Marley Spoon is a fantastic option if you’re searching for a low-cost, family-friendly meal delivery service with an extensive menu and a wide range of flavours to choose from each week.
Martha Stewart’s trademark spices and condiments are featured in her handpicked collection of recipes. The menu features a variety of classic American dishes with Mexican and Mediterranean flavours. While the instructions may seem daunting at first, even the most inexperienced cook will be able to master these dishes.
Not only is it impossible to tailor the service to specific dietary needs or allergens, but many recipes also call for complex ingredients to keep on hand. However, this is an excellent choice for those who wish to spend more time in the kitchen, as it contains both tried-and-true home cooking staples and inventive dishes inspired by cuisines worldwide.
There’s something for everyone on the menu, from families to gourmet cooks.
Furthermore, Marley Spoon’s door delivery services have zero carbon footprint. Keep reading to learn about the many benefits of using this service.
What is Marley Spoon?
Like HelloFresh, Marley Spoon is a meal kit delivery service. Every meal kit has ingredients and a recipe card to guide the preparation process.
Martha Stewart’s delicious and filling recipes are often featured on the menu. You can select from 45 rotating menu items, split evenly between vegan, vegetarian, and family-friendly options.
You can pick a menu online weekly and receive your ingredients and recipe cards at your door. The best part is that perishable items will still be placed in an extra cold bag if they sit for a while. Unpacking is a breeze, and items may be stored in the fridge or cupboard until you’re ready to cook.
Marley Spoon Review
Marley Spoon’s Pricing review
Marley Spoon has two pricing options, one for a box that serves two people and another that serves four. Then, you can select anywhere from two to six meals per box from the service. The shipping cost for any box is $8.99.
Costs are calculated on a per-person and per-meal basis. Six portions are $9.49 each or $11.99 for two individuals. Two dinners for four individuals cost $9.99 for each serving, whereas six servings cost $8.49 per serving.
You can put three servings of food for two persons ($10.49 each) in your package. From a time and money perspective, it is the most fantastic option.
Marley Spoon’s Delivery Services
After deciding on a subscription plan with Marley Spoon, you’ll be prompted to opt for a delivery day. Giving early notice, say in a week, lets you switch the day you get your deliveries.
You can’t specify a time window like you can with supermarket delivery services. The delivery window is between 8 AM and 8 PM on the day you specified.
Marley Spoon uses cold packs if you aren’t home to accept package delivery. All materials in your Marley Spoon box are nicely chilled and will arrive on time.
The primary concern with meal kits has always been their excessive packaging. Luckily, Marley Spoon asserts that minimising waste through packaging is a top priority. Both the outside cardboard and the thermal liner inside it are recyclable.
However, the foil bags are not. The ice packs’ inert, nonhazardous composition means they can be thrown away after use. While some fresh fruits and vegetables may not be wrapped, most proteins, seasonings, and other cooking ingredients are sold in plastic containers.
Meal kits’ convenience lies in their premeasured materials; here’s hoping these companies can reduce waste.
Marley Spoon’s Recipes
Marley Spoon’s strongest suit is its collection of delicious recipes. Over 40 weekly meals are available, and the service’s selection of meals and preparation methods is only comparable to Sunbasket, which is a way more expensive alternative. Marley Spoon’s menu provides a more ideal mix of complex, creative recipes and simple, crowd-pleasing dishes than HelloFresh’s.
Recent weeks’ menus have included garlic-butter steak, tomato-poached fish, Thai shrimp salad, Cajun dirty rice, creamy turkey tortillas, bulgogi burger, vegan sweet potato chilli, and Barbecue meat-free sloppy joes.
Flourless chocolate cake, hot cross buns with raisins, salted caramel oat bars, and bacon-Swiss egg nibbles are just a few of the weekly dessert and brunch offerings.
Choose dishes with lean proteins (including at least a seafood meal), exciting flavours, and minimal preparation time for your box, especially if you had a hectic week. Chicken fajitas in a skillet, grilled fish with herbed panko, and Italian wedding soup can all be on the table in under 20 minutes.
Nutritional Review of Marley Spoon Dishes
The following summarises academic research at the University of Sydney into the nutritional attributes of the most popular Australian meal delivery kit packages.
