How To Outsource Meals: 6 Time-Saving Services For Busy Parents

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Feeding your family healthy meals is one of the most vital — and time-consuming —  tasks as a parent. Between meal planning, grocery shopping, cooking, and cleaning up, you can easily spend 15 hours per week just on food-related tasks. 

Even if you love to cook, preparing dinner from scratch every night isn’t sustainable for most working parents. Add lunchboxes, snacks, and picky eaters to the mix, and the mental load can feel endless — like you’re always one ingredient short or one step behind.

The good news? You don’t have to do it all yourself. 

Below are six proven ways to outsource meal planning, prep, and cooking, designed to fit different budgets, dietary preferences, and lifestyles.

Outsourcing Meals: Quick Comparison Chart

Below is an overview of six ways busy parents can outsource meals at home — including average costs, time savings, and which services save you the most effort on meal planning, grocery shopping, cooking, and cleanup.

Note: We also included restaurant delivery for reference. Services like Uber Eats or DoorDash are often the default when you’re short on time, but that convenience comes at a premium. In many cases, hiring a time-saving service, like a meal prep chef, can actually be more affordable, healthier, and less stressful since your meals are planned in advance instead of ordered on impulse.

1. How To Outsource Meals: Hire A Meal Prep Chef 

Most people have heard of a private chef, but did you know you can also hire someone to meal prep for you? A meal prep chef plans, shops, and cooks your family’s meals for the week — typically in their own kitchen or yours — then drops them off ready to reheat.

They’re usually more affordable than a personal chef, since they often don’t have a professional culinary background. 

“It can be someone who is really passionate about healthful cooking and meal preparation and who is wanting to do that, usually as a side hustle, for a family,” says Kelly Hubbell from Sage Haus, which offers meal prep chef placement services for families. 

Hubbell’s family, for example, uses a shared Google Doc to select weekly recipes — often hearty pastas, enchiladas, and deconstructed salads with protein — that her meal prep chef prepares and delivers every Monday.

Meal Prep Chef Pros

• Cooking is handled in batch at the beginning of the week, so you don’t have to think about it
• Healthier than dining out
• More affordable than a professional chef

A Meal Prep Chef Cons

• A meal prep chef may be less efficient than a trained personal chef
• They won’t typically have the capacity to expand into other roles, such as overseeing all of your household's grocery shopping and food

Proxy Tip

We’ve vetted six trusted companies that place meal prep chefs across the country. Proxy subscribers save up to $1,000 with Sage Haus, and up to 15% on select pay-as-you-go options — ideal for testing it out before committing full-time. Subscribe to Proxy or text us — (820) 732-2625 — and we’ll match you with the best option in your area. 

How To Outsource Meals: Try A Prepared Meal Delivery Service

Prepared meal delivery services are another great time-saving option for busy parents juggling work, school, and sports schedules. These companies ship ready-to-go meals to your door  — no shopping or chopping, just heat and eat. 

When you sign up, you choose how many meals you want each week and can filter by diet, allergies, or cuisine. You can also opt to skip menu selection and have the company auto-fill your order. 

Unlike frozen dishes from the grocery store, these meals arrive fresh. Depending on the company and option you choose, it can range from meals with light assembly (<15 minutes) to dishes that just need to be heated in the oven or microwave. 

Companies like CookUnity offer individual portions, so it’s more akin to ordering from a restaurant where everyone in the family picks their own dish. Other prepared meal delivery services, like Mosaic, Home Chef, and Gobble, offer oven-ready, family-sized meals, with 4-6 servings per dish. 

For a hyper-local option, you can also text Proxy — (820) 732-2625 — and ask what’s in your area. For example, in San Diego, The Little Lion Cafe, Morena Provisions, and The Handmade Chef Meal Prep Co all offer prepared meals. 

Meal Delivery Service Pros

• Quick and convenient
• Healthier and fresher than frozen grocery store meals
• Easy to skip a week or pause delivery at any time if needed

Meal Delivery Service Cons

• There can be a lot of packaging involved, which can feel wasteful
• If you opt for one of the companies that sends individual portions, like CookUnity, there’s no way to help yourself to seconds if you really enjoy your meal or want a bit more to eat

Proxy Tip

We’ve personally vetted CookUnity, and recommend their delicious meals prepared by professional chefs. We like that they have thoughtful packaging with minimal waste, a generous menu selection to choose from, and the ease and convenience of simply popping the meals in the oven. And, Proxy subscribers can get their meals at a discounted rate of $11/meal instead of the usual $13.59/meal. 

3. How To Outsource Meals: Get Help With Grocery Shopping & Meal Planning

Having groceries delivered is another great time-saving service for busy families. Between driving to the store, waiting in line, and remembering every ingredient, grocery shopping alone can eat up three or more hours per week.

Before we hired a personal chef, we ordered Amazon Fresh + Whole Foods every Monday afternoon, timed so our nanny could help unload everything when it arrived. It saved hours each week and made weekday meals feel far less chaotic.

If you have a specific grocery store that you like getting items from, Instacart is another good option, since they partner with dozens of local grocery stores. You can also order items from places like Costco and Sam’s Club, even if you don’t have a membership. 

Grocery delivery & service fees usually start around $10 (plus tip) and depend on location and basket size.  

