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There are so many meat subscription services out there, all with the promise of a better quality product for less money and no trips to the grocery store. We already subscribe to gyms, streaming platforms, magazines and software, so why not utilize the direct-to-consumer approach for a subscription your body already signed you up for, whether you like it or not? (Food. You have to eat food. Like... every day.)
But which meat delivery service do you choose? Their sites all have pretty pictures and glowing five-star testimonials. It's hard to know what's legit, and what's just a well-branded scam. And while we’re being skeptical, why should you listen to my opinion about the best meat subscription boxes?
Well, I am someone who takes meat quite seriously. As a Boy Scout, I was once elected patrol leader solely on the strength of my campfire cheesesteaks. I stage cookout coups when I see grilled chicken in danger of drying out. I handle the Thanksgiving turkey, can chat for hours about BBQ rubs, and I keep a Thermapen permanently stashed in my luggage because vacation rentals NEVER have a probe thermometer. I've spent the last few months dining on nothing but subscription box meats. After sampling a hundred or so pounds of it, I'm confident in my choices.
All the subscription services on this list boast great relationships with their farmers, and know how their animals are treated and slaughtered. Unlike your local grocery store's cheap meatz, there are no Concentrated Animal Feed Operations here. The creatures have space to roam, are provided with healthy diets, and aren't blasted with the growth hormones and antibiotics.
Testing was tricky. You can't compare apples to oranges, and you can't compare steaks to scallops. In general, I tried to incorporate all of the different meat subscription boxes into how I normally live and cook. But there were some offerings I could hold up to more scientific scrutiny—specifically the boneless skinless chicken breasts, ground beef, steaks, and bacon. Across the board I found them to be excellent, and if I were to declare all of these "as good as or better" to any specific grocery store brands, I'd compare everyone's chicken to Bell & Evans, their ground beef to Pat La Frieda, and the bacon to D'Artagnan. Not a slouch among them.
It's worth mentioning that Halal Box did offer distinctively yummy bone-in chicken, and Porter Road and Vermont Wagyu had beef that easily stood out from the rest. And while I can't declare any of these boxes as the number one best meat subscription for all people, I can tell you which is the best fit for your lifestyle. Come on in. There's a meat delivery box for everyone.
If You Love Pork So Much You Want to Marry It: Campo Grande
The Iberico Pork Box: $152 for 6 pounds
The Charcuterie Sampler: $89 for 8 ounces
You've probably had good pork before, but the Iberico from Campo Grande is an entirely different animal—literally. These pigs root around in more real estate and fresh air than I do. They spend their lives roaming the idyllic Spanish countryside, grazing on carefully rotated crops of acorns in the shade, and you can taste it.
Campo Grande’s pork is special enough that all it really needs is salt and heat, but I gave the Iberico Presa steak a gochujang marinade, grilled and served it alongside a sour cream and onion potato salad, spicy kimchi slaw, and then ascended to a new plane of reality. Once that was all digested and I came back to Earth, I treated the 4-bone ribeye rack to a dry rub and the smoker. Despite cooking at a low (and usually slow) 250 degrees, they turned into some of the best ribs I'd ever had in just over an hour.
Campo Grande also sells cured paleta and coppa that vanished off a cocktail hour charcuterie board in seconds. But my favorite use of their Charcuterie Sampler was one afternoon when I put a few discs of their salchichón on a slice of day old pizza I reheated in the toaster oven. Charred edges and funky cured fat mingling with melted mozzarella on a crispy crust? No regrets.
If You Want To Turn Your Freezer Into a Magic Hat: Good Ranchers
Rancher's Favorites: $169 for 27 servings of beef, pork and chicken
The Essentials Box: $149 for 33 servings of beef and chicken
Good Ranchers is on a mission to connect people with better quality meat from American farmers not as a special occasion rarity, but something we should eat every day. As much as I like a weekend cooking project, Good Ranchers was perfect for helping me throw together something that's healthy-ish, tasty enough to get excited about, and weeknight-level easy.
I turned their chicken breast into perfect katsu, juicy chicken sandwiches, and a comforting poached chicken and rice on a sick day. Their beef top sirloin became an utter treat of lunchtime carne asada, and their bacon did fine work propping up some braised kale.
These subscription boxes are about keeping a well stocked freezer, and when the freezer is packed, I need it to be organized too. More often than not, I reached for the Good Ranchers simply because it was easiest to find. As silly as it is, Good Ranchers' tidily butchered cuts and color coded freezer bags went a long way in making my life a lot easier on those dreaded "what are we gonna have for dinner" Tuesdays.
Finally, a shout out to the huge honkin' t-bone in my box, which I can only describe by asking you to imagine Homer Simpson drooling on a loop, because that is what I transformed into when I partook of that wondrously buttery steak.
