I absolutely love Indian food, but I’m cursed with not being able to successfully replicate my favorite dishes – of which butter chicken ranks at the top. I’ve tried making it, and while the results weren’t bad, they were not nearly as good as those of my local Indian restaurants. I’ve also tried a number of commercial sauces, none of which can compare to restaurant-make. That’s why I was particularly impressed that Gobbled managed a very good butter chicken sauce, that rivals that at any of our local restaurants.
The kit was fairly easy to make: you cooked the pre-cubed chicken for a few minutes, then added the prepared butter sauce and cooked it for a few more. Pre-made rice was heated in the microwave and a single naan bread was supposed to be baked in the oven. I hate preheating a whole oven just for that, so I put it in the air fryer for 4 minutes. It was a bit crispy, but very good.
Finally, the kit came with a cucumber & tomato salad with a pre-made salad dressing. I don’t like cucumber and my husband doesn’t like tomatoes, so we ate our vegetables separately. The dressing was OK, but didn’t really have much to do with the rest of the meal.
I learned my lesson in my last Gobble box: order meals that include sauces and items that I cannot easily replicate myself. Otherwise, Gobble is not that much of a convenience. While it seems fewer of Gobble meals meet both this requirement and my personal meal preferences, this kit did both. It was quick and easy to make and very tasty. What it was not is beef stroganoff.
The kit required minimal preparation, all I had to do was slice some onions and mince some garlic, probably just so I felt I did something. Beyond that, I had to boil some fresh pasta, and prepare the beef from pre-made ingredients. I mixed the braising liquid from the beef with a prepared demi-glace sauce and some beef stock in a bowl and then heated the beef in a pan. I added the sliced mushrooms, cooked for a few minutes, and then added the sauce I’d mixed and pre-cut carrots and peas. After a couple of minutes I added the cooked pasta as well as some pre-made herbed butter. After plating it, I finished it with sour cream and parsley.
Both my husband and I were happy with the meal, it tasted homey and like something I’d make (just not like stroganoff), and the portion was adequate.
I did not actually order this meal kit, and I was quite unhappy when I saw it added to my order online. Neither my daughter nor I like salmon, and I need my meal kits to at least serve two people. I e-mailed Gobble right away, and they gave me a credit for the cost of the meal. As it happened, they sent it to me with top sirloin instead of salmon anyway.
Overall, this meal kit was a disappointment – even free. It consisted of another tiny steak, pan grilled and then sparkled with some paprika sumac spice mixture which didn’t add anything. The steak was good, but boring. On the side was a salad of frisée lettuce, pan fried potato slices, walnuts and olives (I omitted these) in a rather pedestrian lemon gremolata. It wasn’t a bad meal, but I can accomplish the same thing by getting steak and ready-made-salad at the supermarket. Again, I have no one to blame but myself for selecting this meal. But really, I’ve had trouble finding exciting meals in Gobble – something I noticed as well last year.
I do have to commend Gobble for the freshness of their food items. I cooked this meal exactly one week after I got it, the beef was perfectly fine and the lettuce had barely started to wilt.
My second Gobble meal kit this time was a little disappointing in its simplicity. I have no one to blame for this but myself, as I was the one that selected it, but it was the sort of meal that I could put together on my own without the need of a meal kit.
It consisted of a miniature top-sirloin steak, multi-colored carrots, sweet peppers and a slice of onion, a small jar of chimichurri sauce and some pepitas. All I had to do was cut the carrots in two, put the veggies in the oven with some chimichurri sauce and saute the steaks.
Because the meal was so simple, it all came to as how good the chimichurri sauce was. As an Argentine, I can’t say I was impressed. It was very tangy and didn’t really taste like chimichurri. If it had any oregano at all, I couldn’t taste it.
So the meal was OK, but it didn’t wow me. I should mention I cooked it 6 day after I got it and all the ingredients were still fresh.
