Best Meal Kits (that I’ve tried so far)

The best meal kits for Canadians

One of the things that I learned that I liked least about growing up is grocery shopping. I hate trying to drive a cart through the rough snow, and then going through the aisles and comparing prices off the shelves, calculating what the price is and what the budget I have set for myself. Then, there’s always that horrible realization that you forgot that one thing you actually went into the store for and you end up eating a bowl of cereal for dinner. I dislike the whole experience. So, one day I decided to take a chance and try a meal kit because for first time buyers there is always a great promotion, which makes more sense than buying groceries. The nice thing is you can skip the whole experience of stepping into a grocery store. The delivery comes straight to your door with ice packs in case you are not home. I have tried the following meal kits: Hello Fresh, Chef’s Plate, and Fresh Prep. I have only tried the most heard of, and the most popular ones.

The one I liked best was Freshprep even though there was an ingredient missing, I found that it stayed the freshest the longest, it had the least effort to make food as certain ingredients were always chopped up for you already. However, for the price, it is not worth it. I found it to be quite expensive. The one thing that I loved the most was that they reuse all their containers and coolers that they send to your house. I found it very environmentally friendly and no other meal kit has that. I think that is also why it is so expensive. The directions were easy to follow and nothing was ever complicated to make. In terms of dietary restrictions they had good indications of what it includes and you can,of course, customize your recipes. I don’t have any dietary restrictions, which makes it easy for me to try meal kits and get the full experience. I found that the meat was always fresh. The only complaint I do have is that I had a missing ingredient. One of the recipes was tacos and it came with no tortillas.

HelloFresh was ok. I mean it’s true that their ingredients are fresh, but following their recipes was a bit of a guessing game as they would put three steps into one step and it was making it more complicated than it needed to be. I selected a meal plan that was under 30 minutes to prep, but it felt a lot longer. I don’t like spending too much time in the kitchen and just trying to figure out the steps was not the best. I think that I liked their food the best though, everything I made was fantastic with wonderful flavors. Would I get a subscription box? Probably not, again with the promotion it is a fantastic price, but without the promotion, it does not make sense.

Chef’s Plate was probably the best one I have tried so far. The ingredients are always fresh, on the recipe cards they put how much you need of each spice, so you can recreate their recipes on your own, if you choose to do so. Their recipes are very easy to follow with nothing too complicated. For 14.50 I got four meals for two people, which is worth it. I saved so much money during that week because of their great promotion and I think if I was married, it would make financial sense to use it every week. The food was also very good, I did not have to add extra pepper or salt to bring out more flavors. All the ingredients were there, but they did throw in an extra packet of soya sauce. Their dietary restrictions don’t give a lot of options, it looked like they only had a vegetarian option. The only negative comment I have is that the portions are too large for two people who are trying to lose weight.

Overall, this was a fun and yummy experiment to try and it also makes for a great date night, where you can cook together and then eat together. I think I might try a few more as long the promotions keep coming to me. Hopefully, this gave you some insights on what it is like getting a meal kit. Happy cooking!