Daily Harvest Review: Organic Plant-Based Meals Made Easy

The market for meal delivery services has exploded in recent years, offering consumers a wide range of options at competitive prices. These services promise to save us time and effort, reduce food waste, and be better for the environment than typical grocery shopping. Even for those of us who cling to our home cooking skills, meal delivery services offer to conveniently shake up our old routine or bring a bit of calm to our overwhelming schedule.

As a lifelong cook, I am personally somewhat loath to admit that I need outside help. When I do allow myself to outsource, I’m not just seeking sustenance; I’m looking for a great value — a reasonably priced experience that I could not, or would not, create myself. That’s why I was so excited to try Daily Harvest, a company with an array of products so complex and nutrient-dense that they easily fall well outside my standard repertoire.

Pros and Cons

Pros

• Organic ingredients
• Mostly sustainable packaging
• Unique and healthful items

Cons

• No animal products
• Mostly side dish–sized portions
• Menu doesn’t change much week to week

What Is Daily Harvest?

Rachel Drori founded Daily Harvest in 2015 when her smoothie hobby took on a life of its own. Today, the company is a frozen prepared meal delivery subscription service offering weekly or monthly shipments of its organic, plant-based fare. Daily Harvest’s overall aim seems to be to pack an almost unreasonably large variety of fruits and vegetables into each and every item on its extensive menu.

How Does It Work?

Daily Harvest specializes in plant-based dishes made from whole food ingredients. All products are vegan, gluten-free, and largely organic. Everything arrives frozen and mostly prepared. I say “mostly” because, for some items, you’ll need and/or want to add liquids from your own pantry — like broth to soups, milk to an overnight oat bowl, or coconut water for your smoothie. Click the “how to prepare” button under each menu category to see what ingredients you might want to have on hand.

Ordering from Daily Harvest is a very smooth(ie) process. You do not need to create an account to view the menu, so browse to your heart’s content before signing up. When you’re ready, ordering is a simple four-step operation. First, you’ll enter your email address and ZIP code (Daily Harvest delivers to most addresses within the continental United States). Second, you’ll pick a plan. Third, you’ll choose your items. Finally, it’s time to enter your address, choose a delivery day, and check out (first-time orders automatically receive a substantial discount — woohoo!)

Let’s return for a moment to the second step, choosing a plan. Daily Harvest has three choices: nine, 14, or 24 items. These options are only for new customers. After your first box, the minimum order drops to six items, the maximum order increases to 26 items per box, and the monthly subscription option becomes available. You also gain the ability to order additional boxes. So, going forward, there is practically no upper limit on the size of your order.

Because Daily Harvest is a subscription, you’ll receive a box each week until you skip, pause, or cancel your service. Unlike many other meal delivery services, Daily Harvest doesn’t automatically vary your weekly or monthly selections. Instead, your order will simply repeat until you manually alter it. Daily Harvest’s menu changes slowly, and popular items tend to stick around for a long time. So you can have a standing order or continuously explore the wide-ranging menu.

Pricing

Daily Harvest prices its items individually, ranging from around $6 to $12, and offers tiered discounts based on order volume. Your weekly cost, therefore, depends on your particular selections and the number of items in your box. You get $5 off your box’s total cost when you order at least nine items. The next tier begins at 12 items, which gets you $10 off. Finally, you get a $25 box discount on more than 24 items.

Meal Choices

Daily Harvest’s menu is sort of like a vegan deli counter meets a juice bar. It is divided into 11 categories: smoothies, harvest bowls, harvest bakes, flatbreads, grains, soups, forager bowls, scoops (ice cream), bites (sweet treats that are a bit like balls of healthy cookie dough), lattes, and “mylk” (oat, almond, and vanilla almond). Almost every item is a complex mélange; many are composed of 20 or more ingredients. Components are typically diced, ground, powdered, or pureed, while some smaller elements, like chia seeds or chickpeas, are left wholly intact. Although this form is consistent across the menu, the content is as varied as the plant kingdom itself. To help you navigate, there’s a menu filter listing likes, dislikes, and dietary needs, which include AIP, FODMAP, keto, paleo, Whole30, and a handful of nutritional parameters.

