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Broaden your vegan horizons with meal kits, cruelty-free cosmetics and more
There’s something quite thrilling about getting a package in the post. Make that a regular delivery of our favourite goodies, and we’re really onto a winner. Whatever it is you look forward to turning up on your doorstep, subscription boxes are the gifts that keep on giving. Plus, when it comes to vegan subscription boxes, they can be an easy, reliable way to broaden plant-based horizons.
Looking for freshly made plant-based bakes? There’s a subscription for that. Cruelty-free cosmetics? Yes, of course. These subscriptions can also introduce us to small, indie brands, and rarer finds that might not usually be on our radar, particularly when it comes to vegan beauty, snacks and confectionery.
Then there are recipe kits and pre-prepared meals that can be delivered to your door. These offer a fail-safe way to spice up plant-based dinners, as you can customise your food order before each new delivery. While there won’t be any element of surprise, they still offer the level of variation that makes a brilliant subscription box service.
To help you decide which to choose, we made room in our fridge and bathroom cabinet, to put a whole host of subscription box services to the test.
We dived straight into a variety of vegan subscription boxes across a range of categories, assessing them on the quality of the contents, value for money, how varied the contents would be with each delivery, and whether we would be excited to receive the items. When it came to testing the meal kits and meal delivery services, we ate several meals from each, considering their taste and menu variety. We also considered the packaging and any other eco-credentials worth noting.
When you’re craving some vegan-friendly indulgence, Vegan Town has you covered. The plant-based confectionery store has gone all out with its surprise hamper, which houses a carefully curated selection of vegan sweet treats. Everything will be a surprise, and different with every delivery – a sure-fire way to amp up the anticipation. When it came to our box, we enjoyed that the products went beyond just chocolate, from a familiar favourite in the form of Monty Bojangles truffles (these are elite), to rarer finds we haven’t seen while scouring our local supermarket.
We unwrapped treats both big and small, plus vegan alternatives to old favourites, so we were able to relive our love of Cadbury’s chocolate creme eggs, with a Mummy Meegz vegan version. We also unwrapped a scattering of Kuhbonbon vegan caramel sticks, Manner Neapolitaner chocolate hazelnut cream wafers, some delicious organic orange gingerbreads dunked in chocolate, which were a highlight for us, and more. There’s plenty to dip into, so it should last a while. What a treat.
The Vegan Bakes is an entirely vegan bakery that delivers to your doorstep, and a subscription to its devilishly good sugar fix box is sheer indulgence. When freshly baked plant-based treats aren’t so easy to find in the supermarket, this is going to be a convenient way to scratch that itch, and the bakes do not disappoint.
There are six different baked treats in the box each month, and everything in our delivery was next-level. There’s certainly no scrimping on the size of these bakes either – these are big, so there are no quibbles when it comes to getting bang for your buck here.
A humongous slab of honeycomb rocky road was the star of the show for us. It came nestled alongside a s’mores deep dish cookie; a gooey salted caramel hot choc brownie; an apple crumble cake tub; a triple choc cookie; and a raspberry crumble slice. This is undoubtedly a large and decadent delivery, so it may be best suited to sharing among a household or family, but everything should last up to 10 days, if you need it to. Admittedly, our box was devoured before we could test this claim.
If you’re committing to a vegan meal kit delivery service, get to know Grubby. First and foremost, the meals we tried were delicious – made with pre-measured ingredients and easy-to-follow instructions. There’s even a playlist to listen to while making each recipe, so we were chopping our onions and simmering our sauces with a little extra pep in our step.
There are around 16 recipes to choose from each week, but we’d happily have the meals we tried again and again – they really were that good. The menu calls on British, locally sourced and organic produce, where it can, and the recipes didn’t demand too much from our culinary abilities, and took more or less half an hour to get from bag to table.
Serving either two to three or four to five people, there was more than enough in our meal kit, which meant a little for leftovers. We only wish the creamy lentils with tikka roasted cauliflower and zingy, lemony sugar snaps, as well as the ultra satay noodles with baby corn and chestnut mushrooms (divine) had come into our lives sooner.
