Purple Carrot is working to get people to eat more plants for their health and the planet. The service offers entirely vegan meals that can be cooked at home or purchased as a heat-and-eat option.
While many meal delivery services in the United States offer some plant-based options, the company remains one of the few that offers an entirely plant-based menu. We tried out Purple Carrot’s ready-made meals to see if plant-based food can be as tasty as they claim.
Pricing: Static Pricing, Free Shipping
No matter what meal you choose or how many you order, they will all be single servings and cost the same amount. We liked the simple design of the website as well as the free shipping. Meals are available to purchase in packages of six, eight, or 10 meals per week, at a cost of $12.99 per meal.
Here’s a quick breakdown of Purple Carrot’s pricing for the main meal plans:
- 3 meals with 2 servings each: $72/week
- 4 meals with 2 servings each: $96/week
- 2 meals with 4 servings each: $80/week
- 3 meals with 4 servings each: $120/week
- 6 prepared meals with 1 serving each: $78/week
- 8 prepared meals with 1 serving each: $104/week
- 10 prepared meals with 1 serving each: $130/week
In addition to the mainstay items in your weekly box, you have the option to add breakfast, lunch, and “Plantry” items as well. Prices for individual items like jackfruit and plant-based sausage usually range from $5 to $9. That’s enough to get you 3 free meals. You can get 3 free meals from Purple Carrot by using the promo code Simple35.
How It Works: Simple Signup, Minimal Choices
Purple Carrot provides both meal kits in boxes and fresh, prepared foods, all vegan. We opted for the premade option and found it easy to initiate the process. In order to get started, you will need to create an account and select your preferred plan and meals. Once you have done this, you will be able to set up delivery.
After you create an account by using your email and creating a password, you will need to select a plan. There are only a few options to choose from as all of the meals are single serve. You can choose to have six, eight, or 10 dinners per week.
After you give your payment information, you will be able to choose your food and have it delivered. We found it a bit inconvenient that you can’t choose your delivery day with Purple Carrot. It is easy to manage upcoming deliveries, but you may skip some. The deadline for making changes to an upcoming order is the Tuesday of the week before your delivery.
Purple Carrot Meal Plans
When you sign up for your first delivery, you have the option of choosing two or four servings. The menu changes slightly with each option. You must pick a minimum of three meals a week if you want just two servings. The maximum number of meals you can order is four. The plan offers more recipes than the four-serving kit. If you need four servings, you are only able to order two to three meals per week.
Each weekly meal option has a corresponding picture of the prepared dish, a list of ingredients, nutrition facts, instructions, and cook time. This format should help you in choosing your weekly meals. The recipes are organized by category to make it easier for people with dietary restrictions to find recipes they can eat. The categories are High-Protein, Soy-Free, Nut-Free, Gluten-Free, Quick and Easy, < 600 Calories, and Chef’s Choice. Subscribers can add “Plantry” items to their orders along with breakfast, lunch, and dinner, which include sauces (like Thai peanut sauce) and side dishes (like baba ghanoush).
Purple Carrot provides a selection of pre-prepared meals, all of which are single servings that can be microwaved. I didn’t sample any of the dishes available, which include Tofu Tikka Masala, Herbed Risotto, and Tunisian Chickpea Stew. You cannot mix meal kits with prepared meals, but subscribers who select prepared meals can order up to 10 per week.
Choosing Meals: Short Menu, No Add-Ons
The selections of meals Purple Carrot delivers is quick because there is not a lot to choose from and you can’t customize them. There is not a lot of room for improvement with prepared meals. Each week there are 12 vegan meals on offer. The menu is decent sized, but it only changes every four weeks. Even if you choose the smallest size plan from Purple Carrot, you will still end up with some repeat items.
Customers can see the meals in their dashboard, click through to see the ingredients, nutrition, and allergens for each meal, and make changes to what’s in their cart for the week. The whole process is quick and easy.
Packaging: A Mix of Materials
In general, the amount of packaging that came with our order from Purple Carrot was the same as what we’ve come to expect from single-serve, ready-to-eat meals. You can find instructions on how to properly dispose of the recyclable cardboard box, the insulated liner, and the plastic cooling packs from the Purple Carrot website.
This was great, and it would have been even better if it had included the packaging for individual meals. Too bad it’s not there. The meal is served in a rigid plastic tray with a plastic film and a cardboard sleeve around it. The sleeve has reheating instructions and other details about the meal. We had to deal with 20 pieces of packaging for our 5 items, plus the packaging the items were delivered in.
Customer Support: Mixed Support
We had differing results when we contacted Purple Carrot at different points during our experience. We contacted customer service through the chat feature and received a quick response to our question about changing an order.