What We Tasted

• Artichoke + Spinach Flatbread
• Broccoli + White Bean Soup
• Chaga + Chocolate Lattes
• Chickpea + Coconut Curry
• Ginger + Greens Smoothie
• Kabocha + Chai Oat Bowl
• Lemon Quinoa + Butternut Squash
• Raspberry + Fig Bites
• Spinach + Shiitake Grits

Packaging

My order arrived in a robust cardboard shipping box. Inside was a soft insulation liner; within that was my stack of items, still thoroughly frozen and unscathed. Beneath the food was a plastic bag enveloping a thin slab of dry ice. After putting my products in the freezer, I set the empty box and liner outside to evaporate the dry ice safely. When that was done, I put the box and liner into my curbside recycle bin while the dry ice bag went into the trash.

Daily Harvest’s foods are all individually packaged. Overall, the recycling situation is pretty much what you would expect for packaged frozen foods, with the addition of a few compostable pieces here and there. Most packages have at least three elements: a paper-based vessel, a plastic film seal, and either a plastic lid or thin cardboard sleeve. Harvest bakes are the one significant exception to this format. They have the sleeve and plastic seal, but the vessel is an aluminum tray. In general, vessels, lids, and sleeves are recyclable or compostable, while plastic seals are not. However, the water-resistant paper cups that hold the smoothies, bites, and ice cream are not recyclable. For all the nitty-gritty details, see the company’s comprehensive recycling guide on its website.

The Cooking Process

On the whole, Daily Harvest’s cooking process is about as foolproof as it gets. You’ll have to heat, blend, and/or add some type of liquid to the food, but that’s about it. (As I mentioned earlier, I supplied my own milk, broth, and coconut water.) Other than blending, there’s no mixing or chopping necessary. At the most, you’ll be directed to stir a dish once or twice as it heats. For heated dishes, Daily Harvest provides oven, stovetop, and/or microwave directions depending on the type of item. Aside from overnight oat and chia bowls, which need to soak for at least six hours, harvest bakes and flatbreads are the slowest items, requiring roughly 20 to 30 minutes to bake in the oven or toaster oven. Everything else can be ready in about five minutes.

Taste

My family and I very much enjoyed the taste of our Daily Harvest foods. We added a little salt and pepper to a few items, but we appreciated that we could adjust the seasoning to our taste. After all, you can add salt, but you can’t take it out. My wife especially liked the spinach and shiitake grits harvest bowl, and my eight-year-old daughter really enjoyed the kabocha chai oat bowl, declaring that it tasted like pumpkin pie. I was a huge fan of the raspberry fig bites and the chocolate chaga lattes. Moreover, not only is everything delicious, but you can also feel that your body is getting high-quality whole foods.

Though we enjoyed all our dishes pretty much as is, if we became regular customers, I can imagine adding proteins to some of the items — like chicken to our curry harvest bake, for instance — or dressing up the flatbread with cheese or other ingredients. Just because Daily Harvest limits itself to plants doesn’t mean I have to.

Who Should Use Daily Harvest?

Daily Harvest is for anyone who wants an easy, convenient, and delicious way to consume more plants. It’s also for anyone who just wants the occasional box of remarkable nutrient-dense treats. I could see myself subscribing to a monthly box just for the smoothies, bites, and lattes. Most people have a few convenience items sitting in their freezer. If that’s you, Daily Harvest is definitely worth a try.

Final Thoughts

My family and I loved Daily Harvest. The flavors were excellent. The variety is plentiful. The food is nutritious, minimally processed, and packed with a wide range of plants. Preparation is about as easy as it gets, and sustainability is probably a bit better than grocery store shopping. The site and app are also very well-designed and easy to use. The cost sometimes felt a bit high relative to portion size, but when you account for convenience and the fact that the food is mostly organic, it’s pretty hard to argue that Daily Harvest isn’t a good value. Honestly, I’m not sure that I’ve ever had better frozen packaged food. I would absolutely order from Daily Harvest again and would recommend the service to anyone looking for an easy and delicious way to up their plant intake.

Frequently Asked Questions

How Many Calories Are in a Daily Harvest Smoothie?

Daily Harvest smoothies have roughly 150 to 300 calories each on average. Some have more and some have less, and it depends also on the sort of liquid that you use to make the smoothie. The highest calorie count I saw was 450 calories for the banana almond smoothie. The lowest was the banana and greens smoothie, which has 130 calories.

Is There Meat in Daily Harvest Food?

Daily Harvest’s food is completely free of animal products, including meat, though you could certainly add meat to many of the items.

How Long Do Daily Harvest Meals Last?

Freezer burn is probably your number one enemy when it comes to shelf life. Each item has its own freezer shelf life span. The company says that all its foods are good for at least 30 days and that the shelf life after that depends on how frequently the freezer is opened.

Can You Get Daily Harvest Once a Month?

Yes. You can get one box with 24 to 26 items delivered monthly.