Purple Carrot – Great Vegan Option but Needs Improvement – Review & Score

I am at my seventh one in my 12 week project. Time is just flying! This one is Purple Carrot. I discovered it while I was googling for DIY meal delivery options. I grew up vegetarian, and that too an Indian vegetarian, which meant no meat/fish and no eggs. Dairy was ok (and very welcome 🙂 ). Mitch generally does not go for vegetarian dishes, if given options. So I was a little apprehensive about this week’s dishes. I assumed it would be a little less satisfying and we would need something else after each of these meals. I am glad I was wrong. Purple Carrot definitely changed my perspective about vegan food and I will now be more open to those dishes. These guys not only had great flavors in items that naturally do not have any non-vegan ingredients, but also in the ones where they needed to substitute them with vegan alternatives. Indian vegetarian has a lot of options for vegan food, and with great flavors, so that part didn’t surprise me. But the part where they used substitutes for meat, eggs and milk was where I was a little worried. But they all definitely tasted very good.These guys don’t seem to have an app. I was a little surprised about this. It was not the worst thing, I could use their website and get things done. And their website is pretty neat. I just assumed everyone has an app these days. They offered a first time user discount of $30, so I thought that was great. Once I ordered, and went back to see my order details, I couldn’t tell if they applied the discount or not. Most of these services needed me to place the order 2-3 weeks ahead and they would charge when they shipped the box. So I thought I would have to wait and see how much they would charge. They actually charged me the full price. Initially I didn’t catch that. But then few days later they charged me again for another box, at full price. So I had to contact them (only way to do that is via email – no calling or not even chat options). So I wrote to them about the second charge. They got back to me saying that I didn’t skip my next week’s meals. I certainly did. When I wrote them back about it, there was no response. So I went back into their website and wrote them another email, this time also highlighting that I did not get my discount for the first box. They got back to me and said they are sad to see me go, they refunded the second charge, gave me the discount on the first box and also cancelled my account! I was a little surprised that they cancelled my account without me asking them. But I wanted to do that anyway. So I didn’t have issues with that. If you are looking to order from these guys, I would keep a close eye on their billing.

For meals, they do not have options for me to choose. They chose the meals for me and their FAQs said that if I don’t like that week’s meals, I can skip it. Ya, they are a bit sassy! Maybe that works for these guys because there is no meat or fish anyway. So I didn’t have much preferences to go one way or other. I was okay with it, but to be fair to other services, I had to consider the lack of options in the scoring process. The meals they sent me were:

• Sun-Dried Tomato and Basil Quiche with Potato Crust and Baby Kale Salad
• Chickpea Saag with Naan and Mango Chutney
• One Pot Jambalaya with Brown Rice and Quinoa

I thought it was a good selection of meals. I was excited to try them. They used FedEx and the box arrived on schedule. Since this was FedEx, it came with their usual shenanigans. FedEx app kept sending me notifications that the delivery was rescheduled, but the actual details never changed. So I wasn’t sure if I was getting the box on time or not. (I wonder if anyone complained this to FedEx before. I personally don’t like their service, so I didn’t care to report it.) The box looked pretty and the contents and packaging looked typical. The recipe cards were right on top. They used mostly plastic bags for their packaging and no paper bags. I think they can improve on that. Their instructions card design was great and easy to understand. They had all the right details in right places. Their cooking times were not at all accurate though. They all took about an hour to make, but they claimed they would be done in 30-35 minutes. I actually took the last one as a challenge to see if I could finish it in 30 minutes like they mentioned. My prepping was on point, everything was lined up, portioned and grouped the ingredients that went together, and equipment was ready to go. Despite my absolute best effort, it took 56 minutes. I did not think their cooking times were genuine claims. Their instructions also had a few other issues. After bringing the rice to boil, they missed to mention that the heat needs to be lowered. I was glad I paid attention. Also, in other situations, they did not say what to do with a pot once the mentioned time is done. Should I take the pot off the heat? Or should I continue with the next step? That was not clear. In fact, in the 3rd step of the recipe for Chickpea Saag, it should have mentioned to turn off the heat (or turn it to low) and move onto prepping the batter in the 4th step. It didn’t say that. Had I not turned off the heat, it would have burnt. So their instructions were not completely reliable. At least not for people who are not familiar with some basic understanding of cooking.