It’s been a year since I last tried Gobble and I’m happy to report that it’s as good as ever – at least judged by the first meal I “cooked” since I renewed my subscription. As in the past, Gobble offers meal kits which are very fast to cook and put together because they rely on a lot of pre-cooked ingredients. But as you do cook the final product, you feel you’ve made the dish yourself – plus you get to enjoy the greater quality of ingredients that just don’t stand up well to reheating.
I’m a huge fan of beef bourguignon and I was very impressed with this recipe. It requited me to slice a few mushrooms, onions and baby carrots, saute them, and then mix them with an already made red wine sauce, beef broth and pre-cooked stewed beef. All simmered nicely for 6 minutes, while I reheated the pre-made and pre-seasoned mashed potatoes. The meat was tender and succulent, the sauce was nicely flavored and went well with the mashed potatoes and the freshly sauteed veggies were tasty. Basically, it was almost as good as homemade.
I look forward to the next Gobble meal. Currently, they cost $24 per 2-serving meal, plus $7 shipping.
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This post contains a referral link, but Gobble has suspended its referral program.
Gobble is one of the most expensive meal kits out there, but it’s also the best one. The meals are positively delicious, with high quality ingredients and balanced main-side combinations. They also seem to serve the most modern dishes. And while other companies have moved to make their kit preparations quicker, Gobble is still the quickest of them all.
I subscribed to Gobble for a couple of weeks, and got a bunch of vegan meals for my daughter – which she didn’t appreciate nearly enough. The non-vegan ones I got for us, however, rocked.
Seared Flap Steak with Charred Shishito & Mini Sweet Peppers with Romesco Sauce
Rating 8/10
What makes Gobble the best meal kit subscription out there is really their sauces, and this romesco sauce did not disappoint. It was delicious and did a great job of bringing together the steak (which I obviously undercooked) and the salad. This wasn’t a particularly original meal, but it was very solid.
Wagyu Beef Swiss Cheeseburger with Mushrooms & Truffle Aioli
Rating: 10/10
I’ve never had wagyu beef before because, honestly, it’s too expensive. I’ve seen wagyu burgers before, but I always felt that there was no point in getting them as the special characteristics of the meat were likely to not be present when ground. Boy, was I wrong! This burger was absolutely delicious, it had the best beef taste I’ve ever had in a burger.
The mushrooms were also great, which surprised me as there wasn’t any trick to them. I wonder if Gobble could be using better quality mushrooms to the ones I get at the supermarket, and what exactly a better mushroom would be anyway. Of course, it may have been the truffle aioli which really made them shine. Whatever it was, they were great and the whole burger came together wonderfully.
The little salad on the side was also very tasty.
For this meal, I did not follow the actual instructions as they were needlessly complex. I simply cooked the ingredients in the logical sequence.
I was not excited when I chose this meal – pan fried chicken? -, but I couldn’t find a third meal that appealed more to my taste. Boy, was I surprised when this ended up being delicious!
The meal included 2 chicken breasts, mushrooms, grape tomatoes and broccoli crows, as well as prepared shallot confit, wine sauce, herbed butter and two premade polenta cakes. Preparation consisted of cutting the veggies, sauteing the chicken, adding the veggies and the confit and then putting all of that in the oven. Meanwhile, I heated the polenta cakes on a pan. After the chicken and veggies were done, I was supposed to transfer them to a plate, and then make a sauce on the pan with the wine sauce, some water and the herbed butter.
While none of this was complicated, it took me 30 minutes from beginning to end, not the promised 15. I am a slow cook, however.
The chicken did not actually cook through in the given time, but the vegetables were ready, so I finished cooking it on the pan I used for the polenta.
The results were pretty delicious. I loved the polenta cakes and the wine sauce, as well as the mushrooms and tomatoes together (I hate broccoli, so I left all of that for my daughter and took her mushrooms, as she doesn’t like them). The chicken was the worse part – as usual for chicken breasts, it was dry. I so prefer chicken thighs!
