Meal prep, Goodfood, HelloFresh or cooking yourself: which to choose in Montreal?

These options often get lumped together, but they don't solve the same problem. Meal kits, like those from Goodfood — a company founded in Montreal — or HelloFresh, send you pre-measured ingredients with recipe cards. You get everything you need, then you cook each meal yourself.

Prepared meal prep, like Protéine Express, goes one step further: the meals are already cooked, portioned and ready to reheat. You don't chop, you don't cook, you don't wash pots.

Finally, cooking yourself is the classic option: you plan your meals, shop for groceries, cook — often in bulk on Sunday — and manage leftovers through the week.

Meal kit offers change often: some also sell ready-to-eat dishes or healthy lines. Always check their website for their current plans and prices.

Time is often the real deciding factor. When you cook yourself, you have to count menu planning, grocery shopping, prep, cooking and cleanup. Even with a good Sunday routine, that easily takes a big chunk of your weekend.

With a meal kit, planning and grocery shopping disappear. But each recipe still has to be cooked, usually that same evening, and then there are the dishes. It's ideal if you like cooking but hate deciding what to make.

With prepared meal prep, time in the kitchen drops to a few minutes of reheating per meal. That's what makes the difference for people who train, study or work long hours: the planned meal is always ready, even on nights you get home late.

On ingredients alone, cooking yourself is usually the cheapest per serving. But for an honest comparison, you need to add what people often forget: food that goes bad at the back of the fridge, the nights you give up and order takeout, and the value of your time.

Meal kits generally sit between groceries and prepared meals: you pay for the convenience of pre-measured ingredients, but you still do the cooking. Their price per serving varies with the plan and current promotions.

At Protéine Express, a meal costs from $11.99 on the weight loss plan and from $13.49 on the bulking plan, and the price per meal drops as the pack gets bigger. The right move: compare that amount with what you actually spend in a week, fast food and delivery apps included.

If your goal is losing weight or bulking up, the question isn't just eating — it's eating the right amounts. Meal kit recipes are designed to taste good and be easy to cook at home; their protein content varies from recipe to recipe.

When you cook yourself, you have full control… as long as you weigh your food and track your macros, which few people do for long. Canada's Food Guide offers a simple benchmark: a plate that's half vegetables and fruits, a quarter protein foods and a quarter whole grains.

Fitness-focused meal prep starts from the goal: at Protéine Express, the weight loss plan targets about 550 kcal and 40 g of protein per meal, and bulking about 930 kcal and 60 g. Every dish's values are listed on this week's menu, so there's nothing to calculate.

There's no wrong choice, only options that fit your week better or worse:

• You like cooking and have time in the evening: home cooking is unbeatable on price.
• You want to learn to cook without planning or shopping: a meal kit is a good compromise.
• You want to hit your calories and protein without cooking: prepared meal prep is the most direct option.
• You're cutting and want controlled portions: look at the weight loss plan.
• You struggle to eat enough to build muscle: the bulking plan solves the volume problem.

Weekends are often what derails a routine: nothing is planned, you order in, you snack. That's why meal prep works best when it covers the whole week — lunch and dinner, 7 days a week.

The 14-meal pack does exactly that, at the best price per meal. Our article on how many meals to order per week helps you find the right number.

The simplest way is to try a single week. At Protéine Express there's no required subscription: order by Friday noon and get your meals on Sunday from 9 a.m., in Montreal, Laval, Longueuil, Brossard and elsewhere on the South Shore and North Shore.

After a week, you'll know whether the format works for you: whether you ate what you planned, ordered less takeout and whether the portions helped you stick to your goal. If so, the subscription can repeat your order automatically; if not, there's nothing to cancel.