Now, moving on to the meals:

Sun-Dried Tomato and Basil Quiche with Potato Crust and Baby Kale Salad

Quiche tasted okay. Salad was really good. Potatoes were semi success. Overall, the dish was not bad at all. I did not miss eggs, IN A QUICHE! I thought that was an excellent way of using tofu. I also realized I do not have a good mandolin to slice the potatoes. Food processor came to the rescue. I wasn’t looking to slice the potatoes really thin. That seemed a little time taking and I had to get back to Top Chef. (I knew about it, but never paid attention. I started watching it on Hulu last week and I am now completely hooked – already watched 4 seasons, in just one week. Ya, soon I might need therapy). I did not have baby kale before. I had regular kale which is a tougher green, like chard. But I didn’t know baby kale is so soft and not bitter at all. The salad was my favorite. Overall, Mitch and I both gave it a 9/10.

Chickpea Saag with Naan and Mango Chutney

Since this was an Indian dish, I was curious to see how this would turn out. I want to point out that it tasted great. Really good! But it had some identity crisis! They replaced cream with coconut milk in the Saag because this is vegan. I thought it actually improved the flavor, but also changed the dish into somewhat a Thai flavor rather than Indian. I had saag many times in India and this was not even close to what it was supposed to be. That Naan was a misnomer. It looked and tasted more like an Ethiopian Injera. Again, they all tasted really good. I felt like they were named incorrectly. Rice was good, but traditionally made with a little bit of butter flavoring, which obviously was not done here. But it still tasted good. Mitch and I both liked it and gave this meal 10/10.

One Pot Jambalaya with Brown Rice and Quinoa

I have a little problem with imitation meat. I just feel like the whole concept is confusing. I can certainly understand that it is helpful for people who are trying to convert from meat to vegetarian, but, conceptually, it is a bit bizarre to me. As long as it tastes good, I am ok with that. But that was not the case here. They sent a vegan chipotle sausage. Once I opened the packaging around the sausage, it smelt a little medicinal. I tasted it and did not like it. Searing it helped a little bit, but that medicinal taste was still there. Thankfully, it didn’t overpower the dish. Everything else was successful in this dish. The instant Rice and quinoa tasted good (although I would have preferred not doing instant) and the vegetables turned out really good. Overall, Mitch gave it 10/10 and I gave it 9/10.

Final Thoughts and Score

Obviously, this is a great option for people who prefer plant based meals. I do feel like their billing system has some kinks. They need to improve their overall service in terms of customer service, meal options, technology, instruction card details etc. But they got one thing right, which is flavor. And that’s a big one. They are not cheap, but they are not super expensive either. One week box with 6 meals costs $72 (which comes to $12 per meal). That is slightly more expensive than Blue Apron, Home Chef or Hello Fresh, but certainly less than Peach Dish or Sun Basket. With the discount of $30, I paid $42 for the week, which made it $7 per meal. Good deal! Their subscription cancellation process is not great at all. Looks like I need to send them an email and then they would send me steps to follow to cancel the subscription. And I have 48 hours to finish that. I am not sure why make people go through all that. Fortunately for me, the customer representative cancelled my subscription without me asking for it. They scored a very decent 140 out of possible 200 points on my scoring method, considering the hits they took for subscription, pricing, meal choices etc. If they improved on those, these guys will be an excellent option, regardless whether you are vegan or not. Here is the breakdown of the score:

#	Comparison aspect	High Priority?	Rating Scale	Purple Carrot
1	Website/app	N	10	5
2	Subscription/Pricing	Y	10	2
3	Meal choices	Y	15	0
4	Ordering and delivery	N	10	10
6	Overall Packaging	N	5	2
7	First time user perks	N	5	0
8	Ingredients	Y	15	14
9	Ingredients packaging	Y	15	12
10	Instructions	Y	15	12
11	Cooking time accuracy	N	10	5
12	Leftover ingredients	N	10	10
13	Portion size	Y	30	30
14	Flavors	Y	30	27
15	Leftovers	N	5	0
16	Recycling	Y	15	11
		Total Score	200	140

I am tracking the overall scores and comparison of all companies in a spreadsheet here:

DIY Meal Kits Comparison Spreadsheet