Martha and Marley Spoon Review

Written by: Natalia S

 I’m a Vancouver-based mom and writer who loves to cook. Hope you enjoy!

What is Martha and Marley Spoon?

Marley Spoon, a German company that provides meal kits all around the world, joined forces with the culinary queen herself, Martha Stewart in 2016. Since then, the joint venture, Martha and Marley Spoon, have been dishing up interesting and tasty meal kits for people who enjoy cooking.

If you’re interested in saving time and hassle around choosing and preparing meals, you’ve got to try a meal kit service. There are tons of meal kit delivery companies out there, Martha and Marley has a few features and quirks that make it unique.

Martha Stewart is the unrefuted authority of crafts, cooking, and home decor, but is her meal delivery service up for taking the reins on your dinner? We review the particulars on the quality, variety, service, environmentalism, and overall value so you can get to know Martha and Marley Spoon before you place an order.

Martha Marley Spoon’s Protein-packed Vegan Salad

Recipe Quality and Taste

We’re starting with what matters most: how the food tastes. Nothing else matters if your meal isn’t palatable. Luckily, that isn’t an issue with this meal kit.

How Tasty Are Martha and Marley Spoon Meal Kits?

Martha and Marley Spoon is consistently one of the more tasty meal kit options available. Their recipes are simple twists on common recipes that might even get you excited about weekday dinners.

Quality of Ingredients

Martha and Marley Spoon uses quality proteins like grass-fed beef, Berkshire pork, antibiotic-free chicken, and American-caught shrimp. They also select seasonal ingredients in their recipes to make sure they’re always sending the freshest fruits and vegetables.

Because they partner with small-batch producers, the kits have uncommon, local ingredients. The novel foods used in the meal kits are bound to teach even experienced cooks something new.

Easy To Prepare

Meal kit delivery services eliminate time spent shopping and meal planning. Martha and Marley Spoon make an effort to keep preparation of their interesting meals simple, too.

When selecting your weekly delivery, you can choose meals that are quick to prepare, labeled “under 30-minutes,” and one-pot recipe options. This helps you plan for nights that are extra tight on time.

Inside the delivery box, ingredients for each recipe are packaged separately within a labeled paper bag. You don’t have to spend time figuring out which items go with which meals, unlike some other kits.

The easy-to-follow recipe cards outline 6 steps with precise instructions and include helpful photos that make chef-worthy cooking seem easy. But as simple as the recipe cards make prep seem, these impressive meals aren’t well-suited for inexperienced cooks. Cooking times are commonly underestimated and require equipment like meat mallets and grated grill pans that aren’t basic kitchen staples. Finally, these meals make tons of dishes.

For new cooks or someone who’s trying to get dinner on the table fast, this might not be the best choice. But it’ll be ideal for busy cooking lovers.

Variety/Flexibility

Martha and Marley Spoon meal kit boxes are suitable for couples and families. Choose from a plan that serves two adults or four adults and select whether you want 2-6 recipes per week.

Menus are available multiple weeks out and you can select your meals for delivery up to 7 weeks in advance. Talk about putting your obligations on autopilot! But if you want to make any changes to a week’s order, you’ll need to do it 5 days before it’s delivered.

Variety of Flavours

We’ve teased the delicious meals, but what exactly are they? While most meal kit companies average 10-15 meals to choose from, Martha and Marley spoil you for choice. Every week, there’s a selection of 20 tasty recipes, such as Shrimp Scampi Pasta with Roasted Zucchini. They offer a good mix of vegetarian, fish and meat options to choose from each week. The large selection means there’s always options to fit even the pickiest of palates (i.e. the Beef Taquitos with Tomatillo Salsa & Jalapeños).

Martha Marley Spoon’s Keto-friendly Indian Butter Chicken

Available Diet Plans

To help you figure out which delicious recipes to add to your box, Martha and Marley Spoon have helpful labels for their meals:

• Diary Free
• Gluten Free
• Low-calorie
• Low-carb
• Vegan
• Vegetarian
• Under 30 minutes
• Kid-friendly
• One-pot

While the labels are helpful, other meal kit delivery companies have the ability to filter the menu by your dietary restrictions or preferences. Unfortunately, that’s not a feature of the Martha and Marley Spoon website.

Delivery Service

Martha and Marley Spoon meal kits are delivered to your door, packed with everything you need to make dinner. Here’s a bit more on what getting one of these packages is like:

What’s Inside The Box

Inside a Martha and Marley Spoon delivery, you’ll find all of the pre-portioned ingredients needed to create each recipe, organized into labeled paper bags. You won’t find some pantry basics that the recipes might call for, like oil, vinegar, salt, pepper, sugar, and eggs.

The cardboard boxes have multiple ice packs to keep the ingredients cool and fresh during delivery. The boxes are lined with insulating materials and ample packaging to ensure meat and produce stay in top shape until they hit your plate.

