Dinnerly - Chef Testing Meal Kits
Meal Kits are hailed as an easy, sometimes cheaper, alternative option to planning and cooking your own meals. But what’s the hype all about? I tested out a few popular ones to see. This is my review of Dinnerly.
Dinnerly
Brown Butter Chicken
Let’s start off with the Brown Butter Chicken. This dish, overall, was pretty tasty. I have no complaints about the flavor of this dish HOWEVER I do have some notes on it.
In the Dinnerly box, they sent a whole onion for this recipe but we did not use the whole onion for this recipe. I feel like this recipe could have easily used the whole onion instead of someone potentially wasting half an onion.
The recipe called for the cook to make a brown butter sauce however, there was still leftover olive oil in the pan from cooking the chicken so when I added the butter to it, which was to be a topping for the chicken, it felt as though I was drizzling the chicken with pure oil. The brown butter sauce was lost because of the remaining olive oil. My suggestion: Wipe out the olive oil before making the brown butter sauce.
While the chicken breasts were relatively the same size, which made for even cooking times, I did find the portion to be a bit on the smaller side.
Cheese Ravioli with Pesto
The first thing I noticed about this dish is that it looks very different than the picture, to include to size of the tomatoes and the shape of the ravioli.
Overall, this dish was very good. It’s suppose to be a play on a Caprese salad. It was light and had great flavor.
I did find that the size of the tomatoes was quite large, especially compared to the size of the tomatoes in the picture of the prepared dish. I quartered mine, which was cutting it smaller than directed, and the pieces were still a bit too large (in my opinion).
While the pesto was delicious, I did find it to be rather runny. The directions called for 1/4 cup water to be added to the pesto but I honesty think it could have gone without adding any water to it.
Chicken Quesadillas
Tasty quesadillas! These quesadillas were easy to make, fast, and were very good. I loved the scallions used inside of the quesadillas and decided not to waste any by topping my dish with them (cause they would all just fall off anyhow).
This dish came out much like the picture. It was pretty straightforward and had great flavor. I liked the ease of this dish and enjoyed the fact that it was low carb.
The chicken had great flavor and took just a few minutes to cook up. I did end up chopping the chicken because some of the pieces were uneven in size and I wanted to make sure I spread the chicken out evenly among the quesadillas.
I have very little complaints or notes on this dish as I feel like it was quick, the directions were easy to follow, and it made for some delicious food.
Sirloin Steak with Dijon Pan Sauce
::SIGH:: I have some major complaints about this dish.
First, let me say, the flavor of this dish was great. Steak should never need more than salt & pepper and roasted broccoli is one of my favorite side dishes.
I do strongly believe that the picture for this dish is very deceiving as it shows a few things that you will not receive. First, there is an abundance of broccoli on this plate that you just won’t get in your meal kit. I was pretty disappointed when I made this dish and got 4 pieces of broccoli florets per serving. Second, the picture shows, what looks like, garlic crisps. Your recipe will call for no fresh garlic.
I understand that this was a low calorie dish however, broccoli has very few calories and this dish could have used some more. I was pretty disappointed with how bare this dish looked compare to the picture given.
Mediterranean Turkey Meatloaf
Hard to go wrong with meatloaf, right? I found that I was pretty happy with the flavors of this dish but felt like the execution of it was just a bit off. Now, the directions did state that the vegetables might cook faster than the meatloaf and to be careful that they don’t get too browned but did not give any direction on how to prevent this or what to do if this happened. I am sticking to the exact menu and preparation instructions and did find that my veggies did get a big on the crispy side of things.
Once again, I was surprised at the difference between what was pictured and what I got. In the picture that Dinnerly provides, it looks like I will have quite a few pieces of carrots but this simply was not the case. I received two carrots to divide between two people which gave me about 6 pieces of carrots per person when cut into 2 inch pieces as instructed.
I ended up making a side of couscous to pair with this dish to help fill it out a bit. All the flavors were there, the food just wasn’t.
Roasted Artichoke & Pepper Flatbread
I am a huge fan of artichokes and olives. Seriously. While preparing this dish, I snuck a couple of artichokes before they could make it on the flatbreads. Another thing I love? Flatbreads. I was pleasantly surprised by how delicious this flatbread was and how it left me wanting a gyro something fierce.
Overall, I thought this dish was easy and had pretty good flavor. I really enjoyed the fluffiness of the flatbread, the tang of the brined ingredients, and how it was all tied up with a nice little tahini bow on top. Could I have eaten more than just one? For sure.
However, this is the only time during my whole Dinnerly experience that I felt I had more food than what was pictured. My flatbreads had an abundance of toppings, more so than the picture suggested I would have. I wasn’t disappointed in this as I ended up folding my flatbread in half and eating it like a very stuffed gyro.
In Summary…
You’ll get less food than what’s pictured.
I found this to be the case 5 times out of 6.
The preparation instructions don’t always lead to what’s expected.
Between a brown butter sauce that was too oily and some veggies that ended up a bit too crisp, use some cooking common sense to read between the lines to get the desired outcome.
All the flavors are there, even for the healthy menu options.
With the introductory price, I ended up paying $2.55 per serving.
With instructions on the app, instead of paper print outs, you end up with less waste.
The packaging of the food also seemed to produce less waste as most of it was recyclable.
The only food that was left over was half a red onion and half a white onion.
While the food ‘waste’ was not zero, it was still minimal.
The instructions were relatively clear and pretty simple to follow, making these dishes beginner friendly.