Delivered nationwide, the meal kits are even dropped off by bike if you live in London. The packaging is 100 per cent recyclable, and for every Grubby box you buy, Grubby will donate a meal to a child who needs it.
With handmade and cruelty-free bath products, Lush is a brand like no other, and this is an easy way to get your monthly fix. While not everything at Lush will be suitable for vegans (although a lot of it is vegan-friendly), you can rest assured everything in the Lush kitchen subscription box will be. With five goodies inside, our box offered good value for money, but the number of contents will vary between four and five. You’re really getting bang for your buck where exclusivity is concerned, though – as the products generally won’t be found elsewhere, which brings a bit of excitement to the whole experience.
We were sent the Lush kitchen box for October which, naturally, was just as creative and fun as we’d have hoped, and suitably spooky in time for Halloween. There was a knot wrap made from recycled plastic bottles, two bath bombs, a body scrub, a multipurpose cream and a glittery redbeard shower gel with a smoky scent we couldn’t get enough of.
This book subscription is perfect for anyone who cares for animals and the planet as much as they do for reading. Containing vegan-friendly treats as well as a good read, it more than deserves a spot on our list.
With this Happily Ever After box, you get the excitement of delving into a new (surprise) book with every monthly delivery, as well as the added satisfaction of knowing it’s been saved from going to waste. Books that are sent back to publishers after not being sold, despite being in perfectly good condition, can end up in landfill or made into pulp – but not these ones.
While you won’t be able to select the books you receive, what you will be able to do is choose from a list of genres to find the best one for you, including horror, mixed fiction and historical fiction. What’s more, your reading session will be accompanied by vegan chocolate, either tea or coffee and a vegan and cruelty-free pampering product. We very much enjoyed the organic chocolate from The Raw Chocolate Company, and a body scrub from The Coffee Scrub Co. With each box purchased, you will also be supporting the work of a local animal rescue organisation.
Want to be pampered with vegan and cruelty-free indie beauty brands, without going through the hassle of tracking down some? A subscription to The Natural Beauty Box is the answer. We were sent the autumn glow collection, as part of the plastic-free subscription. This is delivered every three months, but if you want something a little more frequent, there are monthly and bi-monthly subscriptions, but these won’t always be plastic-free.
There were four products in our box, covering haircare, skincare, and a candle – plenty for supplementing our usual routine. We unpacked a fragrance-free conditioner bar from Kind 2 – a brand we already know and love for cutting out plastic from our haircare routine. There was also a deliciously sweet-smelling chocolate orange body scrub from The Natural Spa, and a travel-sized face cream with skin-tightening and plumping hibiscus and gotu kola, tucked alongside a patchouli, black pepper and vanilla candle.
The products are selected with all skin types (including sensitive skin) in mind, so they should be suitable for most people.
When you need to stock up on savoury and sweet nibbles, Nutribox delivers the goods. We were eager to widen our plant-based palette beyond peanut butter on toast, so we tested the small box, which is a subscription to vegan, GM ingredient-free and gluten-free snacks. In terms of variation, it’s worth noting many of the brands – Love Corn, Trek and Nakd – will crop up in every delivery, with variation in the flavours and mixes.
We hadn’t seen some of the snack brands in the supermarket before, and there were other goodies we wouldn’t usually think to pick up but actually enjoyed, such as a bag of green pitted olives and freeze-dried strawberries.
There are 20 different snacks in the small option (the contents of our box were worth around the same price as the box, plus there’s free delivery), while the larger box houses 40, and the letterbox-friendly slim version has 10. If you prefer sweet snacks, the naughty but nice box will be more up your street, and went down a treat with this chocoholic.
With a wholly vegan menu, Planthood falls somewhere between a recipe box subscription and a meal service, delivering chef-made elements of the dish with fresh veg to add. If you want the freshness pre-made meals often lack, the convenience of pre-made food, and the satisfaction that comes with spending time in the kitchen, this is a great way to go.
