I’m a Meat-Eating RD Who Tried Sprinly’s Plant-Based Meal Delivery — And I Loved It

As an omnivore, I wasn’t exactly champing at the bit to try Sprinly, a vegan meal delivery service. But as a registered dietitian, I know how easy it is for healthy eating to fall by the wayside when you’re busy. And a meal delivery service can make it easier, if done right.

All of Sprinly’s single-serving meals are entirely plant-based and completely premade, making it much easier to eat well even when you don’t have time to make a meal from scratch. So, I tried the service for a week, and I was immediately impressed with the high-quality ingredients and the freshness and taste of the meals. It’s also a great solution if you don’t have much spare time to grocery shop or cook. Read on to find out more.

Signing up for Sprinly was a very straightforward process. On the website, I went to “Menu” to browse the available meals and then hit the “Choose My Plan” button.

From there, I could choose how many meals I wanted each week for my plan: six, 12, or 18. Since I just wanted to try the service, I chose the six-meals-per-week plan. Because the service only has six unique menu items each week, this also allowed me to try every menu item offered for the week.

After selecting my meal plan, the website directed me to the checkout page. I entered my details and paid for the order, then chose my meals.

Choosing the Meals

As I noted above, Sprinly has a rotating weekly menu with six different meals. Among these meals, you can order whatever combination you’d like to reach your plan size. I chose to receive one of each meal offered, but I could have ordered six of the same meal if I really wanted to.

There was a fair bit of variety within the menu, even though the menu was small. A salad, an Italian pasta dish, an Asian noodle dish, and an Indian curry dish were among the selections for the week that I tried the service. Each meal appeared to be packed with vegetables — usually several different vegetables in each dish. All meals were made with completely fresh, organic, gluten-free, and vegan ingredients. However, I did notice some repetition in the ingredients — lots of tofu, spinach, and quinoa.

While the preprepared meals are designed to appeal to the health-minded set, some would appeal to kids and other family members too, like the pasta and noodle dishes. My husband even commented that some of them looked really good, and he is nowhere close to vegan.

Ultimately, I chose these meals:

• Royal Beet Medallions With Ancient Quinoa and Greens
• Paprika Spinach Salad With Baked Tofu and Hemp Hearts
• Osaka Soba Noodles With Tofu and Peanut Sauce
• Pesto Pasta With Sun-Dried Tomato Cakes
• Indian Roasted Vegetable Curry With Cashew Quinoa
• Roasted Tahini “Butter” Sweet Potatoes With Red Rice and Sweet Lemon Kale

The meals were delivered in a cardboard box with an insulated liner inside. There were two large ice packs — one on top of the meals and one beneath the meals — and a very considerate handwritten thank-you note included with my order.

The ice packs were still cold and mostly frozen when the shipment arrived. Had there been any shipping delays or if the weather was warmer, there could have been issues with keeping the meals cold.

The Sprinly website states that the box insulation and ice packs are sufficient to keep your meals cold, as long as you’re home to put them in the refrigerator at some point in the same day they arrive, but it does not list a specific amount of time the box can safely go unrefrigerated.

All of the meals I received were in excellent condition. There were no wilted vegetables, leaking packages, or missing items.

Additionally, the packaging materials are all reusable, compostable, or recyclable.

Preparing the Meals

Since all the meals are premade, I simply had to reheat them.

All of the meals included stovetop/oven and microwave instructions. I chose to follow the stovetop/oven instructions, and I feel like it made a drastic difference in the overall quality, texture, and enjoyability of the meals, compared to simply heating them in the microwave.

Each meal took me no longer than 10 minutes to heat, and forgoing the microwave made each meal feel like something I had cooked myself — but with absolutely no prep work involved.

The Paprika Spinach Salad With Baked Tofu and Hemp Hearts was the lowest-prep item, since it was designed to be eaten cold. I took it with me for lunch on a park playdate with my kids, and all I had to do was pour the dressing and sprinkle the hemp hearts over the salad.

The most complicated prep was for the three meals that used both the oven and the stovetop. For me this was:

• The Royal Beet Medallions With Ancient Quinoa and Greens
• The Pesto Pasta With Sun-Dried Tomato Cakes
• The Roasted Tahini “Butter” Sweet Potatoes With Red Rice and Sweet Lemon Kale.

For each of these, the entrée portion needed to be heated in the oven (for texture and crispness), while the remainder of the meal was heated on the stovetop. I used my air fryer on the “Bake” setting for the beet medallions, tomato cakes, and tahini sweet potatoes, rather than my oven. It crisped and warmed these foods nicely with no preheating time. The slightly more involved prep was worth it though — these three were my favorite.

I was also pleased that all of my meals looked pretty similar to the photos on Sprinly’s website. These meals were all very pretty, especially after taking just an extra minute or two to plate them up nicely.

Tasting the Meals

There was a helpful little note on the Pesto Pasta With Sun-Dried Tomato Cakes container indicating that it should be eaten early, so it was the first one I tried.

I was extremely skeptical of the tomato cakes — but wow, this meal was incredible. The tomato cakes were surprisingly tasty, with a strong umami flavor and a texture that reminded me of a soft cornbread muffin. The pesto was flavorful, the salt levels were perfect, the pasta (although precooked) still had a nice bite to it, and the cherry tomatoes and spinach were the perfect veggies for this meal.

Next, I tried the Roasted Tahini “Butter” Sweet Potatoes With Red Rice and Sweet Lemon Kale. This meal looked stunning, thanks to its deep colors (that is, until I got heavy-handed with the sesame seeds), but the flavors were a little muted.

