Like
- Food is fully prepared with no prep required
- Most meals tasted good and fresh
- Tons of options for healthy smoothies, soups and bowls
- Ordering is easy and intuitive
Don’t like
- Some of the meals were bland or boring
- Expensive for what it is
- Portions are on the small side
Product details
- Pricing Starting at $8/meal
- Type Pre-made
- Regional Availability Continental United States
- Number of Meal Options per Week 40+
- Menu Options/ Diet Types Plant-based, gluten-free non-GMO
Summer is peeking around the corner. With that warm weather comes busy weekends making it as good a time as any to find healthy shortcuts for mealtime. Splendid Spoon, a popular plant-based meal delivery service, produces superfood-packed meals and snacks and sends them along for you to stock the fridge for those busy mornings and afternoons.
Splendid Spoon is one of several healthy meal delivery operations that have popped up in the last decade. Daily Harvest is a similar service, but that company requires you to quickly cook the frozen ingredients or blend the smoothies with water, milk or nut milk. Splendid Spoon’s food is truly ready to eat: Just pop the top on a smoothie or nuke the soups and bowls for a few minutes and breakfast or lunch is ready.
While some meal delivery is suited for dinner, this meal delivery subscription feels more tailored to breakfast and lunch. I tried a week’s worth of Splendid Spoon’s meals. While it’s not my top pick in the healthy meal delivery category, there’s a real appeal in having breakfast ready when you wake up or lunch sitting there when the clock hits noon.
Here’s how Splendid Spoon works and what I thought of this healthy, vegan meal delivery service.
How Splendid Spoon works
As with other meal delivery services, Splendid Spoon is a subscription service. That means you’ll pick a plan and that same delivery will keep coming every week unless you pause or cancel (which you can do at any time). You can choose from a menu of meals each week or keep the same stuff coming. You can choose between three plans with as few as seven meals and as many as 21. The more meals you choose per week, the cheaper they’ll be with the 21-meal plan costing about $9 a meal. Shipping is free if you choose 14 or 21 meals, otherwise, you’ll pay $13 per box.
After you select your plan you’ll pick your meals, choosing smoothies, grain bowls, soups and noodle dishes depending on what your subscription includes. Meals are delivered to you chilled — not frozen — on either Wednesday or Friday each week. For Wednesday deliveries, you must place your order by 1 pm PT on Thursday. For Friday deliveries, the cutoff is 1 pm PT on Sunday. As of now Splendid Spoon only delivers to the lower 48 states in the US.
On any given week’s menu, you’ll have about 65 meals to choose from, including more than 20 smoothies with sweet options like blueberry coconut and some more savory blends like carrot-ginger and power greens. There are also a dozen or so grain and rice bowls and around 20 soups along with to heartier rice and noodle bowls.
What are Splendid Spoon meals like?
All the food is 100% vegan (no meat, dairy or animal byproducts) and gluten-free. The recipes are made with lots of healthy fruits, vegetables and superfoods like kale, spinach, beans and whole grains. The website says about 95% of the food is organic and it’s 100% GMO-free.
Much of the food is what I’d categorize as healthy food with a good deal of global culinary influence. Think brown rice taco bowl with beans and tomato salsa or cauliflower tikka masala soup. You won’t find many soy-based meat substitutes; these are mostly whole ingredients. Portions aren’t huge but they aren’t skimpy either, in keeping with the idea of healthy eating.
Before choosing any item you can see the full ingredient list and nutritional information. You can also filter for more specific dietary needs, such as high-fiber, low-carb and high-protein foods.
What I ate and how I liked it
I’ll preface my critique of Splendid Spoon’s smoothies by saying I make a lot of smoothies at home and so can be particular. Because Splendid Spoon smoothies are preblended, they’re a bit more like juices to drink and don’t have that creamy, frozen texture I am used to. Beyond the main ingredients, each one is fortified with healthy superfoods like chia seeds, hemp seeds and pea protein. These additions don’t alter the flavor dramatically but deliver dense nutrients and antioxidants.
Strawberry and Goji Berry with Cashew Butter:This was just OK, a bit sour for my taste.
Carrot-Ginger with Mango and Dates: An excellent smoothie with savory and sweet elements in perfect harmony. No notes.
Power Greens: This green-juice smoothie is loaded with good stuff, including organic hemp seeds, chia seeds, spirulina, pea protein and kale. The banana and coconut balanced all the vegetable components with just enough sweetness and not too much.