The menu is relatively small but changes every week, so there’s absolutely no chance you’ll get stuck in a rut with the meals you pick, and there’s no long list of dishes to get overwhelmed by, like some other similar subscriptions. Dishes are labelled as detox, for when you want something slightly lighter; nourish, for something heartier; or feast, for a little indulgence, making it easier to eat intuitively, and pick the meal that’ll hit the spot.
The meals we tried were delicious, too. In particular, the nourishing autumnal stew topped with a tangy caper salsa verde was a highlight – a hearty dish packed with veg and flavours we wish we could recreate ourselves.
The recipe instructions can be found online, when you scan a QR code, rather than on a physical recipe card, and they were extremely simple, with all the meals ready after 15 minutes or so. You can choose between three and five meals with each delivery, and portion size options are available for two or four people.
Made in small batches in its Cotswolds-based kitchen, vegan meals from Dovebrook arrive conveniently pre-prepared and frozen. But, rest assured, these are anything but the bland, limp and lifeless ready meals we’ve tried in the past. Defrosted and heated through in a glass dish that comes free with your first order, each meal we tasted was superb.
There’s a great variety of dishes, too, and the range seems particularly premium, spanning sides and desserts and mains, from a sweet and sour South African curry to a raspberry and pistachio cheesecake. You can taste the quality, and we particularly loved the ginger and miso sticky toffee pudding; a zingy creamy casarecce carbonara; and carrot and red onion bhajis dipped in a mint, chilli and coriander yoghurt dip.
Dovebrook’s commitment to a more sustainable kitchen is also worthy of applause. Championing locally sourced ingredients, and generating around half of its electricity using solar power, the kitchen makes virtually no waste, making stocks and garnishes from vegetable offcuts. As for the packaging, everything your order arrives in is plastic-free, home-compostable, and can be returned if you don’t have a compost heap at home.
We don’t always have the time (or the full fridge) to rustle up vibrant, varied plant-based meals, which is where Planty comes in. These frozen dishes are prepared by Michelin-trained chefs, and nearly everything on the menu can be rustled up in the microwave in minutes. There are little dessert pots and creamy oat breakfasts, which only add to the convenience factor, and a nice mix of vegetable-based meals, plus plenty for anyone who prefers tempeh, tofu and other meat alternatives. We loved the umami flavours and creaminess of the polpette alfredo with vegan meatballs.
The range and the quantity of the dishes on the menu is decent, but it is worth noting it will stay the same, bar some seasonal changes. Pick from Korean bibimbap; mushroom massaman curry; and even a roast dinner, if you have a mid-week hankering. You can also pick dishes based on dietary considerations, such as how many of your five a day they contain, or whether they’re low in sugar. Everything arrives with carbon-neutral delivery, and the packaging is recyclable, compostable, or reusable.
Melt London’s vegan chocolate is hands down some of the best we’ve ever tasted, boasting a richness and depth of flavour that doesn’t go unnoticed. Freshly handmade by skilled chocolatiers in its Notting Hill kitchens, Melt’s chocolates contain more natural ingredients and less sugar than you might find in more sickly sweet alternatives, but there’s certainly no scrimping on indulgence.
There are two vegan subscriptions to choose from – bonbons or bars – to be delivered monthly. We plumped for the bonbons and received single-origin vegan chocolates with a ganache-like truffle inside, and salted caramel praline cups filled with a praline paste and topped with a whole roasted hazelnut.
It would have been nice to have more variety with the bonbons, however, as the same ones will arrive each month. If you do want more variety, the bar subscription may be best, with three different chocolate bars arriving each month, selected from a range of 10. With a premium look, the packaging is plastic-free, too.
We loved the surprise hamper from Vegan Town for the selection of scrumptious vegan goodies inside, and the element of surprise and variation. If you’ve fallen out of love with your favourite vegan snacks, you really can’t go wrong with this one. As for a plant-based meal kit service delivering on flavour and creativity, Grubby’s was superb. Also impressive, thanks to exclusivity, seasonal themes and, crucially, fun factor, the Lush kitchen subscription box is brilliant. Sign us up.
Want more inspiration? We tried Tyme’s plant-based subscription, to see if it could really transform our work-week meals