I am thinking of signing up for a meal kit service- we are in such a rut with our meals. Two of my kids are really picky but the other three of us would love to be eating something new and I just can’t get myself to pick out recipes and buy the ingredients.
My picky two will happily eat the same three things over and over so thinking maybe I can get a kit for the rest of us and make them what they want. At least for a while. I know this is not a long term picky eater solution but we are entering year 3 of a pandemic and I’m fed up.
So thinking one of these might help?
Which ones do you like - I welcome all pros and cons, things you loved and hated.
Also happy to have any referral links if you will get something by me signing up.
I do Every Plate with 3 meals every other week. They have reasonable prices and about 10 options per week for meals, 5 of which are vegetarian. I like the easy or changing the meals or skipping weeks when it doesnt work with our schedules. The recipe cards are pretty simple in that there are like 8/9 ingredients and I have been able to use the recipies again by buying my own of the ingredients. They are usually 1-2 pan dishes. The downside is that it usually takes about 45 to make.
I have 2 picky kids and 1 sometimes picky husband. We've liked most of what we've gotten from Home Chef. We do 2 meals a week for the 4 of us and it's usually plenty. But my kids eat like birds.
We have been trying various meal kits over the past few months for the same reason - meal planning rut. So far we’ve done Green Chef, Home Chef and Hello Fresh. It’s me and H, 8 year old DS and 2 year old DS who is a picky eater. For each kit we got the two serving options with three meals per week, and just split it three ways.
Green Chef was our favorite, the meals were mostly good, they were easy to make, and the portions were generous. The main downside is a lot of the meals used cabbage, which I don’t like and just seems like a cheap filler. Hello Fresh was our least favorite, the meals weren’t very good and the portions were too small. They all are quick and easy though.
We also used freshly (heat and serve) when the two year old was a baby, but didn’t like it.
ETA: Here’s my Green Chef code ($130 off), I’ll try to find codes for the others:
We love getting Blue Apron every couple of months (whenever they send a promo). It's good for getting out of the meal rut, and we add the recipes into our meal rotation when we like them.
Post by purplepenguin7 on Jan 19, 2022 18:22:27 GMT -5
I'm a big fan of Home Chef. I find the recipies very customizable which can be helpful for picky eaters too. Most of what you can change is the proteins, but you can swap out almost any protein for another (chicken instead of fish for example) or make most meals vegeterian. I find the Home Chef meals are a good in beween too difficult/rare ingredients i'd never make it again but not too basic that it felt like a waste of money.
Post by stinkyfeet on Jan 19, 2022 18:22:52 GMT -5
We use Home chef and have 1 very picky eater who has been surprised at what they like. Getting them to try has been hard, but once they do they have liked most of the meals.
H & I got Hello Fresh for a few months. There was a bunch of excessive packaging IMO. It gave me more ideas for cooking and I do mix and match the recipes we liked. So overall I'm glad I did it. I didn't factor DS into it at all. He eats an ever changing rotating food amount & variety that gets ever smaller the older he gets.
Post by mrsslocombe on Jan 19, 2022 18:35:54 GMT -5
I've done Blue Apron & Home Chef.
Blue Apron Pros: Recipes/ingredients are more unique and seasonal. I got to try a bunch of vegetables I had never tried before. Portions were usually very large, the one exception was any steak recipe. Their nutritional balance is pretty good, their vegetarian recipes have always had at least 15g of protein, which I appreciate. In dozens of dishes there was maybe one that I thought was "just OK" the rest were 4 or 5 star and I keep the cards and make them on my own now.
Blue Apron Cons: This has improved but the prep time can be VERY long. Sometimes over an hour chopping/prepping before you actually start cooking. Menu can be a bit limited, sometimes only 5 or so dishes a week. I've had a few deliveries with missing or spoiled ingredients (produce, not milk or meat).
Home Chef Pros: Recipes required a lot less prep, including some that you basically just pour everything in a pan and bake. Larger number of recipes to choose from every week. Portions are large. My In-laws thought every meal was amazing. I thought the food was fine. Their packaging is a tad more environmentally friendly than Blue Apron (it's still a LOT of waste though, which makes me feel guilty).
Home Chef Cons: because they tend to send more prepared sauces/ingredients their sodium count is astronomical. Often over a days worth of salt in one portion. And it's not salt that you add while cooking, it's in the ingredients they give you so you can't really cut it down.
Post by InBetweenDays on Jan 19, 2022 18:48:25 GMT -5
We've been doing Blue Apron twice a week over the past year or so. It's the only service we've used so I have nothing to compare it to, but overall we've been happy with it. We have one kid who is a somewhat picky eater, and one kid who will eat anything. And I don't eat meat (I do eat fish/seafood).
There have been a few weeks where none of the options sound appealing to us, but that is very rare. And usually if we do try something that initially sounds odd we end up liking it. I'd say the hit to miss ration is 80-85%. We have had one time when the delivery never came (FedEx issue, not BA issue) and they refunded us immediately, and one time when we were missing an ingredient. Again they refunded us the full meal even though it was just one ingredient.
I do think the prep generally takes longer than stated on the recipe card, but it isn't too bad. I have multiple free trials to give away so if you'd like one let me know and I can send you the link.
Post by kitchenreno on Jan 19, 2022 18:58:34 GMT -5
we've done both Blue Apron and Hello Fresh. I feel like Hello Fresh has more options to choose from each week so I'm usually able to find something that the 3 of us will like. For 3 people, I get the 2 serving option. MOST times it's enough to feed the 3 of us if I supplement a little, but occasionally it's hard to make the 2 servings spread across 3 people. We've found a few meals that now we recreate at home and have added into the regular rotation, which is great. Mostly I just use it to not have to think about dinner (although my kids will still complain!) a couple times a week. During the height of the pandemic (online school, etc), my older DD would cook the meals - that was even better!