All numbers are “per each suggested serving.”
HelloFresh
Dinnerly
Pepper Leaf
Marley Spoon
Food Types (no. of serves)
Vegetables
3.1
2.6
2.6
2.8
Grains
1.8
2.4
2.8
2.5
Meat
1.3
1.4
1.3
1.7
Macronutrients
Energy (kcal)
880
704
707
690
Protein (g)
38.9
34.4
35.0
41.9
Total fat (g)
53.4
34.8
32.2
30.3
Carbohydrate (g)
56.0
58.2
63.6
56.8
Sugars (g)
17.0
14.9
10.7
10.9
Sodium (g)
1426
853
866
779
Marley Spoon has the most effective average protein content since it has the most meat per dish. Interestingly, Marley Spoon is also superior because it has the lowest calories and the least fat per serving. Therefore, Marley Spoon is the way to go if you want to add lean protein.
Marley Spoon has a low number of calories and a reasonable amount of sugar per serving, making it an excellent option for dieters. As a result, Marley Spoon is the finest option for the dieting community.
Marley Spoon Box
The delivery person will leave your Marley spoon box where you specify, usually in front of your door. They have an appealing brand, and getting your shipment is always a thrill.
The little paper bags holding each set of ingredients nod to the popularity of services like HelloFresh. Fantastic, because now they can go straight into the fridge. But you should be aware that this option is less eco-friendly. A second cooler bag is provided to keep perishable items (such as meat and dairy) fresh throughout the day.
If there are any problems, you should always double-check the ingredients as soon as they arrive. Customers have reported zero problems with their Marley Spoon orders. Everything from Marley will be in its proper place, and even the perishable items like vegetables will all look healthy and healthy.
How Do Meals from Marley Spoon Taste Like?
The quality of the ingredients used in each dish will blow your mind. All of the vegetables are healthy and of adequate size.
Similarly, there are no additives or preservatives in their meat. According to the company, the ‘healthy’ ingredients at Marley Spoon are all natural and uncomplicated. These dishes are far superior to any takeout option.
The final product will fall short of your high hopes for Marley Spoon. The Beef Stir Fry could turn out bland after you cook it. It’s the kind of meal anyone could prepare, so it doesn’t add anything special to your Marley Spoon experience. It’s concerning that they offer so many different dishes every week without giving each one the attention it deserves.
On the bright side, most of the time, everything turns out perfectly, and you’ll love every bite. Even though most of Marley Spoon’s offerings are tasty, you must be selective. The more exciting and entertaining foods are, in general, more cost-effective.
Marley Spoon’s Performance in the Meal Kit Industry
In 2022, experts surveyed Australians about their experiences with meal-kit delivery services in the country’s first and only independent research. Three of the survey’s awards went to Marley Spoon, including first place for best meal delivery company. They kept the prize for the best quality of the ingredients and earned the award for best food variety.
The outcome was quite favourable for Marley Spoon, who have already established a commanding lead over their competitors this season.
Best Overall Service
Best Meal Variety
Best Ingredient Quality
Is Marley Spoon Worth It?
The experts began with extraordinarily high hopes for Marley Spoon because of the advanced stage of their customer base and the price of their products. The dishes you make may leave you unsatisfied, even though their delivery is often without a hitch, and the products come clean and fresh.
In general, each dish has a pleasant flavour, but some diners may be disappointed by the absence of a more complex flavour profile — the kind of thing they could use to wow their companions.
Some people have compared it to going to their usual neighbourhood restaurant, where they know they will have a pleasant experience even though it won’t excite them. Specific individuals will value the sense of familiarity and comfort brought about by that.
What makes Marley Spoon stand out is the enormous number of options accessible weekly. You will, without a doubt, be able to select foods that satisfy your requirements among the fifty meals available to you. Because of this, the Marley Spoon meal kit solution is fantastic for picky eaters who adhere to a vegetarian diet or have food intolerances.
Last but not least, several consumers have voiced their displeasure with the recipe cards. You may frequently need to modify the directions to accommodate my cooking space or my familiarity with the dish’s components.
This is highly comparable to what you will experience at Dinnerly because both services share the same team of recipe developers. Although this shouldn’t be a deal-breaker, Marley Spoon should make improvements in this area a priority for the future of the company.
