Meal kit delivery and pickup in Pittsburgh: 8 local (and healthy!) options
These Pittsburgh-area meal kits are tasty, healthy, and convenient.
I love eating, and I love cooking, but the latter can certainly be a chore. To make a single dinner, you have to pick a recipe, make sure you have (or go buy) the groceries, prep everything (mise en place!), and then actually cook the meal—ideally without dirtying every dish you own.
Then—get this—you have to do it all over again the next day! And the next! Every day, on and on forever! No wonder tech bros once tried to live off Soylent.
Fortunately, there is another option besides an all-liquid diet: meal delivery (or pickup) services. While you’ve probably heard of national names like Blue Apron or Factor, Pittsburgh is home to several local businesses offering both cook-your-own meal kits and fully prepared meals. From services specializing in tantalizing plant-based options to those crafting family-style comfort foods, these local businesses make it easier than ever to get a healthy meal on the table each night, often with little more effort than reheating.
Here are eight meal kit services in Pittsburgh you should know about.
Chip and Kale
Chip and Kale is a local Pittsburgh company that delivers vegan, plant-focused meal kits with pre-chopped, pre-measured ingredients straight to your door (within 12 miles of downtown).
The beauty of Chip and Kale is how the service is targeted at people who enjoy cooking, but who want to save time on choosing recipes, grocery shopping, and preparing ingredients. Instead, you can trust that Chip and Kale will deliver the foundation of healthy, delicious meals. The non-subscription model also means that you purchase meals as you like—as many as you like—rather than overstuffing your fridge or needing to remember to pause when you’re out of town.
The menu, which rotates weekly, is made up of plant-based meals that serve four, like tofu shawarma, Nashville hot mac n’ cheese, mushroom risotto, broccoli cheese pot pie, and loaded baked potato soup. Meal kits come frozen, so you can just grab them from the freezer and cook when it’s dinnertime. You can also add on breakfast items, like giant cinnamon rolls, as well as bread and desserts.
A four-serving meal typically costs around $27 to $29.
You can also check out Steel City Meals, which is Chip and Kale’s arm for local pickup, allowing you to pick up Chip and Kale meal kits—with no order minimum—from the business’s Beechview shop.
Fresh Prep PGH
Fresh Prep PGH is a local, chef-run meal service that provides ready-made meals to busy families and individuals. Schedule your meals for the following week by Thursday and receive them fresh to your door that Sunday (or pick up in Penn Hills on Monday). While you can order meals whenever you need them, you can also set up a subscription to earn a 20% discount on each order.
Plus, if you didn’t plan ahead and you want prepped meals now, Fresh Prep has a brick-and-mortar cafe in Penn Hills, open during the week, where you can grab ready-made options as well as fresh smoothies.
The menu is full of comfort food options made healthy, like buffalo ranch meatballs, shrimp scampi, vegetarian stir fry, and many more protein and veggie options.
Individual meals start at about $14 (before the subscription discount).
Pittsburgh Fresh
Local meal prep service Pittsburgh Fresh offers a variety of ready-to-heat meals meant to make your life easier and healthier—and your dinners more delicious. The menu changes each week, with orders placed by Friday delivered fresh to your home on Sunday or Monday (you can also pick up locally in Brookline on Monday).
The menu is labeled with common allergens to simplify choosing the best meals for you and your family, and also includes vegan and vegetarian options. Most entrees, like pierogies with haluski or chicken cordon bleu with roasted broccoli, are sold in individual portions, though you can also add family-size, four-person meals for some menu items. There are also plenty of à la carte and dessert options (hot chocolate and marshmallow cake, anyone?) to add to your order.
Individual meals start at around $14 each, though you’ll get a discount if you sign up for a subscription.
Homemade by Colleen
Homemade by Colleen delivers fresh, home-cooked meals sourced from family recipes from the family of—you guessed it—Colleen, a Pittsburgh cook who delivers more than 30,000 meals each year to hungry locals. The service is based in Mt. Lebanon and delivers on Sunday and Wednesday throughout Pittsburgh’s South Hills.
Meals often reflect Colleen’s Italian heritage, like rigatoni with homemade sauce, but also include other healthy and hearty fare such as chili or sweet potato fajita bowls.
Individual servings—which are large and may comfortably feed two people—start at around $17 to $18.
Bleu Box
The meals in a Bleu Box meal kit, selected from the local company’s weekly menu, are delivered, pre-portioned, and ready to heat and serve, within 30 miles of the city of Pittsburgh. You can purchase items a la carte or sign up for a subscription that brings 3 meals, serving either two or four people, to your door each week.
A recent winter menu featured buffalo chicken enchiladas, cauliflower soup, and pork stroganoff as entrees, though you can also add “small plates” such as a salad (e.g., chicken salad or winter crunch salad) or two quarts of the soup of the month.
Entrees start at around $25, with each serving two.
Family Table
With a mission to “bring busy families back to the dinner table,” Family Table is a local meal delivery service crafting hearty, family-style meals. Owner Mike Harding worked as a private chef in other families’ homes for years, but Family Table is designed to make a personal chef service much more accessible, reducing the hours that busy families spend cooking (or throwing their hands up and ordering takeout).
“Family favorite” meals, which all contain a protein and two sides (a starch and seasonal vegetables), can be delivered throughout much of Allegheny County on Monday and Thursday (or picked up by appointment on the North Side). Ordering by noon on Thursday ensures a Monday delivery.
Menu offerings rotate weekly, but a recent menu included meatloaf with mashed potatoes and green beans, pork carnitas bowls, and chicken caprese with potatoes and vegetables. You can also add more items to your order, like à la carte proteins, side dishes, breads, breakfast, and treats.
Family favorite meal packages start at $40 for two people, with options to scale up portions for families of four, six, or eight.
Soergel’s Essentials
Soergel Orchards doesn’t deliver its prepared meal package, Soergel’s Essentials, but it’s nevertheless quite easy to get a complete meal kit for the week from the area’s favorite farm and apple orchard.
Soergel’s Essentials was born during the pandemic, when grocery store shelves were bare, and people tried their best to stay home. But even though lockdown has long lifted, Soergel’s Essentials is still going strong, offering weekly meal packages consisting of three meal kits (selected from about a dozen options) as well as staples including milk, cider, eggs, dessert, and fresh fruits and veggies. Soergel staff load everything into your vehicle when you arrive at the orchard for Friday afternoon pickup.
Meal kits include tasty recipes and all the ingredients you need to cook dinner yourself. A recent menu included Cuban sandwiches, slow cooker chicken shawarma, white chicken chili, and more.
A three-meal package, plus the selection of staples, is $130, and additional meals can be added for $30 each.
Pure Grub
Pure Grub is a local Pittsburgh caterer that also offers weekly meals for pickup at its Aspinwall shop. While the meal plan roster is currently booked solid, Pure Grub does offer a waitlist, so we are still including the business in this list in case it’s the perfect service for you.
Pure Grub specializes in prepared meals for folks with dietary restrictions: Everything by Pure Grub is not only healthy and delicious, but also gluten-free and vegan. The company also uses only organic ingredients.
If you get off the waitlist to enjoy the weekly plan, you might get to try Pure Grub classics like Cubano sandwiches or zesty jambalaya.
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