TASTE OF HOME
TASTE OF HOME
Pros:
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Huge menu
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Health focused
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Easy cancelation
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Built-in community
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Ability to order meals a la carte
Cons:
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Saturday delivery only
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Hit-or-miss meals
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Pricey
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Clunky website
Don’t have time to whip up a meal every night? Gluten-free foodies can rest assured with BistroMD. Created with healthy habits in mind, it offers a variety of diets to choose from, including gluten-free, heart-healthy, keto flex, diabetic, menopause and vegan.
All meals (of which there are hundreds) arrive prepared and ready to enjoy after heating, so it’s easier than ever to sit down to healthful, nutritious meals with limited time. BistroMD offers a variety of plans that fit almost any lifestyle, including a choice between their “full program,” which offers 15-20 meals per week and their “lunches and dinners” program, which provides 10-14 meals. There’s also the option to add a “just a snack plan” if you want to fully replace your weekly food shopping.
"BistroMD places a significant emphasis on health and weight loss, so it's certainly not the service for everyone, but it truly can accommodate just about any diet or dietary restriction. And, unlike its competitors, it provides its customers with round-the-clock recipes, including breakfasts, lunches, dinners and snacks if desired, to more readily make their goals a reality."
annamarie higley
product testing manager
Deliveries occur on Saturday and are inflexible, which we didn’t love. However, the seemingly endless meals make up for it. Each week, the program generates a menu for you, but then you can swap in different recipes as you like. There’s a list of six dietitian-recommended recipes at the top of the screen when you go to switch out meals, but if you scroll down, you’ll find “additional healthy options.” You can also order meals a la carte without a recurring subscription if you’re just looking to supplement a few meals per week.
Product Testing Manager Annamarie Higley enjoyed her Grilled Chicken with Buffalo Sauce and Harissa Chickpea Power Bowl, noting that the latter’s harissa tomato sauce is deliciously savory. Fair warning: These meals require freezing upon receipt, so ensure you have enough space to fit all your meals—especially if you opt for one of the full plans!
One nice feature of the site is the ability to approve and remove meals for future menus based on personal preferences. If you can’t eat something or if you really dislike a meal, it will no longer be displayed. There is also a Learn tab where you can join the community of members to interact about your weight loss journey, ask questions, access guides and partake in educational courses/lessons. The community aspect makes this an appealing pick for those looking to gain accountability and lose weight as their main fitness goal.
Taste of Home
Taste of Home
Pros:
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Perfectly portioned ingredients that create little to no food waste
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Accurate prep times
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Fresh ingredients
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Delicious recipes that yield hearty servings
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Eco-conscious packaging
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Affordable
For a variety of “cook-it-yourself” meals, turn to Dinnerly. This tasty and thorough meal service covers a wide range of diets, including keto, vegan, vegetarian, low-calorie, low-carb, Mediterranean, dairy-free and gluten-free. Additionally, recipes are further sorted using tags that detail pricing filters, proteins, dish types and cuisines. It’s so convenient to sort through the more than 60 weekly recipes available based on your preferences!
You can fill your cart with up to six meals per week, each boasting up to four servings per dish. It’s also one of the most budget-friendly options we tried, with the lowest possible weekly cost coming out at around $23. Nutrition and allergens are readily available when clicking on the recipe, though locating the ingredients list is a bit more cumbersome. Meal choices include everything from Buffalo Chicken Salad to Low-Carb Philly Cheesesteak Stuffed Peppers. You can also tack on additional add-ons, including grocery items, pre-made meals, snacks and produce.
"With an abundance of simple and quick meals, Dinnerly is a great fit for college students or young adults looking for an easy way to feed themselves."
Dylan fischer
product tester
Deliveries are surprisingly flexible, with schedules available any day except Thursdays. If you ever decide to skip or cancel a delivery, the process is relatively painless, too. We recommend using the app to navigate your cart and control deliveries over the website, which we found rather clunky.
