Purple Carrot Meal Kit Review: Tastier Than Meal Kits With Meat

Matthew KorfhageReviewsAug 4, 2026 7:34 AMReview: Purple Carrot (2026)I’m an omnivore. Purple Carrot’s vegan meal kit offers some of the best cooking I’ve seen from any meal kit, with or without meat.Courtesy of Purple CarrotBuy Now at Purple CarrotCommentLoaderSave StorySave this storyCommentLoaderSave StorySave this storyRating:8/10Open rating explainerInformationWIREDAdventurous, delicious recipes with excellent culinary technique. Offers both meal kits and ready-to-eat premade meals. Doesn’t over-rely on soy.TIREDRecipes can be involved and time-consuming. Prepared meals are less fun than meal prep options.The meals I made with vegan meal kit Purple Carrot include some of the best-tasting food I've made with any meal delivery service. This is no small statement. I'm an omnivore and longtime food critic who’s tested pretty much every meal delivery service in existence over the past two years.And so when I say Purple Carrot offers good cooking, I'm not grading on a curve. Purple Carrot's pecan-topped, five-spice butternut squash dumplings I prepped this July were among the most extravagant meals I made for myself during that entire month. The prep was extensive, more than I'd usually attempt on any but a weekend evening, but the results were both healthful and a rival to excellent bistro fare.Photograph: Matthew KorfhagePurple Carrot achieves this on its meal kit recipes while avoiding the pitfalls endemic to vegan fare—namely, an over-reliance on soy or cashew substitutes. Purple Carrot, thank God, loves a vegetable. It loves a fruit. And it loves an herb. While Purple doesn't offer a huge menu each week, and I was less enthralled by microwave meal options that resorted more often to hunks of seitan, the meal kit choices are both broad and appetizing.Purple Carrot Meal KitRating: 8/10Buy at Purple CarrotPurple Carrot manages to deliver the classic promise of a meal kit—sweet relief from the same staid recipes I bore myself with when I'm out of ideas. It does so better than most meal kits that cater to meat-eaters. It was my colleague Molly Higgins' favorite plant-based meal kit of the dozen or so she tested last year. After testing five meals and a number of market add-ons this year, I rank it among my favorites overall.Here's the rundown.The Nuts and BoltsSpecsCost per meal$13 to $15 per serving, plus $12 shipping per box. (Shipping free for orders above $120.)Meal plan optionsTwo or four people; three or four meals a week for the classic meal kit. One to 10 meals a week for the ready-to-eat meal plan. Mix & match plans also available.Lowest-cost plan at full price$65 minimum order, $12 shippingSize of weekly menu24+ meal kit options, and 20-30 more ready-to-eat options, plus snacks and market itemsGluten-free meals?More than a third of meals are gluten-free. (But not certified as such for celiac, and prepared in a shared facility with wheat-containing products.)Plant-based meals?Vegan, vegan, all-veganOther dietary plans or restrictionsIndividual meals marked as high-protein, high-fiber, low-calorie (<600), and low-sodium. Allergens clearly marked on each recipe.Prep time20 minutes to an hour for recipes; quick-prep meals as fast as 5 minutesPurple Carrot is among the older meal delivery services in the United States, founded in 2014 in Massachusetts but later acquired by Japanese sustainable-focused food delivery company Oisix. Purple Carrot is indeed packaged more sustainably than most kits: cardboard insulation, recyclable paper containers for microwavable meals. One could also argue that plant-based food is sustainable by its nature. But there's still the usual battery of plastic baggies housing the various ingredients.Though it's a subscription service, Purple Carrot's subscription is unusually flexible. Meals are priced individually, from $13 to $15 a serving, and can be mixed and matched among solo ready-to-heat meals and meal prep recipes for two or four. (Introductory plans lop half off your first week's order up