We Tried Purple Carrot's 100% Vegan Meal Delivery Service for a Week, and The Results Were Surprising
Other meal delivery services have left us wanting more...here's our verdict.
Are you a vegan who likes to cook your own plant-based meals, but you don’t necessarily have the time or energy to dig through recipes and shop for ingredients? Purple Carrot might be a good option for you.
While other meal delivery kits have an array of plant-based options, Purple Carrot prides itself on being 100% vegan. This gives vegan individuals the peace of mind of knowing that everything they're eating fits into their diet plan.
The service has been around since 2014 and was developed to provide convenient ways to incorporate healthy and nutritious plant-based meals into your weekly schedule. I spent a week testing Purple Carrot. Here's everything you need to know, including our review.
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The Basics
Purple Carrot is a weekly meal subscription service. Once you sign up for a plan, you'll automatically be set up to receive weekly boxes of meals. Each week, users will have the ability to choose from eight different dinner options, which include entrees like kimchi quesadillas, lemon braised chickpeas, peanut vegan Buddha bowls, crispy artichoke rotini, grape leaf pilaf, faux crab cakes, almond butter tofu and more. Your meal kit will arrive on your porch once a week and will contain separate bags filled with all of the ingredients needed to make a certain dish. There will also be instructions on how to make that dish inside as well.
And no need to stress if you’re not home when the package arrives, because the box will come wrapped up in ice packs in order to keep your food fresh until you are able to get the package into the refrigerator. And if you are heading out of town or have a busy week where you’ll likely be relying on takeout, you have the ability to skip a week as frequently as you like, as long as you do so within the order window. Purple Carrot also ships nationwide.
Purple Carrot Cost
The standard box is a two-serving meal kit, which includes three dinners and starts at $79.50 (additional taxes depend on state guidelines).
You can also select four-serving meal plans, which start at $88 and includes two dinners.
First-time users can receive a discount on their first order with code PURPLE20.
For those with dietary restrictions, Purple Carrot allows for the following customizations at no additional fee:
Gluten-Free
High-Protein
Quick and Easy (meals in under 30 min)
Chef's Choice (traditional Purple Carrot meals)
In addition to meal kits, you can order other options. There are meal plans arrive completely prepared, and you just have to heat them up. Those meal plans start at $78 for six meals that feed one person.
Related: Dinner in a Box: How Meal-Kit Delivery Services Work
My Experience:
We tried out a week of Purple Carrot in my household and opted for three dinners and two servings per meal plan. Here are the dishes we made:
Recipe #1: Taiwanese Tofu Lettuce Cups
The instructions said these would take 40 minutes to prepare (30 total to cook) and they were spot on. The bulk of the preparation involved peeling the ginger, chopping the cilantro, dates, garlic, and scallions. What was nice was aside from the rice, which was simultaneously boiling in the pot, these lettuce wraps only required the use of one skillet for the bulk of the cooking. The tofu, oil, salt and pepper went in first. Then, after six minutes or so, everything but the lettuce, rice, and sauce went in.
Then, once finished, the rice and tofu were spooned into the lettuce wraps and these were ready to eat. And they were absolutely delicious...sort of a Thai version of P.F. Chang’s famous lettuce wrap appetizer. Speaking of appetizers, this meal did seem to be more of a starter than a main dish. I’d recommend saving it for when you’re in the mood for a lighter dinner or eating something small alongside a few of these lettuce cups. Another bonus? This was a protein-packed meal, coming in at 33 grams per serving. And the sauce that went over these was very flavorful and unique.
Recipe #2: Walnut Crusted Artichokes
This was a really unusual dish. It wasn't like anything I’ve ever made before. And it tasted great. It was filled with flavor and ample plant-based protein (23 grams). Preparation was fairly easy, although it did take us a bit longer to make. The recipe said to estimate 35 minutes but our oven runs a little slower so it took us about 50. Plus there was a bit of chopping.
The recipe started off with boiling some French green lentils. Then, while those were cooking, we chopped walnuts and parsley and added Veganaise, spices and shallots to a bowl. Artichoke hearts, which came in a can, were drained and then roasted in the oven with oil alongside some seasoned broccolini. Then, the walnut mixture was added into the center of the artichoke hearts and back into the oven they went. Once done, everything was assembled over the lentils and finished off with a squeeze of lemon. Out of all of the meals we sampled, this one was the most filling. And we would totally make it again!
Recipe #3: Superfood Bowls
Cranberries, oranges and a ginger almond sauce combined with sweet potatoes, black quinoa, smoked nori spice and baby kale made for some interesting flavors here. This one was fairly easy to cook. You boil the quinoa, roast the sweet potatoes and mince up the oranges and ginger to mix with the ingredients for the sauce. Once everything was done, we filled our bowls with quinoa, loaded them up with sweet potatoes and kale, and topped off with the delicious sauce.
The almond butter in the ginger dressing was a nice touch, as was the chopped navel orange. It was just a bit light on the sauce, so with two bowls, we ended up having to use a bit of our own ginger salad dressing that we randomly had in the fridge.
Related: My Honest Review of Daily Harvest
Purple Carrot Final Review:
The meals were delicious and the portion sizes were good. My husband, who has an extremely hearty appetite and has complained in the past that some meal delivery kits we’ve tried have had too small of serving sizes, was quite pleased with Purple Carrot. So that was a big win.
Note that if you’re watching your carbs, some of the dishes were a tad high in that department. For instance, the lettuce cups contained 118 grams per serving. You could, of course, go lighter on the rice or leave it out altogether. You could also swap for something lower carb-like konjac or cauliflower rice. But overall, the flavors were delicious and the dishes were unique. I had always wanted to make my own lettuce wraps but had been intimidated in the past so we were really excited to get that recipe. Our favorite was the Walnut Crusted Artichokes. It was just so unusual and refreshing to try a dish that was out of our typical rotation.
I also liked that the recipes come in one colorful booklet and that they contain the recipes for all of the weekly meal options, not just your own. While I had specifically requested the gluten-free meals and these other recipes weren’t necessarily sans gluten, it was also fun to flip through those and get ideas of future things to cook.
The kit came really well-packed, so everything was cold and fresh when we received it. Peeling and chopping everything was a bit of a pain, but the food is fresher that way. Plus, it was so nice to have a recipe in front of me with every single ingredient, down to the spices, included. How many times have you found yourself cooking and getting halfway through a recipe before realizing you’re out of one key ingredient?
Seasoned vegans may already have their cooking down pat, but this kit is absolutely perfect for those who are new to a plant-based lifestyle or those looking to tiptoe into eating more plants. And of course, it's great for anyone too busy to shop and figure out “what’s for dinner?”
Next up, we tested four popular plant-based meal kits—here's what to know!