If Your Home Restaurant Serves Adults and Children: Butcherbox
The package: Seafood, poultry, pork, beef
Price: $146
Classic Box : 8-11 pounds of meat
When I took this assignment, Butcherbox stood out in my mind as the one to beat. I've gotten together with neighborhood friends in the past to team up on Butcherbox subscriptions to share across households, and I've always been excited about what they send. This time around, I enjoyed their Italian sausage as a way to amp up an easy zucchini pasta, and their ground beef in an even easier "not quite Hamburger Helper". Their boneless skinless chicken thighs were another great way to pack flavor into a weeknight dish, in particular chicken tinga.
Butcherbox's rib eye, pork chops, ground beef and bacon were all items I'd love to keep in stock, but another fun surprise was the inclusion of some picky eater-friendly fare like hot dogs, pre-cooked chicken strips, and sausage patties. One day, I got home wildly hungry and not in the mood to spend the time to defrost a single thing from my icy cornucopia of meat. Thankfully, I was able to heat up some of their pre-breaded, seasoned and cooked chicken strips in the convection oven while I threw together a spicy, creamy dip out of stuff I already had in the fridge. The chicken strips would be nicer with a little more crunch, but they were a blessing in that moment, and lets be honest, they're for kids. They are absolutely better than every freezer chicken nugget I've tried.
Porter Road, AKA the Intersection of Luxury Blvd and Convenience St
The Best Of Porter Road Box: $128 for 8 pounds and $4.41 per serving
When you head to Porter Road's website, the all caps welcome of “IF IT'S NOT RAISED RIGHT IT CAN'T BE DELICIOUS” screams a truth so obvious it might as well say "TWO PLUS TWO EQUALS FOUR." I am glad they wave this banner, and I'm gladder still to have sampled the results of their philosophy.
The Porter Road box showed up on the perfect night, as I was able to immediately put their chorizo to work saving what could have been a drab bean stew. The next morning I browned up their stunning breakfast sausage to go into sausage gravy with biscuits.
As good as the pork products were, it was the beef that shined as the star of the Porter Road Show. Their dry aged burgers stood out easily from all of the others subscriptions, and I turned their well-marbled steaks into perfect fajitas and a steak sandwich that brought my spouse to tears. We all want to make our partners weep with joy after a long day's work, right?
For The Beef Gourmand: Vermont Wagyu
The subscription box (quarterly): $225 for a rotating selection that has 3-4 cuts (steaks, roasts, etc) as well as burger and sausage, based on their preference for that season.
Ever since some of the famously well marbled Wagyu cattle made it to the USA, beef that bears their name pops up in a lot of places, from steakhouses to Arby's. But as opposed to the strictly labeled Kobe grades of Japan, American beef may be referred to as Wagyu even if it's crossbred with Angus or Holstein to the point of only containing 46.9% Wagyu genes. A lot of meat labeled as Wagyu might be more accurately described as a cow who once had a great grandmother who was a quarter Kobe on her father's side. This can be a swell way to increase the price of perfectly good beef and lead a lot of people to say, “I had Kobe and I don't get what the fuss is about.”
If you taste Vermont Wagyu, you will be well and truly fussed. Whether it's open-air dry brining, reverse sears, or compound butters, I have a quiver full of tricks to ensure tasty steaks. When I made the Vermont Wagyu ribeye, I swear it told me to put them all away, lie down and let it cook itself. These steaks are so beautifully marbled, with hundreds of tiny flecks of fat caressing the molecules of protein, it's like God thought it would be fun to make croissants out of cows. But the intramuscular fat of Wagyu beef is actually closer to olive oil than it is to the fat of other cattle, due to its higher concentrations of oleic acid. That means it's good for you, or something.
As it turns out, you do not need to add compound butter to what amounts to mouthfuls of olive oil tucked between slivers of seared muscle. I made a point of enjoying my Vermont Wagyu with the better suited contrast of zippy chimichurri or in spicy gochujang wraps.
The Best Halal Option: Boxed Halal
Quick Dinner Box: $134.99 for 36 portions of chicken cuts and ground beef
Wagyu Box: $179.99 for three steaks and 2 pounds of burger patties
If you want boxes of meat delivered to your door at regular intervals and you also keep Halal, this article ends here. But, I have fabulous news. Boxed Halal kicks ass. Their best in show bone-in chicken legs elevated a simple sheet pan dinner, and a supremely rich stock. I saved some of their party wings to smoke on the grill, and it was one of the best meals I had during my "research" period.
Their ground beef had a friend text later, "Where did you get those burgers, again?" and made me cackle as my wife asked about what new secret ingredient must have been in some tacos. While I don't think their Australian wagyu could stand up against the most spectacular steaks I tested across the subscription brands, it was still better than any I've taken home from a supermarket butcher case. If you're already buying through Boxed Halal and you want a treat, throw in the steaks.
