With a small-town feel, a bustling cultural and business scene, and a vibrant student life, Abilene really gives you the best of both worlds.
But what do you do when life gets busy and cooking healthy meals gets put on the back-burner? Try a meal delivery service! You can get delicious and nutritious meals and recipes delivered right to your doorstep.
To help you weigh up your options, I’ve done a deep dive to find the best meal delivery services in Abilene. Want even more options? Try our list of this year’s Best Meal Delivery Services.
Home Chef – Abilene’s Best Customizable Meal Delivery Service
Purple Carrot – Vegan Recipes in Abilene for Every Occasion
HelloFresh – Most Popular Meal Kit in the USA
Sunbasket – Healthy Options for a Variety of Diets
Marley Spoon – Southern Comfort Food with a Healthy Twist
Food delivery and meal delivery sound almost identical at face value, and the differences may not be what you expect. Both types of service can deliver ready-to-eat meals prepared by chefs.
However, food delivery services like Grubhub and Postmates deliver food on-demand, direct from restaurants. These services can be great in a pinch, but costs can build up quickly.
A subscription meal delivery service like Home Chef, on the other hand, delivers prepared meals and/or meal kits and some food prep is required at home. Deliveries are normally every week and they’re often more health-focused than food delivery.
Buy meal kits and prepared meals in-store
Pick your own protein sources
Take the quiz to find your perfect meal plan
Special Deal: 15 Free Meals + Free Shipping on 1st Box + Free Dessert for Life
One of the best features about Home Chef is that it lets you pick your own protein sources using the Customize It feature. This means you can personalize your meals and substitute ingredients you don’t like. You can see more details about how it works in our Home Chef review.
Unlike a lot of other meal delivery services, Home Chef lets you pick your meals from the full recipe catalog, rather than limiting you to specific plans. But, if you don’t want the pressure of picking, you can go with the suggested recipes.
Among its collection of 20+ recipes per week, you’ll find options for vegetarians, carb-conscious, and low-calorie diets.
Prepared meals and meal kits available
Stock up on vegan snacks from the Plantry
Options for breakfast, lunch, and dinner
Special Deal: Get 50% off + free shipping!
Purple Carrot is the gold standard of plant-based meal delivery, as you can see from our full Purple Carrot review.
Rather than focusing on meat alternatives, Purple Carrot designs its recipes with plants at the center. With innovative combinations to maximize nutrition, you can rest assured you’ll be getting a well-balanced and delicious vegan meal.
While many meal delivery services focus only on lunch and dinner, Purple Carrot has options for all three meals, as well as plenty of snacks from the Plantry.
As someone with a massive sweet tooth, the snack range is a huge bonus with everything from vegan marshmallows to chocolate to popcorn. There’s also a new range of prepared meals, making it even faster and easier to get healthy meals.
The app makes for easy swaps and cancellations
Add sides and extras like garlic bread
Access the online cookbook anytime
According to USA Today’s readers, HelloFresh is the meal delivery service with the best customer service in America. If you’re looking for a meal kit that’s backed by a great reputation and a stellar customer service team, HelloFresh might be for you.
You can choose from six different plans from HelloFresh: Meat & Veggie, Pescatarian, Veggie, Quick and Easy, Calorie Smart, and Family Friendly. To find out more about what’s included in each plan, check out our full HelloFresh review!
Another big bonus to using HelloFresh is limiting your carbon footprint. Choosing HelloFresh for your meal kits can reduce your carbon footprint by up to 25% compared to shopping at a grocery store.
Options for 10 different dietary needs
USDA-certified organic ingredients
Every purchase supports donations to food banks
Sunbasket is one of the most versatile meal delivery services out there. It has 10 different meal plans available: Vegetarian, Pescatarian, Lean & Clean, Chef’s Choice, Fresh & Ready, Gluten-Free, Carb-Conscious, Mediterranean, Diabetes-Friendly, and Paleo.