The large, colourful recipe cards have detailed pictures of the meal that you can look forward to making. The cards also note:

• How many servings the instructions will yield
• How long you can expect to spend cooking
• The level of difficulty of the recipe
• Macro nutrient information per serving
• Potential allergens
• Included ingredients for the recipe
• Additional ingredients needed, like oil and salt
• Cooking utensils needed

What’s in the box?

Service Area and Delivery Options

Martha and Marley Spoon is one of the most widely-available meal kit services in the world. They deliver to the following countries:

• Austria
• Australia
• Belgium
• Germany
• Netherlands
• USA

Their service area extends to the majority of the contiguous United States. To confirm if they deliver to your home or office, visit their website and input your zip code. With this information, you’ll also see what days and times delivery is available in your area.

Shipping Cost

While shipping at one time was included, free of charge, as of September 2019, there is an $8.99 shipping charge on all boxes. It’s one of the higher shipping charges out there. This is a disappointing change when so many other meal kit companies provide complimentary shipping.

Customer Service

Martha and Marley Spoon stay true to Stewart’s brand of hospitality. The service isn’t for everyone, but they’re good to those who choose to use it. Problems with delivery, quality, and other issues are infrequent. When challenges arise, they tend to be handled swiftly.

They offer a fresh ingredient guarantee. You’ll be able to use the ingredients for at least 4 days after you receive them, with the exception of fish, which should be cooked within 48 hours.

Martha & Marley Spoon – Carton Box

Sustainability

Meal kit services help reduce food waste by delivering pre-portioned ingredients to consumers. This helps to ensure that more food is used, rather than sitting around and going bad. Martha and Marley further support sustainability and a healthy food economy with their practice of only using ingredients that are in season.

Martha and Marley meal kits have lots of packaging. There’s no denying that. But it’s clear that they’ve put in efforts to ensure minimal environmental impact. You can read more about the details of how to recycle their packaging.

Here are the environmental highlights of their packaging:

• Their cardboard boxes are made from paper sourced from sustainably managed forests and are SFI certified. They can be recycled in any curbside paper recycling bin.
• Ingredient packaging such as bottles and containers that hold sauces and spices are made of #1 recyclable plastic.
• Bags which contain items like meats, produce, and grains are made of #4 recyclable plastic.
• Their paper insulation liners are 100% paper, composed of brown paper and recycled newsprint.
• Their paper dish bags are made of 100% post-consumer recycled paper fibers.
• Their ice packs contain 98% water and 2% super absorbent polymer. They are non-toxic, non-hazardous, oil-based polymers wrapped in recyclable #4 plastic.

While they’ve put thought and effort into making the packaging in the kits ethical and recyclable, it’s still on the customer to make sure the materials are recycled. If Martha and Marley Spoon offered a service to manage the recycling themselves, we could give them more points on sustainability.

Value for Price

We’ve provided a lot of information about this meal kit company and now it’s time to drill down on whether or not it’s worth it.

How much is Martha and Marley spoon?

The average price per plate of Martha and Marley Spoon is $10.58, or $61.50 per box for two.

In most cities, you’d pay much more than the cost of this kit for a meal of this calibre at a restaurant. But for those looking to save a dime, you can get lower-cost kits to be sure.

This meal kit feels a little bit more special than lower-cost kits out there. It’s great value for someone who enjoys cooking and who wants an exciting, delicious meal.

This meal kit would be a thoughtful gift for someone like that. It’s perfect for newlyweds, new parents, or for folks who have trouble getting to the grocery store, but still enjoy cooking.

Martha and Marley Spoon FAQs

Which is better Hello Fresh or Marley Spoon?

HelloFresh and Marley Spoon are comparable in price; however, each has its own advantages in certain areas. For example, HelloFresh lets you see their available menu items 5 weeks in advance whereas Marley Spoon only shows their menu options 2 weeks in advance. But on the other hand, Marley Spoon offers 48 menu items each week whereas HelloFresh offers 35.

Deciding which is better is subjective and really depends on the recipient. We recommend trying both and making the decision first-hard for yourself.

Read More About Martha and Marley Spoon

• The Best Meal Kit Delivery Services In San Francisco
• Our Selection Of The Cheapest Meal Kit Delivery Services
• Blue Apron Competitors: 7 Services Like Blue Apron
• The Best Meal Kit Delivery Services In Toronto

Conclusion: Is Martha and Marley Spoon Worth It?

Martha and Marley have a wide selection of inspiring recipes. They aren’t the easiest or fastest meals to prepare, nor are they the least expensive option. But, we think you’ll feel like Martha Stewart herself when you serve up these chef-inspired dishes.

This is a meal kit for someone who loves cooking and food, knows their way around the kitchen a bit, and who doesn’t mind a bit of extra cleanup in the name of something memorable.

Try out Martha and Marley Spoon today! Then, let us know what you think about them by leaving your own review below!