Overall, tester Dylan Fischer found his meals pretty delicious—especially the Philly Cheesesteak Peppers. “I’ll be flat-out, this was pretty delicious,” he says. “The ground beef and onion were both a given for this recipe, and both played their parts very well. The added steak seasoning definitely added a little more complexion to the flavor.”
That said, Dinnerly expects you to have some ingredients on hand. These are mostly pantry staples like salt, pepper and oil. Not feeling the proteins in a dish? No worries—most recipes give the option to swap out beef for Impossible meat or chicken for pork, for example. We love that there are so many options, especially for folks who appreciate variety. Read more about this service in our full review.
2024 Updates
We originally wrote and published this piece in 2022. Since then, we’ve tested each service again (along with a few newcomers) to ensure our analysis remains current.
Our current tests led to a few slight changes in rankings. In our latest updates, we changed Marley Spoon from “Best Budget” to “Best for Families.”
Upon testing a few newer services (and re-testing options we’ve tried in the past), we also added a few newcomers to our list. Changes include adding Bistro MD and Dinnerly to our lineup.
What To Look for in the Best Gluten-Free Meal Kits
When looking for the best gluten-free meal kits, it’s essential to have a list of features to check before committing to one. First, start with research to ensure the brand is certified as gluten-free. Whether you have a severe allergy or are just altering your diet per a nutritionist’s request, purchasing meals that are labeled as gluten-free only to find that they’ve been cross-contaminated can be potentially dangerous or harmful. Here’s a quick list of what to look for.
- Customizability: Look to see if the meal kits can be tailored to your tastes and interests.
- Serving size: Check out how many people the meal service can accommodate, if it’s enough to feed multiple people or to have leftovers.
- Ingredients: Consider if the meals are made with organic and sustainably sourced ingredients.
Why You Should Trust Us
As an award-winning freelance writer with 20+ years of experience, I’ve written and edited content for well-known print and digital publications, including Southern Living, Travel + Leisure, USA Today, Reader’s Digest and Taste of Home. I specialize in health, travel and wellness to deliver the absolute best product recommendations, whether you’re shopping for the best suitcases or meal delivery services for specialized diets.
Nancy Snyder is a registered dietitian and seasoned professional in nutrition and culinary expertise. She reviewed and fact-checked this piece. With nearly a decade of experience collaborating with restaurant chefs and food manufacturers, Nancy has forged a path at the intersection of nutrition consulting and culinary innovation. She is also a senior shopping editor for Taste of Home, working alongside the Test Kitchen to identify and test products that help each individual reader elevate their personal kitchen experience.
We tested these products with the help of our expert Product Testing Team, which has a combined decade of experience sourcing and testing popular kitchen products.
How We Found the Best Gluten-Free Meal Kits
With meal kit services for just about every diet, we understand just how difficult it is to ensure one is 100 percent gluten-free. We found the best recommendations by first looking at the certifications and protocols in place to ensure meals are safe whether you’re sensitive to gluten or have celiac disease. Bonus points went to dietitian-crafted services or those with gluten-free kitchens.
Then, we evaluated the services based on user experience while shopping for gluten-free entrees, like a filter that populates appropriate meals. We took it a step further by individually testing most of the plans and finding super customizable options that completely take the guesswork out of grocery shopping. Overall, the best services were selected based on protocols, quality, ease of user experience, customizable features and value for the price.
FAQ
Does HelloFresh have a gluten-free option?
Unfortunately, the popular meal delivery service does not currently offer gluten-free meal kits. However, some meals include ingredients that can easily transition to a gluten-free meal.
Do any meal kits have gluten-free options?
There are plenty of meal kits that offer gluten-free options. We included the best options from Green Chef, Marley Spoon, and more. It can be tricky, but as long as you do your research, you can find meal kits that suit your needs.
Is Green Chef really gluten-free?
According to experts, some of Green Chef’s options are gluten-free. That means you will need to choose the gluten-free option to ensure it’s safe for your diet.