Banana-Flax with Almonds: I make nut butter and banana smoothie most mornings. This was different and the lemon gave it a bright zing but I still prefer my freshly blended version.
Blueberry-Coconut with Acai and Cinnamon: Another very good smoothie. The cinnamon and vanilla made it sing.
Spiced Lentil and Chickpea Soup:Solid, but not terribly flavorful for a soup that bills itself as “spiced.”
Kale-Pesto Noodles with Roasted Tomatoes: A flavorful vegan pesto over al dente noodles. A very tasty meal.
Dan Dan Noodles with Bok Choy and Peppercorn: This noodle dish was packed with Sichuan flavors and had good heat. The noodles were chewy and not mushy, just the way I like them.
Coconut Curry Rice Bowl with Kale, Chickpeas and Cashews: This was tasty and filling. A familiar flavor combination.
Fennel Consomme with Dill: The bright fennel was overpowering and the only thing I could taste. I didn’t enjoy this one very much.
Wellness shots: My order came with five free wellness shots. I especially liked the watermelon, beet and ginger “recovery” shot, but all of them were tasty and went down smoothly.
How I prepared my Splendid Spoon meals
The drinks come completely ready to drink. They’re also good to pop into the freezer if you need more time to get through them. The soups and bowls can be microwaved but I suggest reheating them gently in a saucepan or nonstick skillet. This method always produces more even heating and reduces the chance that you’ll overcook the food.
Who is Splendid Spoon good for?
Because the food is truly ready to eat, Splendid Spoon is perfect for anyone looking to cut cooking — or even blending — completely out of the equation for a few meals per week.
The food is vegan and gluten-free so it’s a good choice for anyone adhering to those diets. The portions aren’t huge, so if you’re trying to cut total calories per week, this meal delivery service might help. Splendid Spoon is also very Whole30-friendly if you’re looking to eat less processed food and meals with more natural ingredients.
This is also a good option for a habitual smoothie and juice drinker looking to mix up their recipes and flavors but doesn’t feel like shopping for all the ingredients needed to make them.
Who is Splendid Spoon not as good for?
If you have a smoothie routine that you have down to a science, the Splendid Spoon smoothies might feel like a slight downgrade. Yes, you’ll taste new recipes and interesting flavor combinations but they’re more like juices in texture.
Since the food is all vegan, this isn’t a good pick for anyone who craves meat for breakfast and lunch or other dense protein foods such as eggs. Since a lot of the smoothies contain fruit (sugar) and the bowls have grains, beans and noodles, this isn’t the ideal meal delivery for someone keeping to a low-carb or keto plan, either.
How much does Splendid Spoon cost?
For plans with 14 or 21 meals per week the price per meal nets out to about $9 per serving. That seems like a decent deal for the rice and noodle bowls but a bit steep for a smoothie or one serving of soup. If you choose just seven meals per week, you’ll pay $13 per meal and another $13 for shipping, which is definitely not a good value.
Splendid Spoon pricing is on par with plant-based competitors like Daily Harvest and Mosaic Foods but, for what it’s worth, I liked both of those services better.
Packaging and eco-friendliness
The drinks, soups and bowls are all packaged in recyclable plastic. Splendid Spoon also uses dry ice instead of ice packs, which are rarely fully recyclable. The cooler box is also made from recyclable materials. Pound for pound this is one of the most eco-friendly meal delivery services I’ve tested. The bowl containers are also very reusable, with tight-fitting lids and sturdy plastic. They might not survive a hot dishwasher but are certainly good for a few hand washes.
Final verdict on Splendid Spoon
There is something to be said for having fully prepared lunches and dinners around when you need them. Splendid Spoon offers over 50 or more options for healthy, plant-based meals. While most of them were pretty tasty, they weren’t terribly exciting.
If you don’t mind a few minutes of smoothie prep, I might recommend Daily Harvest, which sends all the ingredients diced, frozen and ready to be blended with milk. If it’s just the soups and bowls you’re after, Splendid Spoon has a host of pleasant lunches or light dinners to choose from each week. They arrive fresh and ready to be eaten or popped in the freezer, saving you precious time during the morning and afternoon.
And for bigger eaters looking for full meals that are more dinner-friendly, there are better plant-based services out there. Mosaic Foods is my No. 1 pick featuring more interesting food for about the same total price per meal.
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