Paleo On The Go Review

Paleo On The Go’s entire collection of meals and desserts is completely geared toward paleo and autoimmune protocol (AIP) diets. Both of these diets steer clear of refined sugar, grains, legumes (including soy), and dairy, but the AIP diet goes further and excludes eggs, nuts, seeds, and nightshades.

It can be a challenge to adhere to these restrictions, especially for busy folks or non-cooks, which is where Paleo On The Go comes in. The service ships frozen, ready-to-heat meals that adhere to these dietary guides, right to your door. It even offers an assortment of baked goods, like muffins, cookies, toaster pastries, and cakes, so you can satisfy those cravings without compromising your diet plan.

However, the cost is a bit steep for frozen food—meals average $20 while a cake will set you back around $60. Sure, the dishes are all made with mostly organic ingredients, pasture-raised meats, and sustainably caught fish, but other paleo meal delivery services promise the same thing for a lower cost. We wanted to know if Paleo On The Go was worth the steep price tag, so we gave it a try. Read on for our conclusion.

Learn More: Read Our Full Methodology

How It Works: Flexible

Ordering meals through Paleo On The Go (POTG) is more like a regular online shopping experience than signing up for a service. There’s no subscription commitment. If you do want to subscribe, costs are reduced by 5%.

Generally, POTG seems geared toward single-serving à la carte orders. Just navigate the main dropdown menu to browse the full menu of options, the four available meal bundles, or just zero in on the baked goods.

Each dish is accompanied by a simple thumbnail picture and a price—and it was definitely nice to know the cost upfront. When you click on a picture, you get a more detailed description of the dish, ingredients list, nutrition information, and even the heating instructions. If it sounds good, just add it to your cart. There are plans for 8, 12, or 16 items.

Part of that high cost is because the dishes are generously portioned and use responsibly sourced ingredients. They all adhere to both paleo and AIP diets and are made with organic vegetables whenever possible. The company follows the Environmental Working Group’s Dirty Dozen and Clean Fifteen guidelines when sourcing. Meats come from cows that eat nothing but grass their entire lives, and seafood is sustainable.

The frozen meals are shipped out via FedEx most weekdays and arrive within three days. Since the company is based in Florida, shipping to states in the eastern half of the country is far cheaper than the west because it can be sent ground versus two-day express. We had to pay $50 for our shipment to the West Coast. The company also encourages customers to pay an extra $7.95 for Route package protection, since it is not liable for replacing lost, stolen, or damaged shipments. We took our chances and opted out.

Choosing Meals: Not Much Variety

You can filter the options for ingredient preferences, types of dishes (entrees, breakfasts, etc.), and dietary preferences. Everything adheres to paleo and AIP guidelines.

There are over 50 options, but only about 20 are full meals. Spread throughout the collection are extras like paleo tortillas, biscuits, cookies, bone broths, and sauces. There are five kinds of pastry-wrapped empanadas, two pot pies, several soups in addition to broths, and two filled layer cakes with frosting. The menu claims to have 10 breakfast options, and there are indeed two breakfast bowls and several pastries, but including a package of bratwurst or garlic-chicken empanadas in the lineup seems like a stretch.

The meals don’t seem to change very often and don’t seem tied to the seasons. They’re mostly year-round classics like chicken pot pie, Salisbury steak, and beef stew. If you don’t mind eating the same thing over and over, this won’t be a problem.

There’s no cutoff for orders which are shipped out Monday through Friday for eastern addresses, or Monday through Thursday for western addresses.

What We Made

We ordered five meals including a rich soup, one container of bone broth, and a pack of cookies.

• Cream of broccoli soup
• Mojo chicken empanada
• Salisbury steak with mushroom gravy and onion confit cauliflower mash
• Chicken and dumplings
• Bacon apple chicken burger with maple cranberry sauce and organic collard greens with smoky bacon
• Lemon, garlic, and sage bone broth
• Snickerdoodle cookies made with tigernut flour, coconut flour, and sweetened with pure maple syrup and coconut sugar

Support Materials: Detailed Heating Instructions

Since there’s no cooking involved, there’s no need for recipe cards. But we were impressed by the detailed thawing and reheating instructions on each meal’s label. Even the baked cookies had recommendations for how long to allow them to thaw before eating.

Packaging: Sustainable

Our meals were delivered in a cardboard box that’s easily curbside recyclable. It was lined in Green Cell Foam for insulation, which can be composted, thrown in a yard waste bin, or just doused in water until it dissolves. The plastic bag that covered the foam is curbside recyclable in some areas.

To keep the contents cold, the company includes dry ice instead of gel packs. Although we were thrilled to not have to deal with yet another gel pack and love how dry ice just naturally evaporates away, the dry ice was solid and heavy enough to crack several of the meals’ plastic trays during shipping.

The Cooking Process: Microwave or Oven—Your Choice

Since not everyone has a microwave, it’s great that POTG includes detailed oven reheating instructions for all of its meals. Most everything can be reheated in the microwave except for items with pastry, like pot pies and empanadas, which must be baked in an oven or toaster oven (not in the original packaging). No matter what the reheating method, all of the instructions recommend thawing the food in the refrigerator before reheating, which surprised us. It took over 24 hours for some of our meals to defrost, and even so, the non-pastry meals were still partly frozen when we microwaved them, but it didn’t affect the results.

