Purple Carrot Review: A Dietitian’s Expert Take

Purple Carrot is a meal delivery service. It’s designed to make plant-based eating easy and enjoyable by delivering all the ingredients and recipes you need to prepare healthy meals at home.

Offering a range of flavorful breakfast, lunch, and dinner recipes to choose from each week, Purple Carrot is a great choice if you’re looking to add some diversity to your diet.

This article takes a closer look at Purple Carrot, including how it works, who should try it, and if it works for weight loss.

Purple Carrot is a plant-based meal delivery service. It provides a variety of recipes each week, along with the ingredients you need to prepare them at home.

You can select from 8 dinner recipes and several lunches, breakfasts, and snacks to create your own custom menu.

All ingredients are preportioned. The recipes are designed to take around 30–40 minutes to prepare, which can help streamline and simplify your cooking.

With dinners starting at $11 per serving, Purple Carrot is an affordable and effective way to incorporate more fruits, vegetables, and plant-based proteins into your diet.

Recently, the service added prepared dinners to the menu, making it even easier to enjoy a nutritious, vegan-friendly meal.

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Purple Carrot offers a selection of meal kits and prepared meals on their rotating weekly menu.

Meal kits provide 2 or 4 servings each. They start at $11 per serving, though prices depend on how many meals you select.

Examples of recipes you can choose from include Cumin Spiced Broccolini Ciabatta, Tropical Avocado Cakes, and Creamy Peanut Noodles.

Meanwhile, all precooked meals are individually portioned and cost $12.99 per serving. Examples of prepared meals on the menu include Indian Butter Tofu, Pesto Corn Skillet, and Italian Pasta Bowl.

In addition to dinners, you can order a variety of add-ons, including an assortment of snacks and pantry staples.

Breakfast and lunch dishes are also available and cost $4.49 and $8.99 per serving, respectively. These meals are generally easy to prepare and ready to enjoy in just 5–15 minutes.

Purple Carrot meals include a variety of fresh, high quality ingredients like fruits, vegetables, grains, legumes, herbs, spices, and sauces.

Certain cooking basics like salt, pepper, and vegetable oil may not be included with your order, so you’ll need to have those handy in your pantry prior to cooking.

According to Purple Carrot, most of their non-produce items are organic, including nut milk, beans, tofu, and tempeh.

They also prioritize organic fruits and vegetables that are free of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). However, these options are sometimes limited by shipping constraints and availability.

Orders are packaged and protected in insulated liners and ice packs. This ensures that they stay cool during transit and are delivered fresh.

Purple Carrot’s weekly menu is designed by a team of chefs. It features seasonal flavors and interesting ingredients.

In addition to including a range of herbs, spices, sauces, and condiments to maximize flavor, the recipes are creative and provide a plant-based twist on many family favorites.

For example, the New England Lobster Rolls use heart of palm in place of lobster meat.

As someone who has eaten their fair share of lobster rolls, I was pleasantly surprised at how the flavor and texture hit all the right notes — just what you’d expect from this New England staple.

I also tried the Romesco Grain Bowls, which included pan-roasted mushrooms and butter beans. Again, I found the dish to be brimming with flavor, and I appreciated the variation in textures.

All Purple Carrot meals and snacks are vegan. This makes the service a great choice for those following a plant-based diet.

The service labels the recipes that are high protein, low calorie, gluten-free, and nut-free. If you have certain food preferences or dietary restrictions, this makes meal selection a breeze.

Keep in mind, though, that Purple Carrot may not be a good fit for those following eating patterns that typically include animal proteins, such as paleo or ketogenic (keto) diets. The options are also limited for other diet plans like low carb or low fat.

Here are three examples of the nutritional content of Purple Carrot’s recipes:

Lemon Poppy Overnight Oats

• Calories: 290
• Fat: 10 grams
• Carbs: 43 grams
• Protein: 8 grams

Smoky Portobello Tacos

• Calories: 540
• Fat: 12 grams
• Carbs: 94 grams
• Protein: 23 grams

New England Lobster Rolls

• Calories: 480
• Fat: 21 grams
• Carbs: 62 grams
• Protein: 13 grams

In addition to including a nutrition breakdown, each recipe lists all its ingredients. This can be useful for those with food allergies or intolerances.

