Going vegan or just wanna make your life a little more green? Purple Carrot offers creative, flavorful, and vibrant meal kits that are 100% plant-based – making it easy as gluten-free, protein-packed pie (yes, they offer meal kits catering to those categories!) to come up with plant-based dishes that are more Rihanna than gospel.
Yes, Purple Carrot claims to have started a plant-based revolution, and this company definitely makes veggies sexy again! They offer balanced vegan meal kits for up to three meals per day, with ingredients already measured and pre-portioned. That's why we ranked it as one of the best meal services with vegetarian options.
Just add a pinch of salt and oil, and the pedagogic recipe booklet will take you on a culinary journey to the lands of eclectic flavors! In the words of Purple Carrot: eat what you love, but eat more plants.
Finding the best food subscription box for your needs can be a challenge, so let's taco 'bout how in this Purple Carrot review!
Purple Carrot At A Glance
- Best Match For: Anyone searching for affordable plant-based meal kits with delicious and easy-to-follow recipes.
- Commitment Level: Weekly subscription
- Availability: The contiguous US (No Alaska or Hawaii)
- Value: $9.99-$11.99/meal; Free shipping
- Type: Fresh plant-based meal kits (needs to be cooked)
How Purple Carrot Works
When you sign up on their site, you'll automatically receive weekly deliveries of meal kits. This delivery service has no commitment or membership fee, and you can review it and cancel anytime – making it a great, low-risk option letting you get a taste of their plant-based services before you decide.
Hassle-Free Skipping or Pausing
You can skip a week or up to 10 without additional charges. Perfect if you're traveling, in the mood for a restaurant, or just wanna take a break.
As opposed to some other meal kit services where you need to call or email, Purple Carrot has made the procedure easy: just go to your account, click on Upcoming Deliveries, and click the green skip toggle to the right of the week you wish to skip. You can pause or skip up to four weeks in advance.
Just remember to pause by Tuesday the week before your next delivery.
Subscription Options
What subscription options can you choose between? There are two main packages:
To review or change a plan, go to My Account > Edit > Choose This Plan.
Snack with a Clean Conscience
In addition to these two main kits for plant-based meals, you have the option to add breakfasts, lunches, and snacks at your convenience.
Since this is one of several meal delivery programs that focus on healthy food, you can trust the snacks to be healthy, beautifully blending into your plant-based diet.
To spice things up, Purple Carrot changes the snacks every 6 weeks, giving you the possibility to discover the in-meal treats you didn't know you craved – while being able to reorder your new favorites for a few weeks if you so wish.
How many snacks you can order depends on how many can fit into the box after your main meals are packed.
Which shouldn't be a concern since the more food you'll eat, the less snacks you'll want.
Extras
Purple Carrot also has a concept called Extras, allowing you to order up to three meals per day. Breakfast Extras gives you up to three weekly breakfasts for the 2-servings plan, and one breakfast for the 4-servings plan.
The given choice if there's a certain day when you feel like having a healthy, hearty breakfast minus the prep – or for a bountiful weekend brunch.
Lunch Extras gives easy-to-follow recipes for lunches. Just like the Breakfast Extras, they take less than 15 minutes to prepare – sometimes only 5! Choose between several lunch options on the website.
How Do I Add Extras?
The natural question is then, how do you add Extras to your weekly order? You can choose one-time Extras or add them on repeat by the following simple 3-step procedure:
Different Kinds of Kits
For those selecting the 2-serving plan, there's the option to customize your kits to different dietary choices.
You change to the kit of your choice under Upcoming Menus > Change Meals. Here, you can change for up to 4 weeks in one go.
If you don't have any particular preferences, Purple Carrot will send you the standard option called Chef's Choice by default. This sends you meals carefully selected by the Culinary Team and is also a great starting place.
Gluten-Free
Purple Carrot is one of the top gluten-free meal services. As implied by the name, the gluten-free kit is for everyone who wants to eat plant-based meals – minus the gluten. Note that the preparation facilities still use gluten, so celiacs may wish to consult their doctor or talk to the Culinary Team before ordering.