I had the Paprika Spinach Salad With Baked Tofu and Hemp Hearts at the park with my kids, and it was the first (and only) Sprinly meal that I just flat-out didn’t like. The dressing was bland, and the quinoa and hemp hearts made a huge mess while I was eating.

Up next was the Indian Roasted Vegetable Curry With Cashew Quinoa. I liked this one. It was well-seasoned and had a nice coconut aroma, but it was mild enough that I was able to share it with my 3-year-old daughter. I definitely would have preferred rice as the side instead of quinoa though.

The Royal Beet Medallions With Ancient Quinoa and Greens ended up being one of my favorites. The beet medallions were made with beets and black beans, and there was none of that earthy/dirt taste that many people dislike about beets (myself included). According to the instructions, the salad and the quinoa were supposed to be eaten cold with the reheated beet medallions, but I reheated the quinoa too, which I thought turned out to be the right call. The salad, however, was massive, and I wasn’t able to finish it.

Last, I tried the Osaka Soba Noodles With Tofu and Peanut Sauce. This one was pretty good, but the sauce would have benefited from more spice or pizzazz (for example, from miso). However, the texture of the noodles was nice and I loved the shredded carrots in this dish.

Overall, the ingredients, flavors, and textures of these meals were great, and the portion sizes were huge. I was continually impressed by how much food Sprinly was able to fit into their small meal prep containers, and all of the meals were very filling.

Overall, I was impressed with the meals from a nutritional perspective.

Most of the meals are between 600 and 800 calories. This is an appropriate amount of calories for a single meal, providing plenty of energy to sustain a person until their next meal or snack, as long as you make sure to eat two other balanced meals in the day.

It is worth noting that while Sprinly’s meals are free of gluten and dairy, they do contain common allergens like soy, sesame, tree nuts, and peanuts — so I recommend being careful if you or a family member have allergies.

Now, Sprinly is a vegan menu, and vegan diets are not without controversy. I am an omnivore, and I strongly believe that consuming a high-quality, minimally processed diet consisting of both animal and plant foods is optimal for overall health. However, I fully support any adult’s choice to follow a vegan diet. And because I really enjoyed the ingredient quality, flavors, and overall experience of these meals, I would happily recommend this meal delivery service to vegans and vegetarians as a healthy and convenient meal delivery service that can make mealtime just a little easier.

I’ve tried several single-serving meal delivery services, and Sprinly stands out for the freshness and quality of its ingredients, as well as for its generous portion sizes.

Trifecta, another fresh meal delivery service that uses organic ingredients and offers a vegan meal plan, has much smaller portion sizes. I found its vegetables mushier and the food not as aesthetically pleasing. However, most Trifecta meals contain at least 20 grams of protein, while Sprinly meals may contain as little as 9 grams of protein per serving.

Factor, my favorite fresh meal delivery service, has tasty, nice-looking, well-textured meals with simple ingredients, but it doesn’t use organic ingredients. Factor’s plant-based meals are also vegetarian-friendly, but they may contain dairy, so it isn’t a good fit for vegans.

When it comes to meal variety, Sprinly loses to both of these services, and it’s also significantly pricier. Sprinly costs roughly $18 to $19 per serving, while the most you will pay for Trifecta or Factor meals is about $15 each. However, Sprinly’s portion sizes are significantly larger than Trifecta’s and Factor’s, and Sprinly meals contain a wider variety of fresh, organic produce.

Daily Harvest is another similar meal delivery service I’ve tried, but its meals arrive frozen. Its meals are plant-based, gluten-free, and use mostly organic ingredients. Daily Harvest is a more budget-friendly option, compared to these other services, with its meals costing less than $10 per serving.

Between Trifecta, Factor, and Daily Harvest, Daily Harvest is probably the best alternative to Sprinly because it features vegan, gluten-free, and mostly organic meals that are packed with a variety of fruits and vegetables. However, either Daily Harvest or Sprinly would be a good fit for a health-conscious vegan with limited time to cook.

Overall, I really liked Sprinly’s food — and I say that as a meat-eater too. Its ingredients are of impeccable quality, the meals are fresh and flavorful, and the portion sizes are massive. While I’m not a vegan, I certainly understand the appeal of a plant-based diet, and I believe this service could help people embrace a more plant-based lifestyle, given how easy and delicious it is.

However, several of the meals are low in protein, and I suspect that Sprinly is too pricey for many people. I canceled my subscription because of the high price, because I prefer to include healthy animal-based foods in most of my meals, and because single-serving meal delivery doesn’t make sense for my five-person household.

Still, I could see Sprinly being an excellent fit for busy singles, people who need a convenient plant-based solution for work lunches, or even vegans who live in a household with non-vegans. It could also be a good fit for people who want to adopt a more plant-forward diet for health reasons. However, I think that athletes, chronically ill people, those who want to lose weight, and others who may need a higher protein intake than normal should consider alternatives with more protein.

Everyday Health is testing over 50 different meal delivery services to help you find the one that’s the best fit for your lifestyle, budget, and health goals. For each review, we thoroughly test the product, research the company and its practices, and work with registered dietitians to determine its healthfulness.

While testing Sprinly, I considered several factors: the sign-up process, meal selection, shipping and delivery, meal preparation, taste and texture, nutrition, and pricing. As a registered dietitian and freelance writer, I have tested many meal delivery services. I love sharing my experiences and my expertise to help people make more informed purchasing decisions.