I also took a point off because this dish required both the stove and the oven. I really don’t see why it couldn’t be cooked stovetop and save the gas and time required to pre-heat the oven, as well as avoiding the heat in the summer month.
I got this kit for free due to credits and a welcome back promo code. Use this referral link to get a free kit for 2 with your first box.
– Note: if you use my referral link I *may* get some credits in return, if I happen to be subscribed to the meal kit service at the exact moment you use the code – which is unlikely.
This was a perfectly acceptable, but unexciting dish. Of course, I should know better than order any kit featuring top sirloin, a cut that is neither tender nor tasty. The blackening spice helped, but still, I wasn’t thrilled. A NY strip, tri-tip or ranch steak seasoned with just salt is better.
This kit, as too many of Gobble’s, required that you start cooking the steak and carrots on the stove and then transfer them to the oven. This, to me, is an unnecessary step and a waste of gas. So after slicing the carrots and seasoning the beef, I cooked both on my iron skillet on the stove. Once the beef was done, I removed it and added a couple of tablespoons of water to the carrots, covered it and cooked for a few more minutes, until the carrots were softish.
The mashed potatoes only required mixing with a pre-mix of poblano peppers & corn and then warming up. As my daughter doesn’t like poblano peppers and I don’t like corns and the two were mixed together, I just skipped that. I did add the cheddar cheese afterwards. I found the cheesy potatoes pretty tasty, but my daughter didn’t like them.
All in all, I wouldn’t order this kit again.
I got this kit for free due to credits and a welcome back promo code. Use this referral link to get a free kit for 2 with your first box.
– Note: if you use my referral link I *may* get some credits in return, if I happen to be subscribed to the meal kit service at the exact moment you use the code – which is unlikely.
This kit came with already made hummus, tzatziki, olive tapenade and za’atar spice, as well as a zucchini, a yellow squash, 2 roma tomatoes, a slice of red onion, a small bag of arugula, pita bread and pita chips. Preparation consisted of slicing the squashes, quartering the tomato, sauteing them for about 8 minutes and then assembling the pitas. You then serve it with a side of pita chips and hummus. So a super quick meal to put together.
I didn’t use the tzatziki or tapenade, omitted the onion and substituted the arugula for some spring mix I had to accommodate my daughters’ preferences. I also added some cubed tofu to add protein to the dish.
In all, she was very happy with the results. She found it a very tasty meal. She particularly loved the pita bread. The problem is that the kit came with only two pita breads – so one per person. That was not enough for the amount of filling there was.
This is also a pretty simple meal to put together on your own, though I wouldn’t know where to buy the spongy pita bread they sent.
I got this kit for free due to credits and a welcome back promo code. Use this referral link to get a free kit for 2 with your first box.
– Note: if you use my referral link I *may* get some credits in return, if I happen to be subscribed to the meal kit service at the exact moment you use the code – which is unlikely.
For the last six months I’ve been trying different meal kits, both in order to avoid getting take out and because I just like reviewing things. Having tried most of the meal kits out there (all of them with promos which brought down the price significantly), I think I’m finally done.
Meal kits fall into 4 price categories, which I’ll call budget (~$40 for 3 2-serving meal kits), mid-range (~$60 for the same), premium (~$70) and super-premium (~$80). In order to compare apples to apples, my reviews are organized by price category and they are listed in my order of preference. Please click on the title of each Meal Kit to see a more comprehensive review.
In all of these months, I haven’t really had any major problems with any of my deliveries – I’ve had no missing ingredients, for example. Once a box didn’t come (which was fine, as I didn’t want it and had forgotten to cancel in time) and another time, the box didn’t come until after 11 PM, but that’s about it. Skipping has been a breeze, as has been cancelling.
Budget Meal Kits
There are two of these meal kit services, both products of mid-range meal kit companies. They offer simpler meals, with fewer ingredients that require the use of more of your staples. The menus tend to be very classic American.