If you just want recipe inspiration, you can check out the blog section, which also has helpful tips on how to make the most of your Sunbasket boxes. For even more details on what you’ll get with Sunbasket, try reading our Sunbasket review.
One of Sunbasket’s main goals is to provide the freshest produce available, all year-round. It does this by rotating ingredients based on what’s most fresh.
Sunbasket is also committed to giving back to the communities it operates in. Every purchase you make will support donations to local food banks across the country.
Designed by celebrity chef Martha Stewart
Easy six-step recipes
Choose from 29 dishes a week
Marley Spoon was designed by Martha Stewart with the goal to provide healthy food with a Southern twist.
It’s also a sustainability pioneer, with green initiatives to offset its carbon emissions. That makes Marley Spoon the only entirely carbon-neutral service on this list.
The best way to get a full picture of Marley Spoon is to have a read of our full review. All Marley Spoon boxes are made to serve two or four people, and they can cater to vegetarian, low-carb, or family-friendly diets.
It’s important to note that Marley Spoon doesn’t cater to many specialized diets, and it doesn’t offer prepared meals. Instead, all boxes contain pre-portioned ingredients and easy-to-follow recipes.
USDA and CCOF-certified organic
Keto, paleo, and vegan options
Prepped and measured ingredients
As part of the HelloFresh family, Green Chef has the backing of a highly rated service, with a more niche focus on healthy eating and weight loss.
When you’re looking for a meal delivery service to help you lose weight while building healthy habits and cooking skills, Green Chef is one of the best out there. It has three main plans to choose from – Keto+Paleo, Balanced Living, and Plant-Powered.
To see the full details on plans and pricing, check out our Green Chef review.
While these plans provide options for gluten-free and vegetarian diets, it doesn’t have a ton of choice for vegans. Green Chef is, however, one of the only meal delivery services to have an official Gluten-Free Certification.
Affordable meals from only $2.99 per serving
Add protein packs like chicken or beef
Meal plans are flexible and easy to reschedule or cancel
Looking for a low-commitment, inexpensive meal delivery service? Try EveryPlate, the most affordable service on this list! Meals from EveryPlate are only $4.99 per serving, making it a great way to dip your toes into the world of meal delivery.
Packed with nutrition and designed to feed an entire family (including the picky eaters), EveryPlate’s recipes are easy and quick to make with most ready in under 30 minutes. You can find out even more about the recipes in our dedicated EveryPlate review.
But what if you’re a student on a tight budget? Well, luckily for you, EveryPlate has a student discount to make it even more affordable to eat healthy even after late nights at the ACU library.
Fully recyclable packaging, including ice packs
Gift cards available
Non-GMO ingredients, some of which are organic
Blue Apron has plenty of options for the whole family and is known for making healthy eating innovative and fun.
Blue Apron is also one of the most versatile services on this list, with options for vegetarian, pescatarian, diabetic, and weight-loss diets.
Blue Apron has three main plans, Signature, Vegetarian, and Wellness. The Signature plan can feed up to four people, but the vegetarian and wellness plans are limited to two. You can read more about Blue Apron’s plans and pricing in our full Blue Apron review.
With Blue Apron, you can also sign up to get a variety of wines, carefully curated to pair well with your weekly recipes.
Choose from hundreds of local favorites
App-based ordering for ease and flexibility
Join premium membership for lower delivery fees and more perks
Grubhub is a food delivery service, not a meal delivery service, and it’s the best in the game. The biggest bonus of Grubhub is that it doesn’t charge an extra fee for delivery, unlike most other food delivery services. Instead, the only delivery fee you pay is the one the restaurant already charges.
Your options are only limited by the time you’re ordering and your proximity to your chosen restaurant. Most delivery times are under an hour, and there’s a section on the app that specifically lists the fastest options.
For example, you could have a triple meat burger from Whataburger at your door in less than 20 minutes. And, if you want access to even better deals, you can join Grubhub+ for $9.99 a month.
