(Be sure to read to the end to get great discount offers for eMeals!)

I use to be VERY much against food subscription services. I found the majority of them to be expensive with mediocre meal options for a vegetarians like myself.

But after I had Edison, I could see why services like these are much needed. Most nights, I just don’t have the time or energy to think up a dinner or flip through recipe books or Pinterest.

If you follow me on Youtube, then you know that shortly before I got pregnant, I gave meal prepping a go. It saved me so much time, but I was honestly hitting a road block coming up with easy and healthy ideas.

This is were eMeals comes in.

eMeals is an online meal planning service that allows for users to pick plans based on their dietary preferences and family size. They provide the recipes and the shopping list, which can be printed out, or exported to grocery stores like Korger or Walmart (Check out my blog on Walmart Grocery Online!) to be delivered or picked up.

So essentially,  eMeals is a recipe subscription service that will set you back about $5 a month (or $60 total) for a one year plan.

Before I went ahead and gave this a go, I kinda felt like this was a bit scammy at worst and pointless at best. I mean, all they were providing was recipes with the ingredients list, which I could curate myself (I didn’t realize then, just how much time and relief  providing those two things offered!) .

But they offered a sample plan and a free two week trial, so I decided we would give them a go anyways to see if we’d like it.

The Good and the Bad

Before I tell ya’ll my over all opinions on eMeals, I want to go ahead and list out what I found particularly great about this service and what fell flat for our family. Keep in mind, all family are going to have different needs, but I tried to keep the average family in mind when I made this list.

What is Great About eMeals

• Great food–First and foremost, with any meal service the food should taste great. And here it does. We found many of these recipes to be fun and creative and season appropriate. Just about everything we’ve made thus far with eMeals, is a meal we would enjoy eating again.
• Quick and healthy meals— Most of their meals range from 500-800 cals. pre serving and most of their meals can be made in 30-35 minutes. This is great for the moms (and dads) who need to make a healthy meal quick!
• Easy to follow—The directions are clear and easy to follow along with. My husband, who is just getting his sea legs in the kitchen, feels pretty confident following the steps they provide.
• Dietary options— eMeals offers a wide variety of dietary options, including low cal, diabetic, budget friends, and 30 minute or less plans. They also offer plans based on family sizes, and breakfast/lunch/snack plans (for an additional fee).
• Cost effective– At $60 a year, these recipes work out to be about $.16 a meal. Add that to your grocery bill  (our average was ~$45/week) and you get a final cost of $3.23/ plate ($45.16/7days a week/ 2 plates). Compared to Blue Apron’s average price of $9.99 per plate, this is a huge savings! *This meal average can go up a bit if you eat meat, however, according to what others have said online, it’s still significantly less than other options out there.
• Connivence--As mentioned above, the grocery list can be exported to Instacart, Kroger or Walmart, which means through this app, you can plan your meals, shop for your ingredients and then have them shipped to your home, or pick them up in stores.
• Cut back on waste— Because you’re buying what you need, food isn’t going to waste and money isn’t going down the drain.
• Variety of meals options– eMeals provide you with 2 weeks worth of recipes at a time. This means you can mix and match and make your own costume meal plan for the week.

What Could Be Better

• The amount of meals– Unlike Blue Apron or Hello Fresh, you can’t choose how many recipes you get  (though you can choose not to shop for all 7 days of the week). If you eating out, then you’re technically still paying for a recipe that you’re not using. Granted, it’s not much ($.16 a recipe), but if you’re only using this service 3x a week (like Blue Apron plans), then you’re loosing about $33 a year.
• No pause button– Kinda in line with the point above, you also can’t pause your service. This means that if you’re gone on vacation, you’re still paying for those recipes.
• Can’t mix match plans–I would love to be able to cross mixes vegetarian and clean eating plans, however eMeals doest currently offer that. You can switch between plans however without paying additional fees.
• The app could be better--If you choose to use the app, it isn’t half bad. But it also isn’t my favorite layout either. While I do appreciate their cook mode function, over all I feel like there is more development that they can bring to the app.

eMeals dinners that I tried out. Thwy were super yummy!

eMeals dinners that I tried out. Thwy were super yummy!

My Final Thoughts

While there are certainly a few details that I think eMeals can hash out better, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I actually really enjoy the service. Sure you can find recipes on Pinterest and meal plan on your own for free. But eMeals takes the guesswork out of everything and just makes dinner time that much easier. It doesn’t hurt that the meals are tasty too! And the added bonus is, they are so easy to follow that it make cooking fun for newbies in the kitchen.

As a small family of 3, with our baby way south of 2, the two person plan is prefect for us and often time even produces leftovers that my husband uses for lunch. I feel like the family plan would be prefect for larger families of 4-6 as well (and remember, since you’re in control of the grocery list, you can easily double it if you have a super big family, or guest coming over).

Interested in trying eMeals out?

eMeals offers a free 14 day trial for new users. Click HERE to sign up now!

You can also view their sample meals plan for each dietary option (This allows you to try them out for a week without and credit  card commitment.)

eMeals from time to time also will offer discounts to new users. I will try to keep this post updated with active discount code, however  I have generally noticed them giving their best offers around major holidays.  As of this post, you can get $20 off a yearly subscription by using code :MEMORIAL during check out.

Check out the list below for other active discount codes!

Sign up for eMeals with Groupon and get up to 46% of 6 months (Pair this with Ebates and get 6% cashback!)

Use Code: Dinner15 for 15% off your eMeal order

Use Code: BACK for 15% off your eMeal order

Use Code: DAVE to take $2.50 off your eMeal oder  

Disclosure statement: This post is not sponsored and opinions are 100% my own. However this post contains affiliate links. These link help me out and are place for your convince. However, as always, you are under NO obligation to use them =]  

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