purple Carrot will automatically pick for you using your saved preferences.

I went with the meal kit option and threw in a couple ready-to-eat meals to get a sense of how easy they are to make. As someone with no allergies or real preferences—I love food and will eat pretty much anything—I was excited to explore the offerings and lean into some new-to-me ingredient combos that would hopefully help me find a few new faves to cook again in the future. (Spoiler alert: That is, indeed, what happened!)

By this point, you’re probably wondering the most important thing: What are some of the delicious dishes I’ll actually get to eat? Check out the recipe examples below to get a sense of the ingredients and instructions included with each meal.

• Gochujang tofu bowls with brown rice and sesame-garlic green beans
• Thai peanut lentil bowls with crunchy slaw and sesame-crusted avocado
• Buffalo cauliflower with dilly quinoa and tzatziki
• Lemon-cream chickpeas with herb oil and wild rice
• Greek souvlaki veggie bowls with garlicky mushrooms and tzatziki
• Green goddess bowls with broccoli and ranch dressing
• Pimento grilled cheese sandwiches with blueberry balsamic spinach salad
• Lemon poppy overnight oats with dried blueberries and almonds
• Loaded avocado toasts with fresh dill and super seeds

The most popular meal plan option, which includes four meals of two servings each (so eight servings total) comes out to $13.25 per serving, or $106 per week. From now until the end of March, Purple Carrot is offering SELF readers a special deal—get $50 off your first order and free shipping when you use the code SELF50 at checkout. It’s a nice way to make sure you like the meals offered and the entire process for a pretty great price.

If you bump up your order to the four-servings option, the price per serving comes down to $11 (without the intro discount). Purple Carrot also charges a $12 shipping fee, but orders that are $100 and over ship free.

As someone who grocery shops regularly and cooks about 90% of my meals at home, I have always been a bit skeptical about meal delivery services. I assumed they wouldn’t feel worth it, price-wise. The thing is, if you’re someone who buys plant-based and mostly organic ingredients, those grocery costs add up—fast. So $11 to $13 per serving really isn’t too pricey when it comes down to it. That’s especially true if you’re only cooking for one or two people, and full sizes of certain ingredients would either go bad or just sit in your pantry unused for months.

It’s also a win compared to takeout: You’d be hard-pressed to find good vegan food from a restaurant that costs less. (And depending on where you live, it may not even be possible to get a decent vegan takeout meal, anyway!)

Each week, you log into your account to select your meals for the next week. All selections must be made by 11:59 p.m. ET on the Tuesday before delivery. If you miss your chance to choose, no worries: Purple Carrot will use your saved preferences to automatically pick your meals from the weekly menu. (You can also just let them do this every week to eliminate the mental task of having to decide.) And you can skip a week whenever you’d like, set up a longer pause for 6, 8, or 10 weeks, or cancel at any time.

Depending on your location, you’ll receive your weekly delivery on Saturday, Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday. Your account will tell you, though—it won’t be a surprise (no one needs that kind of chaos in their lives).

The meal kits arrive in a box stuffed with recyclable, temperature-controlling insulation and frozen, non-toxic gel ice packs, which you can reuse or drain and then recycle. Each meal’s ingredients come packaged in an individual bag, with a recipe card slipped into the front. The ready-to-eat meals are packaged in a container, and some also have a cardboard sleeve with recipe instructions.

The recipe cards are really nicely laid out and easy to follow. Each one includes an estimated cook time, which I found to be pretty accurate, making it easy to select the meals you want to cook on certain days. The ingredients list breaks down what’s included in the bag and what you’ll need to grab from your own kitchen—they’re all super-simple staples, like vegetable oil and salt and pepper.

It also lists the tools you’ll need, like a skillet, baking sheet, aluminum foil, and microwave (although the recipes do give alternative instructions for anyone who doesn’t have one). One of my recipes required a box grater—and while I do have one, I realize that someone else with a less-stocked kitchen may not.

The directions themselves are clear and concise. (Note: I’m very comfortable in the kitchen, but I do think beginner cooks would also find the instructions pretty easy to navigate.) While some components come presliced and shredded, others require a bit of prep work. For example, you may have to open, pat dry, and cut up a block of tofu or grate and chop vegetables. But overall, the work is minimal, compared to making a meal from scratch.