High-Protein
Who said plant-based gives spaghetti arms? This kit for athletes and those with an active lifestyle, offering 20+ g protein per serving, proves that not only gorillas get ripped on leafy greens! Perfect also to curb appetite in between meals.
Quick and Easy
This is the number one choice for those with a busy lifestyle, who still wanna get that moment of mindfulness that preparing your own meal gives – minus the planning and grocery shopping. The Purple Carrot Quick and Easy are meals that take less than 30 minutes to prepare.
What Kitchen Tools Do I Need to Cook With Purple Carrot?
This is the list of kitchen utensils recommended by the Culinary Team at Purple Carrot:
What You Can Expect from Your Meal
Your order arrives with a meal delivery service on Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday depending on where you live.
Purple Carrot recommends that you cook your meals within a few days for freshness. Most ingredients stay fresh for up to a week if you store them in the fridge.
You have the freedom to make your own serving plan, depending on what you want to eat on which day.
That said, the Purple Carrot team also recommends that you start cooking meals containing delicate foods such as leafy greens.
All ingredients you need come in an insulated box, labeled to take out the guessing game.
You'll also get a recipe booklet with easy-to-follow recipes containing eight dinner recipes, two breakfast recipes, and two lunch ones.
Purple Carrot expects you to have salt, vegetable and olive oil, pepper, and non-dairy milk – the rest comes in bags and bottles with the exact quantities you need. Even stuff like seasonings and condiments are provided by Purple Carrot.
Check out our full list of the best plant-based meal delivery services.
Nutritional Information
You can find a nutritional review on the Menu page and Upcoming Deliveries page. Each meal contains 500-800 calories with a neat balance of complex carbs, lean proteins, and healthy fats.
Can Extras be Tailored for Dietary Preferences?
While Purple Carrot has the specific gluten-free, vegan meal plan for their 2-serving dinners, Extras are not guaranteed to fit into your dietary preferences. Purple Carrot offers one gluten-free breakfast and lunch per week.
How About Food Allergies?
At the time of writing, Purple Carrot is unable to cater for allergies except for gluten. They recommend you to contact their Culinary Team, which is happy to give you advice on ingredient replacements suiting your allergies! You can reach them easily through the live chat on the Purple Carrot website.
Sample Meals
Purple Carrot teaches you how to cook meals from cuisines from all over the world, with more nutrients and taste per serving. Some examples are:
Don't know about you, but simply reading those meal names got my mouth watering!
If you wanna try one meal or two, you'll find recipes for the week's meals on their website – and some bonus recipes amping up your kitchen skills.
How about learning how to slice an orange chef style, make a quick pickle adding some tanginess to any dish, or get the skillset to clean a cast-iron skillet?
You'll also find delicious snack recipes. How about a Plant-Based Lemon Meringue Pie, Spicy Grapefruit Margaritas, or the exotic Cauliflower Blueberry Smoothie?
The Peanut Butter Sesame Cookies will have you forget about Oreos for good!
Check the Appetizers section for those special occasions. Maybe a mouthful of cute sweet-potato black-bean tacos or some crunchy, herb-crusted squash to chew on as an aperitif when having guests over and waiting for dinner to be done?
Chances are Purple Carrot's generous recipe section will be your new go-to place when craving recipes suitable for vegan and vegetarian options on your plate that are both nutritious and delicious – because why choose?
The search bar lets you filter on cuisine, recipe type, ingredients, and dietary concerns to make sure the results are a good match – in all senses!
Delivery
The meal-kit arrives at your place by a meal delivery company in an insulated box, packaged in non-toxic ice packs to stay temperature-safe even if you're not home. No signature needed – if you're at work, your box will be there waiting for you to prepare a delicious, plant-based meal for dinner!