Flavor, Freshness, and Quality: Delicious and Comforting

All of the dishes we tried were delicious, well-balanced, and well-seasoned. While we’ve had mixed results with other paleo meal delivery services, we were happy with all of the dishes we received. The standout was the bacon apple chicken burger with maple cranberry sauce and organic collard greens with smoky bacon. This was a substitution the company made, and we were delighted. The collards were perfectly cooked—they were tender but still retained their texture—and the serving size was huge, about 2 cups worth. The two chicken patties were juicy and really flavorful, though a tad too sagey. But the whole berry cranberry sauce really brightened them up. The texture wasn’t the least bit spongy, which can happen with over-mixed or over-marinated meats.

The Salisbury steak was reminiscent of meatloaf but with deeply savory pot roast flavors. The gravy was more of a pan sauce in consistency, which we appreciated since it was rich and brothy with onions and mushrooms rather than goopy. The accompanying cauliflower mash was a nice backdrop and not too cabbage-y in aroma or flavor, which can sometimes happen with cauliflower products.

We were also impressed with the pastry on the chicken mojo empanada. The filling of finely shredded chicken had a nice limey tang that complemented the rich pastry, which managed to be both tender and crispy at the same time, even though it was gluten-free. The chicken and dumplings was a bowl of pure comfort—large, moist, and tender shreds of chicken, diced carrot, and sliced celery all mingling in a rich broth. The dumplings reminded us of sticky matzoh balls or even African fufu. If you like chewy, glutinous textures (without gluten, of course), you’ll enjoy these.

The cream of broccoli soup was rich and creamy with bold broccoli flavor—even though it uses coconut milk instead of the usual dairy milk. We appreciated that POTG included some whole pieces of broccoli and carrot for texture. The snickerdoodle cookies were also surprisingly good considering they’re made with no wheat flour, white sugar, eggs, or butter. The texture was a bit gritty, but they were tender and chewy with a great cinnamon flavor.

Nutritional Value: Nutrient-Dense

All of the meals are paleo and AIP-compliant, so there are no filler carbs like bread or pasta. As a result, all of the dishes are packed with ingredients like meat, vegetables, and coconut flour. Some meals are more vegetable-heavy than others, although none of them are vegetarian.

Dishes are quite generously portioned, so there’s a hefty amount of protein and fat in each serving. The chicken and dumplings are at the high end of the calorie spectrum with 530 calories, 26g of fat, 26g of protein, and 55g of carbohydrates. The Salisbury steak isn’t far behind with 480 calories, 24g of fat, 33g of protein, and 16g of carbohydrates. These stats are par for the course for most of the lunch/dinner entrees.

Paleo On The Go Is Good For

Active singles who want to eat a paleo or anti-inflammatory diet, but don’t have the time or skills to cook, will likely find Paleo On The Go a great resource. Since the price point is rather high and the selection doesn’t change much, the service seems best for adding to your mealtime rotation, rather than relying on it for every meal.

Paleo On The Go Is Not Good For

Vegetarians have no options at POTG, and sedentary people might find the meals a bit too caloric. And anyone on a tight budget, especially those who live far from Florida, will likely find the meal and shipping prices a bit too steep.

Add-ons: Treats and Broths

Technically, since everything is à la carte, there aren’t add-ons in the strict sense. However, POTG offers several additions to its regular meal lineup, like desserts, sauces, breakfast treats, biscuits, bacon, and tortillas.

Customer Service: Relatively Responsive

Customers can contact the company via phone, email, or an online form. The customer service line is staffed Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. ET, which means West Coasters should get in touch early in the day. We filled out the online form and received a courteous response about 45 minutes later. Our second message received a response in 30 minutes.

Making Changes and Canceling: Not an Issue

You can opt to subscribe and save with POTG. After that, you can pause, change, or cancel up to 24 hours before the next recurring order. You can also order one time with an 8-item minimum.

The Competition: Paleo On The Go vs. Pete’s Paleo

Following a paleo or AIP-friendly diet can be a challenge, but both Paleo On The Go and Pete’s Paleo aim to make it easy. Both dedicate their menus to these dietary restrictions, and both use organic ingredients whenever possible as well as only grass-fed or grass-finished meats and sustainable fish. Both use recyclable packaging too.

There are a few key differences though. Paleo On The Go’s menu doesn’t change as often as Pete’s Paleo, which gets switched up every week and is completely overhauled with the seasons. Paleo On The Go offers a wide array of baked goods, which are hard to get when you’re following a grain-free diet. Also, its entire menu is not just paleo, it’s also AIP compliant, whereas only some of Pete’s Paleo offerings meet these criteria.

Price-wise, Pete’s Paleo is a few dollars cheaper per meal, and shipping is far cheaper (especially for those in the western half of the U.S.), but Paleo On The Go offers bigger portions and its meals are more consistently delicious.

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.

The criteria we used to evaluate each company included:

• The ordering process
• Meal selection
• Packaging and support materials
• Recyclability
• The cooking process
• The flavor, freshness, and quality of each meal and ingredient
• Nutritional information
• Customer service