On the back of the recipe card, you’ll find nutritional information, plus intel on allergens and any other notable features, like if the meal is gluten-free. Another nice perk? There are a few photos to go along with each recipe that can help you confirm you’re on track—for example, an image that shows what your tofu should look like after it’s sauced and crisped.

Purple Carrot meals include a ton of healthy ingredients, like fresh veggies, whole grains, and vegan sources of protein. Each recipe card clearly displays the nutritional information, so you can take a look and see if the meal aligns with your eating goals.

Most meals have a lot of protein and fiber, which is great. Some are quite high in fat, carbohydrates, and sodium, though, so if you’re trying to watch any of those nutrients, you may want to make some substitutions (like using less sodium-heavy sauce) or try to pick recipes that better fit the macros you’re looking for. Overall, the portions felt very appropriately sized—I ate until I was full and was able to get two servings out of each meal, like I was meant to—and I felt comfortable and not bloated after each one.

To be honest, it’s tough to compare the nutritional stats to other home-cooked meals or take-out options unless you’re diligently tracking those too. I often just cook by feel, so I don’t have an idea of what my macro breakdown is—instead, I aim to cook with a variety of healthy ingredients, so my meal is as balanced as possible.

Based on the ingredients and portion sizes of the Purple Carrot meals, they feel nutritionally in line with meals I’d cook if I had bought the ingredients myself at the grocery store or farmers market. (The ready-to-eat meal did have a relatively high amount of sodium in it, which is typical for a microwave meal—just something to keep in mind.)

Yes! I loved every Purple Carrot meal I ate. They were all extremely flavorful, and I found each one to be deeply satisfying—so much so that I saved the recipe cards to make them again. It’s probably important to note that I’m not vegan; meat and dairy are staples in my diet, although I do enjoy a good vegan restaurant.

For me, it’s all about a meal being tasty and filling, no matter what the ingredients are. These Purple Carrot meals were as good as anything I could find at a nice vegan spot in New York City, and honestly reminded me that I should try to get more creative with plants to reduce some of the meat that’s in my family’s diet.

My favorite recipe was the Buffalo cauliflower with dilly quinoa and tzatziki. The spicy and savory mix of turmeric, dill, and lemon combined with tzatziki and Buffalo sauces is something I’ve craved multiple times since I ate it—so I’ll definitely be making that again soon.

And the Thai peanut lentil bowls with crunchy slaw and sesame-crusted avocado really hit the spot as a lunch. I have a two-year-old who is often difficult to feed (she’s extremely picky and fickle, like most toddlers are), and she absolutely crushed this one.

I let her try a bite, thinking she’d spit it out or at least just say “no more,” but she ended up eating her own bowl of it, which is a huge win. Meals that are yummy for the entire family aren’t always easy to find, so I’m grateful to Purple Carrot for giving us another one to add to our repertoire.

Did I mention the ready-to-eat oats? Those were a banger too—so full of flavor, and the perfect creamy texture—I ate them cold like overnight oats, instead of bothering to heat them up. I wished I had enough for every day of the week.

My experience with Purple Carrot was nothing but positive. The meal kits gave me a great opportunity to change up my regular cooking routine and try some new recipes that I otherwise would never have found or ventured to test. I even found a few things that I will definitely make again—and I’ve already browsed Purple Carrot’s website for some more recipe inspo. Everything I ate was delicious, and I was sad when my meals ran out.

As someone who grocery shops often and cooks for a family, it does usually make more financial sense for me to opt for that usual route over ordering meal kits. But I’d definitely spring for Purple Carrot again when I find myself in a cooking rut or if I know I have a busy week coming up where I won’t be able to shop and cook as usual.

For anyone who eats vegan normally, it’s an excellent option that likely shakes out to the same or less per meal than doing your own shopping; the added convenience makes it even more worth it.

And at the end of the day, the food is damn good. Even if you’re not vegan but you’re looking to shift your diet to be more plant-based, Purple Carrot is a great option for exploring those meal options in a low-effort, high-reward way.

Related:

• 20 Best Meal Delivery Services, Tested and Reviewed
• Does Home Chef Deserve the Hype? Editors Dish on Its Cost, Taste, and Convenience
• The Best Nutritionist-Approved Blenders for Smoothies, Salsas, and More

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