Purple Carrot is one of the best-known plant-based meal kits. We put it to the test to see if it lives up to its reputation.
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Purple Carrot Review: We Tried the Plant-Based Meal Service—Here Are Our Thoughts
Published on Nov. 11, 2024
Meal delivery services make it so easy to prepare restaurant-quality dishes without spending precious time sourcing and shopping for ingredients. But for folks on a plant-based diet, sorting through menus on services like HelloFresh means balancing limited options and oftentimes bigger upcharges for high quality dishes. That’s where a service like Purple Carrot comes in.
Unlike many other meal kits for families that offer a range of dietary types, Purple Carrot is a completely plant-based meal service. It focuses on fresh, filling vegan meals that cook up quickly for parents and professionals. Of course, we had to see how it compared to our other favorite options (I’m looking at you, Gobble and HungryRoot).
Alongside testing for this Purple Carrot review, we also tried over a dozen other meal delivery services to truly compare each option’s strengths and setbacks. These range from all-encompassing meal delivery services like Marley Spoon to heat-and-eat meals a la CookUnity. Here’s what we thought after enjoying a week of Purple Carrot meals.
What is Purple Carrot?
Before writing this Purple Carrot review, I thought the best a vegan could hope for in the realm of plant-based meal services was something like Green Chef. While this organic and health-focused service offers many excellent plant-based options, it still focuses mostly on omnivore or flexitarian diets. However, this changed when I heard about Purple Carrot.
Purple Carrot is 100% plant-based, meaning that the entire menu (around 16 options per week) is vegan-friendly. Within these selections, the brand also offers a range of options that cater to other diets, like gluten-free. Apart from full-on meal kits containing ingredients and recipe cards, there are also ready-made meals that simply require a quick reheat in the microwave or oven. We love how accessible this makes plant-based eating, even for those tight on time.
EMIKO FRANZEN FOR TASTE OF HOME
Best Overall
Purple Carrot
Purple Carrot offers plant-based meal kits containing fresh ingredients, surprising flavors and filling portions.
Our Purple Carrot Review
Purple Carrot’s menu consists of around 16 options per week. These are divided into self-made meal kits that contain two to four servings and single-serve, pre-made meals. Each week, customers can choose either three or four self-made meals or 6, 8 or 10 pre-made meals. Extra meals are also available for an additional cost. The meals themselves are creative and appealing, with recipe names like One-Pot Buffalo Mac & Cheese and Chick’n and Dumplings with Oyster Mushrooms & Green Beans.
Purple Carrot meals are divided into the following categories on the website: High-protein, less prep, soy-free, nut-free, chef’s choice, gluten-free, healthy carbs, <600 calories, low sodium, breakfast, lunch, dinner, pantry, less prep, ready to eat, meal kits and grocery. Now, let's dive into this Purple Carrot review—there's a lot to go over!
Delivery
Deliveries take place on Saturdays. Customers can skip a week if they’re out of town or plan on making their own meals for a week. For the purposes of this Purple Carrot review, we attempted to both skip a week and cancel our subscription. Both were easy to accomplish after navigating to our account settings.
Menu
Editorial Coordinator Sydney Manning volunteered her time and stomach to sample the menu for a week. After some consideration, she settled on a menu of Crunchy Cabbage Salads, Cacio e Pepe, Elote Tacos, Black Bean Crunchadillas and Creamy Peanut Noodles.
While Purple Carrot offers several tabs that let you sort through popular modifiers (e.g., gluten-free or nut-free), it’s worth noting that not all diets are supported on the platform. For instance, if you’re on a keto diet, we recommend checking out our list of keto meal kits instead—there just simply aren’t enough options on Purple Carrot.
Recipes and Prep
For this Purple Carrot review, we chose a diverse range of meals, including items from the heat-and-eat menu. While Purple Carrot offers around 16 meals per week, many of those are “fan favorites,” so expect to see a few repeats each week. Aside from meal kits, Purple Carrot also has a grocery section with plant-based items such as desserts, pantry meals, meat substitutes, tofu, cereal, drinks, dips, protein bars, soups, fries, coffee beans and other various snacks and sides.
Prep depends on the type of meal. The heat-and-eat meals are simple—just pop them in the oven or microwave to reheat. For the meal prep kits, the time each recipe takes depends on its components. Sydney notes that she was supposed to get a physical recipe booklet, but she never received it (and customer service wouldn’t resend it). That said, she was able to refer to the digital recipes, though she found those rather vague. If you have limited cooking knowledge, we recommend sticking to the ready-to-eat options.
Elote Tacos with Lime Rice & Jalapeños
Overall, Sydney found this recipe very easy to make. There wasn’t much to it besides the simple prep, like cutting the radishes and cilantro, stirring the sauce, microwaving the rice, charring the canned corn and then assembling the tacos. The instructions were pretty generic, but since it’s such an easy recipe, she didn’t run into any issues with being confused or hung up on a certain step.
“I love corn, so this was a favorite for me,” she says. “One thing I wish about this recipe is that there was some more crunch to it. There are radishes in this, but I felt like it still needed more oomph.”
Creamy Peanut Noodles with Tofu & Mango Slaw
This was very easy to prepare as a meal—just pull back an inch of the film and microwave for two minutes. Voila! Sydney notes that the meal does have a “frozen” quality to it, but with the tofu and noodles, she found it very filling.
Pros
- Creative meals
- Fully vegan and plant-based
- Fresh ingredients
- Add-ons available
Cons
- Strictly vegan, so may not be appealing to vegetarians
- Non-flexible delivery schedule
- Lack of price transparency
Why You Should Trust Us
All meal delivery reviews—including this Purple Carrot review—are backed by testing from different Taste of Home team members with varying degrees of cooking expertise. Our testers’ needs, wants and budgets reflect those of the average shopper. We aren’t new to testing this product category, either. In addition to over a dozen meal kits, our team has reviewed meat and chicken delivery services like ButcherBox, Snake River Farms and Good Chop. Our testing extends to grocery services, like Misfits Market and Thrive Market, as well.
Product Tester and former editor Annamarie Higley oversees Taste of Home’s product testing team and daily operations in our testing lab. She and her team assess online trends, search traffic and audience engagement to determine which items warrant testing firsthand in our dedicated office space or our homes. This includes everything from kitchen appliances to beauty products to power tools. Knowing we sourced, saw and tested these products ourselves, readers can feel confident in our recommendations and, ultimately, secure in their purchases.
Where To Buy Purple Carrot
If this Purple Carrot review made your mouth water, you can sign up for the plant-based meal service on Purple Carrot’s website. Plans start at $50, though the cost of each plan will differ depending on the meals chosen. Purple Carrot also offers regular discounts and deals, so head over to the site for the most up-to-date prices and promotions.
EMIKO FRANZEN FOR TASTE OF HOME
Best Overall
Purple Carrot
Purple Carrot offers plant-based meal kits containing fresh ingredients, surprising flavors and filling portions.
FAQ
Is Purple Carrot organic?
While Purple Carrot sources some organic ingredients, the service doesn’t call itself organic. For a truly organic meal delivery service, try Green Chef.
How to cancel Purple Carrot?
Log into your account and visit the “My Account” page. From there, select “Account Settings,” then “Update Subscription.” Below the option to pause is a button called “Cancel Your Subscription.”