The next time we tried to contact customer service, we received a message from Purple Carrot saying that both phone and chat services were temporarily unavailable while theyfocused on the large number of email messages they had received. It took them over 24 hours to respond to our inquiry.
Purple Carrot seems to be a small, growing operation that is unfortunately having some difficulties as it expands. We appreciate the company’s advanced notice of potential delays in communication and understand that customers need to be patient with companies during their busiest times of year.
Nutrition: Diets by Default
By default, Purple Carrot ends up accommodating a number of different diets given its primary objective to be plant-based: vegan, pescatarian, vegetarian, and more. The service also offers some gluten-free meals. The packaging facility for these meals is not certified gluten-free, meaning that meals may come into contact with wheat or nuts during production.
The meals provided offer a variety of nutrient-rich options, with each serving containing approximately 500-800 calories. A common concern with vegan diets is how much protein they are getting. The meals from Purple Carrot seem to have 10-20 grams of protein, which is pretty good. A “high protein” label on some of these meals would be great, especially meals that have 20g or more of protein, like Purple Carrot’s meal kits. Unfortunately, you’ll have to look for that info yourself for now.
We love diets that are full of healthy plants, fiber, and other nutrient-rich foods. Purple Carrot is a great option that doesn’t make us feel limited. This service does not provide much information on nutrition or diet beyond the guarantee of vegan foods, so it may not be the best choice for people with specialized needs.
The Cooking Process: Super Fast
The meals from Purple Carrot take 5 minutes or less to go from the fridge to your stomach. Meal that require heating can be done within a few minutes using a microwave. The directions we were given resulted in an evenly cooked meal that could also be eaten cold if desired.
The instructions are only given for microwave reheating, but if the menu expands, stovetop or oven reheating options might be included as well. We believe that the meals are perfect for those with no cooking skills or who do not have time to cook.
In other words, Purple Carrot’s recipes aren’t really meant for people who don’t know how to cook very well. The Sesame Orange Tofu recipe involves cooking a pot of rice, roasting green beans, mixing a sauce, and browning tofu cubes all at around the same time.
You will receive a recipe booklet with step-by-step instructions for how to make every meal offered that week, including the dishes you didn’t order. You will receive three meals, but the booklet contains a total of 12 recipes.
If you don’t want quick prep times, Purple Carrot is for you. Some of the meals take a long time to make, even the ones that are supposed to be quick. The Summer Vegetable Ciabatta is the easiest recipe by far. It’s not difficult to screw up broiled vegetables on a sandwich roll.
Purple Carrot Flavor and Quality
The dishes were extremely flavorful, and required a variety of ingredients, spices, and cooking techniques that I never would have thought to use in my own meal preparation.
The Takeout-Style Noodles With Snow Peas had a restaurant-quality taste. The savoriness of the dish was thanks to the peanuts and sesame oil, but it was given a refreshing twist from the fresh ginger. The Bombay Potatoes had the perfect mix of cumin, brown mustard seeds, and garlic to create the right amount of heat, and the Sesame Orange Tofu had the perfect balance of nutty and sweet flavors.
We were most surprised that the meals are actually substantial and satisfying.
Purple Carrot Sustainability and Sourcing
Purple Carrot is trying to reduce its impact on the environment and it appears that the company is mostly doing what it says it will do. The packaging, including the boxes and some of the lining material, is recyclable. Before adding plastic jars and tops to your recycling bin, check whether your community’s recycling program accepts such items.
Purple Carrot partners with farmers across the U.S. to source its products. While most of the non-produce items at the store are organic, some of the produce is not. The company wants to include more organic items in its meal kits, according to its website.
Purple Carrot Customer Reviews
Based on more than 470 customer reviews, Purple Carrot has an average 4.1 stars out of 5 on Trustpilot. A negative review typically receives a response from the meal delivery service within one week. Here are a few recent comments from actual subscribers.
“The meals are delicious and make it super easy to stick to our plant-based lifestyle.”
“Purple Carrot offers a wonderful and tasty menu of foods to fit a vegan and gluten-free lifestyle… There was A LOT of packaging to deal with each week. We did have a total of three issues with delivery and the staff at Purple Carrot was on it like flies on a camel’s back!!”
“Highly recommend this if you are trying plant-based and have no idea where to start. The chef creates meals with items I would have never put together, but they all taste so wonderful and the food is beautiful! Be prepared to prep and cook… but the payoff is worth it. So yummy!!”
“My last two boxes were missing ingredients and the mango for the mango salsa was hard as a rock and didn’t make for a good experience… Now, for the plus. I do enjoy the creativity of the dishes being prepared and that they are vegan-inspired dishes that are very tasty when prepared properly.”
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