If you live in a place where the box can't be left outside your door, you have some options to review. Either ask a neighbor or friend to receive it for you, have the package delivered to your workplace, or leave special delivery instructions when ordering – so that the meal delivery company can store it in a safe place for you.
Recycling
Most materials in the packaging are recyclable:
On their website, Purple Carrot has a video with tips for upcycling – that is, creative ways of using the packaging for new purposes that you might not have thought about. Worth checking out!
Delivery Day
Purple Carrot offers delivery on Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday weekly – the exact day depends on where you live, and delivery time depends on the meal delivery company.
Upon ordering, Purple Carrot sends you a tracking link with detailed info. If your box hasn't arrived when you expected it to, use this tracking link on your Upcoming Deliveries page to see what happened. You can reach out to Purple Carrot if the link says your box has an exception or has been discarded.
Purple Carrot delivers to contiguous US only, and always offers free shipping.
FAQS
Through this review, we've found Purple Carrot to be a great option for those wanting to eat more plant-based – either seasoned vegans wanting to free up some time from planning and going to the grocery store, or new vegans or carnivores wanting to eat more plant-based and feeling overwhelmed by all the options.
Weight loss is ultimately individual and depends on many factors. Many people report on going through a transformation and feeling lighter and healthier when on a plant-based diet – such as the ones offered by Purple Carrot.
While they strive to have as much organic and non-GMO as possible, Purple Carrot isn't 100% organic due to constraints in ingredient choices. They claim to be working on this since it's important to many consumers, so keep your eyes open!
Purple Carrot is based in Needham, MA, and works with shipping centers in New Jersey, Chicago, and Las Vegas.
No, Purple Carrot is owned by a Tokyo-based company called Oisix Ra Daichi Inc. Tom Brady simply partnered with Purple Carrot to create a unique plant-based line of meals for athletes and active people.
Purple Carrot is not too expensive, as their prices are average for meal delivery services. Each serving costs $9.99-$11.99 depending on the plan you choose, and the delivery is free.
It all depends on your personal taste, as both services are excellent, with quality ingredients and delicious recipes. Hungryroot may have more variety, while Purple Carrot is perfect for those who need a larger serving.
Yes, preparing Purple Carrot meals is super easy, and you won’t need more than 10 minutes in most cases.
Yes, canceling Purple Carrot is easy and you can do it at any time. Simply go to your subscription tab in your account settings, click on the button, and follow the steps to cancel your subscription.
Purple Carrot Costs
Depending on the select plan, you can expect to pay $9.99-$11.99 per serving. The shipping is free, and you receive $20 off your first order.
Pros and Cons
Signing up for a vegan food subscription box with Purple Carrot is a great way to break routines by introducing exciting, exotic eating options and more joy per serving! They have generous serving sizes – one serving might even be enough for two meals.
Each meal contains a protein source to be more filling, and for the 2-serving plan, you have several meal options.
Ingredients come in the exact amount needed.
Another advantage is that Purple Carrot has a bonus program called Share A Box. For every four boxes you order, you'll receive a free box to gift to someone who has never tried them before.
Purple Carrot might not be for someone who wants to cook something quick. Also, be prepared that embarking on a cooking adventure with this meal kit service yields quite a lot of dishes.
They are best suited for smaller households, and options are fairly limited. For example, you can only customize the 2-serving plans. On the other hand, limited options can be a relief for those wanting less decision-making in their lives!
- 100% plant-based
- Generous serving sizes
- Each meal contains a protein source
- Bonus program allows you to gift free boxes to friends
Food for Thought
Purple Carrot sees a variety of subscribers: vegetarians, those into veganism, and anyone who wants to eat less animal products for health, animal welfare, or the impact on the environment.
Their selection of innovative, international meals puts a twist on your daily dishes. They allow you to amp up your ability to cook from scratch and go beyond the basics. Directions in the recipe booklet are easy to follow even for green chefs.
We appreciate the possibility of ordering plant-based and customizing for additional options, such as gluten-free and high- protein – something that makes Purple Carrot stand out from the crowd!
Purple Carrot