Still, the food is processed in a facility that handles allergens like wheat, gluten, and nuts. So it may not be suitable for those with severe food allergies.

Prices for Purple Carrot vary depending on how many servings and which specific meals you select.

Dinner meal kits are available with either 2 or 4 servings and start at $11 per serving.

Breakfast recipes contain 4 servings each, priced at $4.49 per serving. You can also choose from 2 lunch recipes per week with 2 servings each for $8.99 per serving.

The service also offers fully prepared dinners, which start at $12.99 per serving.

Finally, you can also add prepackaged snacks to your order, priced from $3.99–$15.99.

How to skip weeks or cancel your order

Purple Carrot makes it easy to skip weeks or cancel your subscription using an online customer portal.

To skip a week, start by clicking on the Upcoming Deliveries page. Once there, you’ll see a green “skip” toggle button located at the right of each scheduled delivery.

If you want to permanently cancel your order, simply navigate to your Account Settings and select “Change” next to “Subscription Status.” This will take you to a page where you can press “Cancel My Account.”

The service also allows you to pause your subscription for up to 10 weeks.

Regardless of whether you choose to skip, pause, or cancel, simply make those changes by the Tuesday of the week prior to your next delivery.

Choosing your plan

If you decide to try Purple Carrot, the first step is selecting your plan type: prepared meals or meal kits.

You’ll also need to pick the size. Meal kits contain 2 or 4 servings, with 3 or 4 dinners per week. The prepared meals are designed for 1 person, and you can order 6, 8, or 10 dinners per week.

After selecting your plan, you’ll be prompted to select your preferred delivery day.

Once you’re signed up, you’ll be able to look through 4 weeks of upcoming menus. This makes it easy to swap out meals or skip weeks to suit your schedule and taste buds.

Meal selection

Purple Carrot provides a rotating weekly menu. The number of recipe options varies by plan.

For example, the 2-serving meal kit plan offers 8 menu items to choose from, whereas the 4-serving plan generally has fewer.

Examples of recipes include:

• Romesco Grain Bowls
• Smoky Peach & Farro Bowls
• Penne Al Pesto
• Smoky Portobello Tacos
• General Tso’s Tofu

The weekly menu also features 2 breakfast and lunch recipes, available for an additional fee. When customizing your menu, you can purchase 4 servings of each breakfast recipe or 2 servings of each lunch meal.

You can also add prepackaged snacks to your order, including options like dried fruit, desserts, or nut and seed mixes.

Gluten-free, high protein, nut-free, and low calorie options are labeled on the menu, as is the estimated prep time, making it easy to select meals that suit your lifestyle.

After selecting your meals, all that’s left to do is wait for your food to arrive.

Storing and preparing your meals

Purple Carrot’s ingredients are mostly packaged by recipe, with a few items packaged on their own.

For example, my box came with three bags of ingredients, a large stalk of celery, a bag of chard, two sandwich rolls, and a head of garlic.

You can store all the ingredients in your fridge. They should last for up to 3–5 days.

Unlike many meal kits that provide individual recipe cards, Purple Carrot’s instructions are contained in a booklet that comes with your order.

Personally, I prefer the booklet, since you don’t have to worry about being sent the wrong recipe card. Plus, it provides you with a mini-cookbook for trying other plant-based recipes on your own.

All the meals I received were easy to prepare. With the exception of one recipe, cooking them didn’t create a huge stack of dishes to clean afterward.

Plant-based diets have been associated with several potential health benefits.

For instance, studies show that plant-based diets may help protect against certain chronic conditions, including type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart disease (1, 2, 3).

According to a review of nine studies, eating more fruits and vegetables is also linked to a lower risk of cognitive impairment and dementia (4).

Plus, switching to a plant-based diet may help you lose weight.

In a review of 12 studies, people following a vegetarian or vegan diet lost an average of 4.4 pounds (2 kg) more over 18 weeks than nonvegetarians (5).

Vegan, vegetarian, and pescatarian diets may also be linked to a lower body mass index (BMI), less belly fat, and less overall fat mass compared with nonvegetarian diets (6, 7).