Beyond time saved at the actual store, grocery delivery also reduces the mental load of having to remember what items are needed each week, since most delivery services have an option to save recurring items.

Grocery Delivery Pros

• Not having to physically go to the grocery store is a huge time saver
• It’s relatively inexpensive

Grocery Delivery Cons

• You still handle unloading, cooking, and cleanup
• You may need to be on hand to coordinate with the driver if an item you’ve requested is out of stock

Proxy Tip

If you want to take it a step further, we’ve vetted family assistant companies that specifically offer help with grocery shopping AND meal planning. They will plan your family’s meals for the week, shop for all ingredients, and even organize your fridge. Over time, they’ll learn your preferences and dietary needs, making the process nearly effortless.

4. How To Feed A Family: Meal Kit Services

Meal kit services are very similar to prepared meal delivery services (several companies offer both options), but they do require more of your time and energy. These are a good time-saving option for parents who enjoy cooking, but want to cut back on some of the mental load of weekly meal planning and grocery shopping. 

Similar to prepared meal delivery services, you log onto a portal to pick out which recipes you want each week. You can usually filter by dietary restrictions/preferences and prep time, so you can intentionally search for recipes that take less than 30 minutes if you want. 

Then a box arrives with all the ingredients for your chosen recipes on your designated day. Depending on the company and the recipe you’ve chosen, getting these meals on the table can range from light meal prep and cooking (ie: less than 30 minutes) to more time-intensive cooking that takes over an hour. Either way, you save time on meal planning and grocery shopping. 

There are so many meal kit companies out there now! We have one we LOVE for easy crockpot recipes through Proxy, but a few of the more popular national options are Sunbasket, HelloFresh, Blue Apron, and Marley Spoon. 

Meal Kit Services Pros

• Fresh ingredients and less food waste
• Flexible scheduling
• Helps you try new recipes

Meal Kit Services Cons

• Some chopping and cooking still required (usually more than what is advertised)
• Lots of plastic packaging.

5. How To Outsource Meals: Delegate Basic Meal Prep To Your Nanny

If you already have in-home support — like a nanny or family assistant — meal prep is one of the easiest tasks to delegate. Even delegating small steps — like washing produce, prepping lunches, or getting dinner started — can make your evenings smoother. 

Before we hired a personal chef, we delegated basic meal prep and grocery shopping to our nanny. During our weekly planning meeting, my partner and I would pick dinners for the week and log them in our shared calendar. We have a Google Doc with all of our recipes so that our nanny can easily look them up to see what ingredients are needed and prepare accordingly. 

All of our crockpot meals were fairly simple with fewer than 10 ingredients. For example, salsa chicken and pork carnitas are a favorite in our household because they are delicious, very little chopping is required and the side ingredients, such as rice or tortillas, avocado, and sour cream are easy to prep. 

Our nanny would get the ingredients cooking in the crockpot in the morning and prepare the fixings in containers on the side so that when we got home from work, it was an easy transition into family dinner. 

She’d also prep quick snacks — like peanut butter protein balls or Chia seed pudding — that my kids and I love and are easy to store and grab on the go. 

Nanny Meal Prep Pros

• Easy to integrate into existing routines
• Great for families with steady childcare help

Nanny Meal Prep Cons

• Lack of versatility. It is easy to get stuck in a rut and not venture out of your solid 5-6 crockpot recipes on rotation. BUT you could also assign the task of “research easy crockpot recipes” to your nanny (or virtual family assistant) to help expand your options.

Proxy Tip

Check out our free guides — 99 Tasks You Can Delegate Today and 6 Steps To Promoting Your Nanny Into A Family Assistant — for advice on how to delegate meal-related tasks to your nanny, and ensure that they’re compensated accordingly. 

7. How To Outsource Meals: Upgrade To A Personal Chef

For busy families ready to fully outsource mealtime, hiring a personal chef is the ultimate time-saving solution.

It’s my favorite way to outsource meals because they oversee everything, and fully take on the mental load of feeding a family. A personal chef comes up with the menus for you every week and handles all the grocery shopping. 

They also leave your space cleaner than when they found it: all trash is taken out, counters are sparkling clean, and all the containers are clearly labeled in your fridge. Plus, these are GOURMET meals that are perfectly balanced, made to your standards, and are both delicious and nutritious.

We’ve had a personal chef on both a part-time and full-time basis. You can read the full breakdown of what each entailed in my blog post, Can You Afford A Personal Chef? 

Personal Chef Pros

• You don’t have to think! You are paying for the time to think about one less thing, do one less low-joy errand, and not bargain with your partner over who is going to do what to make dinner happen.
• Gourmet, healthy meals from the comfort of your home.
• Your kitchen is left spotless — Counters cleaned, trash taken out, and the stove top is immaculate

Personal Chef Cons

• Costly
• Someone is in your home for 6 hours 3-4 times a week.

Proxy Tip

We have a service that can recruit a personal chef for your home for a flat fee of $4,500 (all subscribers save $500).

Ready to start outsourcing meals?  Proxy is your thinking partner for home life. Text us — (820) 732-2625 — the meal-related task draining you the most, and in minutes you’ll have a vetted recommendation and clear next steps.