Every Plate is HelloFresh’ budget offering. They currently only have 6 offerings, including a “premium” one that costs $6 more per kit, but they’re moving to 8 offerings in mid-March. That’s good, because I often can’t find 3 dishes I want to eat/make in their weekly menu.
I mostly liked what I got – the premium kit was particularly tasty. I really didn’t feel I was compromising too much by getting these kits.
$39 for 3 kits with 2 servings each. Use this referral link for $20 off your first box (I might get a credit if I’m subscribed at the exact moment you subscribe).
Dinnerly is Martha & Marley Spoon’s budget offering. They offer 8 choices a week, 3 of which are vegetarian. The meals are less refined than those by Every Plate and I enjoyed them less. In all, I wasn’t a fan.
$39 for 3 kits with 2 servings each. Google for promos.
Mid-Range Meal Kits
There are several companies in this category. They tend to have more sophisticated offerings, they may include ingredients that are not as easy to come by (or that you’d have to buy far more than you’d want to) – but they still require that you use some of your staples. Some of these companies offer discounts for larger purchases. Here they are, in my order of preference.
HelloFresh is the service I’ve tried the most, simply because they’ve sent me the most “come back” offers. They offer a variety of plans, and include one weekly “gourmet” recipe, featuring steak or expensive ingredients, for $12 more per kit.
Most of the recipes have surprised me as to how tasty they are – whoever is responsible for creating them does a pretty good job. That said, I don’t always find enough meals I want to cook in a given week, and lately it seems they’re downgrading their ingredients. Still, it’s a company I like to go back to (with a coupon).
$61 for 3 kits with 2 servings each. Use this referral link for $40 off your first box (I might get a credit if I’m subscribed at the exact moment you subscribe).
Blue Apron is actually very similar to HelloFresh, but it offers far fewer discounts. It does seem to have better quality ingredients than HelloFresh, however. The food I had was also tastier than I anticipated, and I would likely re-subscribe if I got another promo – but so far no luck.
$60 for 3 kits with 2 servings each. Google for promos.
Home Chef’s offerings are a more middle American than the other two, and I’ve had gret difficulty finding kits that I really want to make. But the kits I did make were very good. While Home Chef has occasional premium meal kits, they also regularly have steak without a premium price (unlike other companies in this price point).
Update 2021: Since my original review, Home Chef has expanded their offerings. They now allow you to choose your protein in many kits, usually at an additional cost, and they offer impossible burger for ground beef dishes. They also now offer a variety of oven dishes that include a tray and call for minimal preparation – these often combine raw and pre-cooked ingredients. Basically, they’ve become a cheaper, less exciting, version of Gobble (see below under super-premium kits).
Starts at $60 for 3 kits with 2 servings each. Use this referral link for $35 off your first box (I might get a credit if I’m subscribed at the exact moment you subscribe).
Marley Spoon was the meal kit company that least impressed me at this price-point. Granted, I only got two kits because their promo wasn’t that great, but neither of them was particularly noteworthy. They do have a large menu of choices, including 6 vegetarian ones. In all, I didn’t find a compelling reason to choose it over the other kits.
$61.50 for 3 kits with 2 servings each. Google for promo.
Premium Meal Kits
It’s probably not surprising that as we go up in price, the meal kits get better. They either include more exotic and/or organic ingredients. Some companies offer even more adventurous/sophisticated kits – and some actually send you all the ingredients you need save for oil, salt & pepper. Here they are, in my order of preference.
Note: Plated has ceased operations since my reviews. I miss it, as it was one my favorite meal kits.
I love Plated. It’s one of my favorite meal kits and, if I could afford it, it’s the one I would stay subscribed to. The offerings are pretty sophisticated, and they often include ingredients that I wouldn’t want to buy myself. More importantly, they include all the ingredients I need – including butter! I have greatly enjoyed almost every meal I’ve had from them.
