{"id":15185,"date":"2025-05-18T12:35:48","date_gmt":"2025-05-18T12:35:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/topat10.com\/?p=15185"},"modified":"2025-05-18T12:35:48","modified_gmt":"2025-05-18T12:35:48","slug":"are-meal-kits-cheaper-than-groceries-in-2025-we-break-it-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/topat10.com\/?p=15185","title":{"rendered":"Are Meal Kits Cheaper than Groceries in 2025? We Break It Down"},"content":{"rendered":"


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The standard knock, of course, is that meal kits are expensive: anywhere from $7 to $14 a portion, less than a restaurant meal but more than most food budgets. So I set an experiment for myself. Armed only with meal kit recipe cards, I went to my local grocery store to see if I could make the meals for less. Reader, it wasn’t easy.<\/p>\n

In fact, I mostly failed. For the sake of science, I bought everything at the store that the meal kit provided in the box, including rice or \u201cItalian herb seasoning,\u201d even if I otherwise already had it at home\u2014but tried to buy it in as small a portion as I could. Where quality was credibly equivalent to the meal kit, I bought the lowest-cost option. Portions were for two, not for a family.<\/p>\n

And I only went to one store for each meal, meaning if I had to improvise substitutes to make the meal happen, that’s what I did. No one’s going to three stores for a Tuesday dinner, and so I did what people do when they’re shopping for themselves on a weeknight: I bought what was there.<\/p>\n

My conclusion, not to spoil the ending, is that the real bonus offered by a meal kit is sauces, spices, and flavors, doled out in small portions rather than large jars. You can maybe buy a steak for less, even at an all-organic butcher, but you won’t get your cream-cheese sauce with roasted red peppers, the Parmesan cheese for your rice, and the herbs you rub your meat with.<\/p>\n

Aside from time savings, it turns out that what a meal kit does best is serve up single- or double-serve flavor at relatively low cost compared with procuring it yourself. When trying to replicate meal kit sauces and spices at a grocery store, I ended up spending a lot more\u2014though of course I then also had multitudinous condiments left over for future meals.<\/p>\n

Which is to say: You can, of course, eat much more cheaply than a $12 kit meal. But you can’t easily eat these exact things<\/em> this cheaply, unless you already own the right spices and bulk ingredients. Here’s my experience trying.<\/p>\n

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