Support Materials: Professional and Thorough
Martha Stewart and Marley Spoon’s supplementary resources are polished and straightforward. Printed recipe cards made of thick, high-quality paper are included with every dish. You can choose not to get the recipes, but storing them like this is convenient for later use.
In addition to the printable cards, you will receive comprehensive preparation instructions and a list of all the necessary ingredients and tools. In addition, the website lists the pantry staples you’ll need in addition to the ones provided in your box and provides some primary nutritional data.
The Marley Spoon blog gets revised occasionally. The frequently asked questions section is also quite extensive.
Packaging: Smartly Packaged
The packaging from both Marley Spoons is top-notch. The outside box, the padding, and the frozen packs (after being emptied and cleaned) are all reusable.
The meat was shipped in vacuum-sealed plastic containers like those seen in grocery stores, while the product was separated into individual recipe-specific paper bags. There were a total of 32 individual pieces of packing material in our box.
The packaging resembled what one could receive at a store if plastic bags were unused. There were just 20 bits of reusable packaging, most of which was paper, and the remainder was plastic from the meat. You could recycle eight parts, but the other four had to go in the trash.
Tips on Cooking Process
The four dishes that the experts tested were all winners. Almost everything had to be made from scratch; there was not much casual conquest. This meant lots of chopping and time for cooking the meals.
These dishes tasted fantastic but required more time and effort than some would be prepared to put in on a weekday evening. In addition, they concluded that some of the procedures in the recipes were too complicated for a novice cook.
Taste, Freshness, and Quality
Experts received components that met their expectations in terms of both their overall quality and level of freshness. The components were all recent and had a pleasant flavour, and cooking the proteins was simple enough that even a child could do it.
Nutritional Value
Each recipe on Marley Spoon’s website includes some rudimentary nutritional information in its online portal. The recipe cards also provide a printout with the relevant calorie information. Customers worried about their allergies should look at the product information on the business website, where they will find specifics regarding the components and allergens.
Martha Stewart and Marley Spoon Are Good For
You may find Martha Stewart and Marley Spoon useful if you are a skilled home cook who has trouble coming up with new recipes, who would want to save time by not having to travel to the store as often, and who does have the time to cook regularly.
Someone who is not particularly experienced in the kitchen or does not have the time to cook daily may not benefit as much from the food delivery service.
Add-ons: Basics
Various optional extras may be added to your monthly Marley Spoon delivery, including meats like steak, chicken, and salmon.
The convenience of products may make it desirable to buy them, even though they are not markedly better than what can be found in a store. In addition to appetisers and side dishes, you may include main entrees like baked oats and desserts like cheesecake.
Add-ons: Some Basics
Extra proteins like salmon, steak, or chicken are just some add-ons that may be purchased for your monthly Marley Spoon delivery. The ease of use may be worth it, even though there isn’t much difference between these and what you could get at a store. Complete meals, such as baked oatmeal, and sweets, such as cheesecake, can also be included.
Customer Service
To contact Marley Spoon, you can either fill out an online form or call them. Some customers have emailed a generic firm address inquiring whether part of the produce was fresh but did not receive a response. However, some were lucky enough to hear from the customer care desk later; some were even reimbursed for their losses.
Top Marley Spoon Alternatives in Australia
In Australia, millions of meals are delivered annually by Marley Spoon. Our annual meal kit survey consistently ranks them highly, and their popularity has skyrocketed in recent years.
However, not everyone will find satisfaction with Marley Spoon. Their dishes aren’t enticing, and the recipe cards can be challenging to understand. They also looked into which meal kits were the most cost-effective in Australia and weren’t even close to the top.
Types of Meal Delivery Service
Prioritising freshly prepared meals at home should be your first consideration while looking for a replacement for Marley Spoon.
Meal Kits
These meal kits are a great way to branch out and try new things in the kitchen, both in terms of techniques and materials.
In Australia, you can choose from various services that bring the ingredients for a week’s meals and recipes. Since everything is premeasured and ready to use, almost no food will go to waste.
Prepared Meals
If ease of use is more important, consider trying a service like Prepared Meals. Dishes are delivered to your door and completely ready to eat; you only have to heat them in a microwave for a few seconds.