I have a code for $120 off for new customers. Let me know if you want it. My weekly cost for 2 meals/2 servings each is $57.95 so $120 will get you a lot.
Post by dancingirl21 on Jan 19, 2022 19:00:39 GMT -5
I’ve done Home Chef, Hello Fresh, Every Plate, and Freshly.
I liked Hello Fresh the best. It was the most flavorful, had enough variety, and the ingredients were fresh.
Every Plate was also good. EP and Hello Fresh are the same company. They have very similar ingredients and recipes. EP is cheaper and because of that, you don’t get as much variety in recipes and less ingredients. For example, in a Mexican bowl with HF you might get rice, protein, veggies, cheese, several sauces. EP would be similar, just might omit a sauce/cheese, etc.
Home Chef was fine. I didn’t love it. I also think it depends where you live. We are outside of Chicago (HC is in Chicago) and we were having boxes shipped to South Carolina, where we were living at the time. They routinely showed up warm, things spilling out everywhere. But when I tried it in Chicago, it was totally fine.
Freshly was fully prepared meals that you heat up. They were basically glorified lean cuisines. We did these when we were going through a full kitchen gut and had no great way to cook. They worked fine for that, but I wouldn’t recommend them otherwise.
We like Home Chef. There are a ton of options (stovetop cooking, grill-ready, oven-ready which is like sheet pan meals, 10-15 minute meals, etc. Some of the recipes are very kid-friendly, and as others have said you can switch out proteins pretty easily.
This is a different direction but we recently tried E-Meals. It is a menu plan that they send you each week. You pick what you want from that menu (I don't cook 7 different dinners each week!). We do the "Kid Friendly" plan and overall are happy with it. You can send your shopping list directly to the online cart for your favorite grocery store so that makes it very easy.
Of the meal kit options, we were happiest with Home Chef overall but I don't like dealing with the packaging and the quality of the pork is terrible.
I've tried most of them out there. I think my favorite is Hello Fresh. They have a huge variety of recipes to choose from and they are often somewhat basic ingredients, which means I've kept many of the recipes to make again. I think it's my best one to get when I'm in a rut because it's not overly complicated but gives me options I wouldn't think of on my own.
I used to like Blue Apron the most, but they have far fewer recipes and the last time I used them, I felt like I was skipping more weeks than not because they just weren't grabbing me. There were also a lot of repeats from previous boxes, which may have been part of it. For both Blue Apron and Hello Fresh I have occasional issues with stuff like wilted green onions or mushy parts of tomatoes, but they are usually good quality and I often have things I can sub from my fridge to make up for it.
I tried Green Chef for one box and loved it, but it is more expensive than the others and I think the others are my limit for what I'm willing to spend. It's too bad though, they seemed healthier and lots of variety. And all of the recipes in my box were great.
Marley Spoon had great recipes and lots of variety, but I had problems with several of my orders (unusable veggies, missing ingredients that I couldn't easily sub, like a spice mix they made up that didn't list what was supposed to be in it). It's too bad because I liked it a lot otherwise.
I find Everyplate too basic. It's the cheapest but it's 100% stuff I'd make on my own. Finally, I know I tried Home Chef a few years ago and it was fine but didn't impress me like the others did so I never did it again.
Despite my novel, we aren't doing any kit at the moment! But I'm sure I'll start up again soon. One trick is to cancel them and try others often - you always get a discount code to come back!
I have free Home Chef boxes to share if you feel comfortable PMing me your email address. We’ve been getting 3 meals weekly since August 2020. omg that’s insane to say, but that is accurate lol
Post by BlondeSpiders on Jan 19, 2022 19:54:02 GMT -5
I really like Hello Fresh, although I didn't get my meals for 2 weeks due to weather and that really threw a monkey wrench in my life.
I've seen some comments about the smaller portion sizes and I get that. However, the properly portioned sizing is what keeps me coming back, because portion control is not our strong suit. When I was making my own menu, I could just as easily make an entree with 2 pieces of chicken, or a heaping spoonful of potatoes or pasta, and that's why I'm fat. If a meal feels smaller than average or I know I'll be hungry again by 9, I'll whip up a small salad to go with it.
I am a former chef, and I have zillions of ideas for meals, but I don't have the interest or patience to shop for ingredients. I love the pre-portioned ingredients and that I rarely get more than I need for any one recipe. Except onions, I always have 1/2 an onion left over.
HF has really worked on their shipping packaging, which is good. That was my main complaint with Freshly; the packaging was obnoxious and not-easily recyclable.
Hello Fresh is my favorite they have a large variety every week and very rarely have had any issues (except this week on pack of chicken smelled gross) they gave me $15 credit.
Every Plate i this one especially the price! It is a great deal, but the menu I find very limited and repetitive.
Marley Spoon was ok
Freshly I didnt care for because I like to cook and there was no cooking involved.
Green Chef was also a small menu. I hate green leafy vegtables and they use way too much of them.
Post by thedutchgirl on Jan 19, 2022 23:17:43 GMT -5
We cycle through Hello Fresh and Blue Apron and like both.
Hello Fresh is good about credits if a produce item comes that is spoiled, which is pretty rare. Their instructions are timed efficiently so that things are done together. After a couple of months, selections can get pretty repetitive. And many of their recipes are really high in sodium.
Blue Apron has somewhat more interesting meals. Their directions are sort of lousy though, so you have to reorganize it yourself so something like the rice isn’t done and cold by the time the protein is done. They also are slow to publish nutrition information until a little over a week in advance. We need to stay low sodium for H, so this is a pain.
Friends sent us a free box from Factor, which are already prepared meals. We haven’t tried it yet but they really like it.