Customize your orders across multiple restaurants
Track your orders in the app
Avoid surge pricing by joining the subscription service
Postmates is a food delivery service that’s quite similar to Grubhub. It offers limitless options to its customers, and unlike Grubhub, you aren’t limited to only partner restaurants to pick from.
In fact, you can get literally any order you want, from multiple sources at once, using the Fleets feature. As long as you can give the driver directions and instructions, you can get food and convenience items from anywhere in Abilene.
The downside of Postmates, however, is that it uses surge pricing. If lots of people order at the same time, delivery prices go up. To avoid this, and lower your minimum order requirement, you may want to consider Postmates Unlimited for $9.99 per month.
Top Plans | ||||||||||
Top Plans | ![]() | ![]() | ![]() | ![]() | ||||||
Our Rating | ||||||||||
Our Rating | 9.5 | 9.4 | 9.6 | 8.4 | 9.2 | 9.7 | 9.0 | 9.6 | 8.2 | 8.5 |
Best Offer | ||||||||||
Best Offer | $5.00 Per Serving | $11.00 Per Serving | $107.75 Per Box | $4.27 Per Serving | $4.99 Per Serving | $6.00 Per Serving | $2.99 Per Serving | $4.00 Per Serving | $9.99 Per Serving | |
Minimum Order | ||||||||||
Minimum Order | 2 meals for 2 people | 3 meal kits for 2 people/6 prepared meals | 2 meals for 2 people | 2 meal kits for 2 people/4 prepared meals | 2 meals for 2 people | 3 meals for 2 people | 3 meals for 2 people | 2 meals for 2 people | Varies by supplier | no minimum |
Meal Types | ||||||||||
Meal Types | Kits, speedy kits, oven-ready | Meal kits, prepared meals | Meal kits, speedy kits, prepared meals | Fresh & Ready meals, 30-Min Meal Kits | 30-60 min meal kits | 10-45 minute meal kits | 30-minute meal kits | 5 - 60 min meal kits and prepared meals | Prepared | Food and Grocery delivery |
Prep Time | ||||||||||
Prep Time | 5-50 min | 3-40 min | 5-50 min | 3-40 min | 20-40 min | 25-40 min | 20-45 min | 5-45 min | 0 | 0 min |
Active Deals | ||||||||||
Active Deals |
Abilene is full of busy families, thriving businesses, and a buzzing student population thanks to ACU. What does everyone here have in common? They’re all short on time.
A meal delivery service is the ideal way to keep up with your healthy eating goals no matter where you are, and they’re a great option for anyone in Abilene.
If you find yourself overwhelmed by the task of shopping, planning, and prepping meals, then a meal delivery service could be the solution you've been seeking.
If you’re looking for the ultimate affordable meal delivery service in Abilene, look no further than EveryPlate, which has meals from $2.99 per serving. However, if you have specific dietary needs, you might want to try the affordable options from HelloFresh, Blue Apron, or our list of affordable meal kits.
Pretty much every meal delivery service on this list caters to a healthy diet in some form, but the most health-focused are Home Chef, Green Chef, and Sunbasket. The best one for you will depend on what specific diet you follow. For even more healthy options, you can check out our list of healthy meal delivery services.
The winner for the biggest range of diets in Abilene is Sunbasket, without a doubt. It has a plan for almost every popular diet, including Carb-Conscious, Mediterranean, and Lean & Clean. However, if you’re looking specifically to lose weight, other great options are Green Chef, Home Chef, and HelloFresh. For more options, try our list of weight-loss meal delivery services.
Sunbasket has the biggest range of paleo recipes in Abilene, with around 10 paleo-friendly meals a week. It’s closely followed by Green Chef which has nine paleo meal kits to choose from every week. Check out our full list of paleo-friendly meal delivery services.
Felicity loves and lives for food, and new culinary experiences in general.<br/>When shes not out walking her dogs, shes trying out the coolest new restaurants and take out in the local area - one day she might even learn to cook!