Martha Stewart & Marley Spoon Review

Martha Stewart & Marley Spoon is a multi-national company founded in Germany and the U.S. branch of this meal delivery service ships to 46 states in the contiguous United States. The service offers more than 100 meals that can be selected each week and customers can choose two or four servings of each meal and receive up to six meals per week.

This service focuses on providing ingredients for customers to prep and cook meals that fall into various categories, including vegetarian, keto, dairy-free, and more. We ordered several meals to see how they measure up.

Learn More: Read Our Full Methodology

How It Works: Great User Experience

Martha Stewart & Marley Spoon starts the signup process by asking how many meals you would like per week and how many people are in your household. Once that basic structure is established, the service asks you about dietary restrictions and what protein you prefer. Then it generates a list of sample meals where you can select ones that you may like.

Once you have your first delivery scheduled, you will receive your order the following week. Additionally, you can edit the meals that are recommended and choose from the roughly 100 that are available that week. We appreciated that the interface is intuitive to use and we had no problem selecting meals or changing upcoming ones.

Choosing Meals: The Algorithm Works

The site does a great job of giving you a preview each week of what you will be receiving in future deliveries and you can very easily edit those meals and choose from alternative lists.

What We Made

Greek chicken gyro with chopped salad and garlic sauce
Broccoli Reuben with Russian dressing wedge salad
Oven fried beef taquitos, tomatillo salsa & jalapenos
Gochujang turkey ragu with fresh udon, cilantro & scallions

Support Materials: Professional and Thorough

The supporting materials for Martha Stewart & Marley Spoon are very professional and easy to use. Each recipe includes printed recipe cards on sturdy, high-quality paper. This makes it easy to hang onto them and pull them out at a later date to make one of the recipes from scratch, which you can opt out of receiving if you would like.

Beyond the printed cards, you will receive instructions for preparing each recipe along with a full list of equipment you’ll need to make them. Plus, the ingredients you’ll need from your pantry that aren’t included in your box, and basic nutritional information are on the company's website.

Martha Stewart & Marley Spoon does run a blog as well that is occasionally updated. There is also a robust FAQ section where you can find answers to common questions.

Packaging: Smartly Packaged

We were impressed with the Martha Stewart & Marley Spoon packaging. The larger box, box liner, and ice packs can all be recycled in one way or another (the ice packs need to be emptied and rinsed). Regarding the ingredients, while the meat was mailed in vacuum-packed plastic, much like you would see at the supermarket, the fruits and vegetables were sent in plain paper bags that were divided for each recipe. In total, our box contained a total of 32 pieces of packing materials.

The packaging looked similar to what you might get from the store if you forgo using plastic bags. Most of the produce was in paper and the meat was in plastic, which accounted for 20 pieces of the total packaging that can be recycled in areas that accept #1 and #4 recyclable plastic. Eight pieces were eligible for curbside recycling; the remaining four pieces had to be thrown in the trash.

The Cooking Process: Few Shortcuts

We tried four different recipes and enjoyed all of them. There was almost nothing premade; everything was intended to be cooked fresh. As a result, the meals required a lot of chopping and cooking. The recipes had great flavors, but may be a bit more work than some would be willing to do on a typical weeknight. Also, we found a few steps in the recipes to be a bit technical, and they would have been challenging for a beginner cook to follow.

Flavor, Freshness, and Quality: Mostly Good

The quality and freshness of the ingredients that we received were for the most part, positive. All of the ingredients were fresh and tasted good, and preparing the proteins was a fairly straightforward process.

Nutritional Value: Just the Basics

Martha Stewart & Marley Spoon provides basic nutritional information in the online portal for each recipe. The calorie information is printed on the recipe cards as well. Customers with allergy concerns will want to refer to the company's website, where details about ingredients and allergens can be found.

Martha Stewart & Marley Spoon Is Good For

A skilled home cook who has a hard time coming up with recipes and would like to save time from going to the store, but who does have time to cook regularly, might benefit from using Martha Stewart & Marley Spoon. However, a beginner cook or someone who doesn’t have time to cook regularly may not find this meal delivery service to be a good fit.

Add-ons: Some Basics

Martha Stewart & Marley Spoon does offer a few add-ons that can be tacked onto any weekly delivery, including extra proteins like steak, salmon, or chicken. These aren’t particularly different than what you might find in a store, but the convenience may make it worth it. You can also add more complete courses like baked oatmeal and a few dessert options like cheesecake. 

Customer Service: Mixed Response

Martha Stewart & Marley Spoon offers an online form and a phone number for customer service. We reached out to a general company email address to ask about the freshness of some of the produce but didn’t hear back. After we canceled the service, we did hear from the company's customer team, which offered us a $20 credit to re-join, but nobody answered the original question we submitted.

Making Changes and Canceling: All Online

The Martha Stewart & Marley Spoon website is very intuitive to use and making changes to your plan or making meal adjustments each week is very easy. There’s no need to contact support to do so. You can also pause your subscription for any number of weeks, skip a week, or cancel your account without contacting support. Downgrading or upgrading the number of meals you receive is also very easy and intuitive. Just keep in mind that the deadline to make changes is five or six days before your scheduled delivery, based on your location.

Methodology

Our testers ordered from, cooked, and rated 40 different meal delivery services. We carefully scored each one based on meal selection, nutritional information, sustainability, and customer service, as well as the flavor, freshness, and quality of each meal and ingredient. Our Spruce Eats tester panel includes dietitians, chefs, and longtime food writers. The one thing they all have in common is their love and knowledge of food.