It is ideal for people who are too tired at the end of the day to cook or despise doing it. Have a burning curiosity? We’ve compiled a great resource detailing the top Australian food delivery providers.
Here are some excellent substitutes for Marley Spoon.
HelloFresh
Category: Meal Kit
HelloFresh is the closest thing Australia has to a service like Marley Spoon. They are your best direct option if you’ve grown sick of the same old Marley Spoon dinners.
How can you tell them apart?
HelloFresh, on the other hand, provides a variety of recipes that need more thought yet result in delicious dinners. Even though there is less variety, the quality of each dish is exceptionally high, and the recipes are simple to follow. HelloFresh’s site could be your best alternative when selecting your weekly recipes.
The service and food from HelloFresh are on par with those from Marley Spoon, so it comes down to taste to decide which is better.
My Muscle Chef
Category: Prepared Meals
In Australia, HelloFresh is most comparable to Marley Spoon. If you’re starting to get bored with the dishes from Marley Spoon, these are the most excellent straight replacement.
Exactly what sets them apart?
Well, HelloFresh provides a variety of more deliberate recipes that result in delicious meals. Although your options are narrower, each dish is of the highest quality, and the recipes are simple. When choosing your weekly dishes to prepare, the HelloFresh site is also slightly less complicated.
The service and food from HelloFresh are on par with those from Marley Spoon; choosing between the two comes down to your tastes.
Dinnerly
Category: Meal Kit
Dinnerly is an alternative to Marley Spoon that provides a service similar to EveryPlate at a significant discount (more than 30%). Dinnerly is HelloFresh’s budget division, same as EveryPlate is Marley Spoon’s. For a fraction of the price of Marley Spoon, you can get ingredients of the same high quality.
Imagine warm, hearty, and uncomplicated home-cooked meals that can be prepared and served in under an hour. Dinnerly’s one-pot meals are perfect for busy families because they only require one pot. I’ve found that even fussy eaters enjoy Dinnerly’s delicious dinners because they don’t contain any overpowering or exotic flavours.
Lite n Easy
Category: Prepared Meals
Anybody trying to lose weight or maintain their current weight will find this slightly offbeat alternative to HelloFresh very appealing. People who follow the Lite n Easy nutrition rely on the weekly supply of Lite n Easy ready meals.
When trying to restrict calories, convenience can be a game-changer by preventing you from giving in to cravings. Getting takeout is a breeze when the alternative is spending 30–40 minutes in the kitchen cooking, but it’s a lot more challenging when the dish only requires a few seconds in the microwave.
If you’re looking for a diet app with various meal plans and a supportive community, go no further than Lite n Easy. While not a replacement for Marley Spoon per se, Lite n Easy is an excellent choice if you have weight loss in mind as a primary objective.
FAQs
What Are the Plan Options?
The meal plans available through Marley Spoon can accommodate two or four people and include anywhere from up to six meals each week, depending on the customer’s requirements.
Are There Any Dietary Restrictions?
There are more than 45 different meal prep kits available, so there are many choices to accommodate specific dietary requirements. You can make your box vegetarian or select meal alternatives to match your needs: low-carb, low-calorie, vegan, or dairy-free.
Although there are several options, no meal kits are specifically designed to accommodate dietary restrictions like ketones, gluten-free, or diabetic-friendly diets.
Final Verdict
Experts recommend Marley Spoon to anyone interested in trying out new recipes in the kitchen with a convenient meal kit service. People who love to cook and are interested in trying new recipes and techniques will benefit significantly from this service.
The supper preparation took a little longer and more plates than you would have expected, but it was worth it. Also, unlike other kits, you will not have to throw away as much plastic because the ingredients are so fresh.
The professionals who have tasted both Marley Spoon and Hello Fresh agree that Marley Spoon offers a higher level of quality in both its products and its recipes. The meals had a significantly higher level of flavour. They attempted a variety of meals, and most of them were straightforward.
Nevertheless, there were a few of the steps that forced me out of my comfort zone and required me to have additional cooking skills. However, despite this, they were overjoyed to have the opportunity to acquire new knowledge along the way.
The delivery and shipping choices are easy, and you even get to pick the day your package will be delivered based on where you live. There is no option for nationwide shipping. However, the service can be obtained in the majority of states.