Although Purple Carrot meals aren’t specifically geared toward weight loss, many of the plant-based meals are low in calories. Typically, the dinners contain 400–600 calories per serving, along with plenty of filling whole foods.

This may help you decrease your daily calorie intake to support weight loss or maintenance (8).

Three Limes, the parent company of Purple Carrot, is not accredited by the Better Business Bureau (BBB). It holds an A- rating, which is based on factors like the company’s complaint history and business practices.

At the time of publication, Purple Carrot had an average rating of 4.0 out of 5.0 stars on TrustPilot, based on 652 customer reviews.

Positive reviews note that the recipes are tasty, easy to prepare, and well-packaged.

Many customers are also satisfied with the variety and selection of meals. Some people state that the service is a great way to get out of a cooking rut and add more diversity to your diet.

Less favorable reviews note that the portion sizes of certain recipes are too small. It’s also mentioned that there are limited options available for those who need to avoid certain ingredients, such as garlic or soy.

Some customers report experiencing issues with missing items and produce quality. That said, many also note that customer service is quick, helpful, and responsive when it comes to resolving problems.

Many similar meal delivery services on the market also make it easy to enjoy delicious plant-based meals at home.

Daily Harvest, for example, offers a variety of vegan smoothies, harvest bowls, soups, and flatbreads that are ready in minutes. Like Purple Carrot, all Daily Harvest meals are completely plant-based, with items priced at $6–$12 per serving.

Daily Harvest meals typically require just one step of preparation and include only organic ingredients.

Sunbasket is another meal delivery service that caters to a variety of different diet patterns, including vegetarian diets.

With a range of nutritious and delicious recipes available on the rotating weekly menu, Sunbasket delivers all the ingredients you need to prepare vegetarian meals at home. The prices start at $11.49 per serving, or $9.99 per serving for oven-ready meals.

Sun Basket uses mostly organic ingredients in its meal kits. However, some of its vegetarian meals contain dairy, so this service may not be ideal if you’re following a vegan diet.

HelloFresh is another popular meal delivery service. They offer a range of vegetarian meal kits, as well as many recipes suitable for those following a Mediterranean, pescatarian, low carb, or low calorie diet.

HelloFresh is more affordable than Purple Carrot, starting at just $7.99 per serving. However, HelloFresh doesn’t currently offer any prepared meals and may not offer as many vegan options.

Purple Carrot is a great option for those wishing to transition to a more plant-based diet while learning to prepare fresh and healthy meals at home.

It can also be a good choice if you’re interested in experimenting with unique and interesting ingredients like seasonal fruits, vegetables, herbs, and spices that you may not be familiar with.

On the other hand, Purple Carrot may not be ideal for people with certain dietary restrictions, as it offers limited options for paleo, keto, low carb, and low fat diets. Plus, the meals are processed in a facility that handles many common allergens.

It also provides limited selections and serving sizes for lunch and breakfast, which may be challenging for larger families or those wanting to include even more plant-based recipes in their weekly diet.

Lastly, while it does offer some prepared meals, the options are limited. People who are pressed for time may prefer a delivery service with a greater variety of fully prepared meals.

Do people lose weight on Purple Carrot?

Some people may lose weight while using Purple Carrot.

However, whether this will be the case for you depends on many different factors. For instance, consider which meals you select, what your current diet looks like, your activity level, and what other foods you eat during the day.

How long is Purple Carrot good for?

Purple Carrot recommends preparing your meals within 3–5 days of receiving your order to maximize quality and freshness.

That said, most ingredients will last up to a week in the refrigerator if stored properly.

How healthy are Purple Carrot meals?

All Purple Carrot meals are plant-based and feature a range of nutrient-dense ingredients, including fruits, vegetables, and whole grains.

Though Purple Carrot meals can be a nutritious addition to a balanced diet, some of the offered meals are relatively high in calories and carbs. Be sure to select dishes based on your personal needs and preferences.

Can I cancel a Purple Carrot subscription?

You can easily cancel your Purple Carrot subscription by logging in, navigating to Account Settings, and clicking “Change” next to your subscription status.

Make all changes and cancellations by the Tuesday that is 1 week prior to your next shipment.