Please note: We received this Dinnerly meal kit for review purpose. All opinions expressed are my own. Thank you!
Do you love quick, delicious, nutritious meals? If so, you’re in for a treat.
Today I’m sharing my experience with Dinnerly, a mail order meal delivery subscription service. Dinnerly was created for people who appreciate budget-friendly homemade meals at home, but don’t want to spend a fortune in doing so.
Dinnerly features quality ingredients but are able to keep their costs low by implementing several simple living approaches. Including offering subscribers digital recipe cards, fewer filler ingredients with each dish, foods that require less processing, and simplified, recyclable packaging.
All without costly, gimmicky marketing campaigns. All savings that are passed directly onto their customers. Perfect for frugal foodie customers like myself!
First impressions
The Dinner boxes we received came delivered quickly to our home. The boxes themselves were very sturdy and made of post-recycled materials. Including the boxes foam cushioning and also came with reusable ice packs.
On each box, you will find cute, family-friendly insignia and on the inner box flaps, meal planning checking guides. The other flap has info on how to contact customer service and where to access more service information too!
The kit I received, a Family Box, that contained enough ingredients to prepare three meals, had a retail value of $68.99 Family Box. The box will feed approximately 2 adults and 2 kids for each meal.
I also appreciated that in the box was a reminder to “keep digging” in the box to find the dairy and turkey products in the bottom of the box. As this will help to make sure you quickly locate these perishable goods and safely get them chilling in your fridge!
The Cost
The Dinnerly service is very affordable, in terms of meal delivery services. With the average meal costing under $30.00 for each meal, along with $8.99 shipping. With the overall cost in the ballpark of $30.99 Two Person Box (3 recipes for 2 people) or $60.99 Family Box (3 recipes for 2 adults and 2 kids).
Considering that many families buy these kits to help jumpstart healthy meal planning at home or for entertaining, this cost can be less than what you might pay in-store.
The Products
Each box I received contained pre-portioned ingredients to cook three 30-minute meals. With each kit containing only 6-7 ingredients, excluding seasonings, per meal. Perfect for one ingredient meal planning at home.
While I am a plant-based eater, I did opt for one box that contained organic ground turkey. This was purposely selected as my family was entertaining the weekend the box was scheduled to arrive for out-of-town non-plant-based friends.
So for those who do buy meats and dairy products, I wanted to mention that Dinnerly features quality ingredients like antibiotic-free poultry and free-range ground beef. Perfect for family-friendly meals such as tacos, spaghetti, stir-fry, chicken wraps, or lettuce cups.
In each box, we received kale, butter leaf lettuce, ground turkey, parmesan cheese rounds, sherry vinegar and olive oil bottles, plum tomatoes, fresh garlic, and ginger, as well as jalapenos, baby Bella mushrooms, three red onions, rice, polenta packets, and two bags of rigatoni pasta.
Shipping
Currently Dinnerly delivers to most of the United States. Including California, Mississippi, Washington, Oregon, Nevada, Utah, and Idaho, with expansion to midwest and southern regions expected by the end of August 2017. UPDATE! These states are now included: most of Texas, Illinois, Georgia, Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Colorado, Iowa, Louisiana, Arkansas, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia, and Florida.
The Recipes
As Dinnerly doesn’t include paper recipes, I downloaded my three recipes to my iPad so I could reference them while cooking. As I normally use a tablet while cooking in the kitchen, this was natural and almost second hat to me.
I was impressed with how few ingredients were needed for each recipe. As each of the recipes I received is suggested to serve two adults and two children, I knew we would have more than enough for our family of three and weekend guests.
The first meal my husband and I made was the Turkey Stir-Fry Lettuce Cups with Jasmine Rice. The meal was super easy to prepare and was a favorite of our guests.
I appreciated the low-carb, low-gluten aspect of this dish. I could see it lending itself to a myriad of family styles and palettes!
The second meal we prepared was the Spinach Pesto Pasta with Roasted Tomatoes. This was my favorite meal. It was super quick to make and creamy and oh so delicious! The recipe lends itself well to being roasted in our convection oven. The device we use most often in the deep south during the warm weather season.
The third meal we prepared was the Roasted Mushrooms and Kale with Creamy Polenta. This meal was also quick to make, delicious, and was so plentiful in ingredients that we had leftovers to serve alongside the next day’s brunch!
Last impressions
Dinnerly is by far the cheapest meal kit I’ve ever tried. At only $5.00 per person, per meal, these meals, while not pretentious in nature, were full of organic, quality ingredients, that are simple to make, and were all received well by my family and friends.
While you aren’t able to swap out weekly meal opinions with this service, I have a hunch that each meal you receive will be just as tasty as the next!
My only gripe? Some of the recipe’s ingredient lists differed slightly from the ingredients we received. Such as menus listing cremini mushrooms while we received Baby Bella mushrooms. Small nuances that made no difference to the quality of the final meal, but are worth mentioning.
I also wanted to mention that I have a video on my main YouTube channel sharing the step-by-step creation of each of these recipes that you can take a look at if you are considering buying this subsection too!
Friends, what do you think of Dinnerly? Would you subscribe to this box? Let me know your first impressions below! And if you are a current Dinnerly subscriber let me know about your previous kits too!