Plated is also available at select Safeway supermarkets. The kits there usually vary in price depending on the ingredients, but they’re generally cheaper than with the subscription. They have a much lower selection, however.
$72 for 3 kits with 2 servings each. Google for promo.
Sun Basket distinguishes itself by providing a large variety of meals catering to special diets – from paleo to vegan. Most importantly, they don’t ask you to subscribe to a specific plan, but you can chose from any meal they provide. This is cool for families like mine that have members with very different food preferences. Sun Basket also sends more organic produce than other companies – and they’re probably the most environmentally friendly meal kit service.
Still, I wasn’t awed by their kits and I haven’t felt a compelling reason to re-subscribe.
$72 for 3 kits with 2 servings each. Use this referral link for $40 off your first box.
Purple Carrot is an all-vegan meal kit company. Having a vegan child at home, I gave it a try. Unfortunately, she didn’t like any of the three meal kits I got for her – and would not even eat the leftovers.
$72 for 3 kits with 2 servings each. Google for promo.
Super Premium Meal Kits
In addition to the kits listed below, there are two other meal kits services which fall in this category. As neither offers good promo codes – and their offerings don’t seem particularly enticing – I’ve decided I’m not going to try either. Do comment if you do. Peach Dish – a Georgia based company – specializes in local ingredients and offers both international and classic Southern food. One Potato specializes in family-friendly fare.
Gobble sends out meal kits that can be put together and cooked in 15 minutes. They manage this by sending pre-sliced vegetables, prepared sauces and some pre-cooked sides (like rice, lentils and sweet potatoes). Still, most kits require you to do enough that you do feel like cooking. Their meals are generally pretty good – one, specifically, was great – and I love how quickly they are to put on the table. This is a kit I’d definitely stay subscribed to if I could afford it.
$79 for 3 kits with 2 servings each. Use this referral link for 1 free meal kit in your first box (I might get a credit if I’m subscribed at the exact moment you subscribe).
Green Chef distinguishes itself by offering a variety of plans catering to special diets – everything from keto, to gluten-free to vegan. Unfortunately, they only offer five choices per plan, and you cannot mix and match between plans (though they do have an omnivore plan, still with only five choices). Once upon a time, Green Chef was fully organic, but since being bought by HelloFresh, they now send out non-organic meats.
The dishes I tried were pretty good, though they seemed overpriced for what they were.
$67 to $85 for 3 kits with 2 servings each, depending on plan (omnivore is $79). Use this referral link for 2 free meal kits in your first box (I might get a credit if I’m subscribed at the exact moment you subscribe).
Ready Made Meals
In addition to meal kits, a number of companies have entered the market offering ready-to-heat, microwavable meals. Basically, an upscale version of your parent’s TV dinners. I’m not sure I’ll try enough of these to merit their own category, but I’ll list the one I’ve tried so far (I will also be getting Thistle next week – use promo code https://www.thistle.co/referral/MARGARI98F for $30 off your first order).
Freshly offers fresh, refrigerated, microwable meals that you can heat up in just 2-4 minutes. Quality wise, they are way above any frozen meal I’ve tried. Indeed, taste wise they are as good as most meal kits. They do suffer a little texture-wise.
The biggest issue is that their menu doesn’t change much from week to week, so if you’re craving variety, you won’t find it here. They also don’t offer vegan meals. Still, it’s a good choice for when you have a busy week and you can’t make time to cook.
$60 for 6 meals (1 serving each). Use this referral link to get $20 off your first and second week (I might get a credit if I’m subscribed at the exact moment you subscribe).
Non-Subscription Meal Kits
In addition to the meal kits above, there are a couple of companies that sell meal kits that don’t require a subscription. I have not yet tried these ones, but I might in the future. Good Eggs, a Bay Area company, delivers 3 and 4 serving meal kits from an extensive set menu and Amazon.com sells kits through their Prime Fresh service (which costs $16/month).
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