I have mixed feelings about Daily Harvest smoothies. They're tasty but expensive, and some are high in sugar. And making smoothies from scratch doesn't take much time if you have the right ingredients on hand. For me, the real star of this 100% plant-based and gluten-free meal service is its premade pastas. They're healthy, filling, easy to prepare -- heat them in a skillet and the frozen cubes of sauce bring the dish together -- and cost under $11 per bag, each containing two full servings.Â
As you warm the dish, the gluten-free pasta finishes cooking and the sauce cubes melt to join the other healthy ingredients in culinary matrimony.Â
I stumbled upon the new offerings more than a year ago while testing the healthy vegan meal delivery service. I've since tried all five pasta recipes, and I'm still not sick of them. It's about as good a budget-friendly meal hack as I've found, and I always keep a few in the freezer for nights I don't feel like cooking.
Daily Harvest has excellent vegan soups, smoothies and breakfast bowls, but I'm all in on the family-style pasta and rice dishes.
The pasta dishes were terrific -- some of the best I've had from any meal subscription or delivery service. The brown rice and quinoa-based ziti came to a perfect al dente after being gently heated in a nonstick pan. They were plenty filling, but the gluten-free pasta doesn't sit as heavily in your stomach as a traditional wheat-based noodle does.
Where else can you get a healthy, filling and delicious meal for two for under $11?
The grain dishes were equally impressive, with bold recipes featuring cilantro, onion, and bell pepper, and a yellow curry with chickpeas and cauliflower. I got a good caramelization on the rice by letting it sit still in the corner of a hot cast-iron or stainless-steel skillet before shaking it up and serving. All the recipes I tried were interesting, flavorful, and packed with protein and superfoods in the form of kale, giant romano beans, spinach, and garlic.
So are these pasta and grain bowls as good of a deal as they sound? Daily Harvest lists each pasta dish as having two servings and the rice meals as having four per bag - about $5.50 and $3 per serving, respectively. For me, the pasta dishes were a proper two servings, but the rice dishes are more like two or three servings, not four. That's still under $5 for a thoughtfully prepared meal that takes almost no time to make.
How to order Daily Harvest's pasta and rice dishes
Daily Harvest functions as a subscription service, but you can choose as few as nine items and have your deliveries come every week, every two weeks, or only every month. Your nine items or more can include smoothies, soups, flatbreads and snacks, in addition to the pasta and rice dishes.Â
Daily Harvest allows you to pause or cancel anytime if you're not feeling it or need a break.
Daily Harvest has excellent soups and smoothies worth adding to your monthly box.
Those other meals are between $7 and $12 per meal -- still not a bad deal -- but not quite the same value as the pasta and rice dishes. If you want, you can choose only pasta and rice dishes, but the company does occasionally run out of stock on these popular new dinner offerings.
Read CNET's full review of Daily Harvest for more.