As we’ve all come to know, meal kits have become an extremely popular trend in the past few years. From HelloFresh and Blue Apron to Ayesha Curry’s new company Homemade, meal kit delivery services are all the rage. Meal kits have found their place in people’s homes and stomachs, encouraging many of us to skip take-out and stick to cooking healthy and delicious meals at home.
When it comes to meal kits, preparation time and price are two of the most important factors for college students. This is where Dinnerly comes in.
A meal service under the brand Martha & Marley Spoon, Dinnerly considers itself to be the ‘most affordable meal kit’ out there. At only $4.99 per adult-size serving, this meal kit is for those who want to cook (but do not have too much time), may not have a lot of experience doing so, and do not want to fork out a lot of money just to be able to cook for themselves. This all sounded perfect for a college student, so I couldn’t wait to try it.
My first Dinnerly box consisted of three meals in it: Creamy Tomato Pasta, Chipotle Chicken Tacos, and a Teriyaki Ginger Beef Bowl.
The box with the meals arrived at my apartment on a Tuesday evening. All the products needed were kept refrigerated with ice packs that were reusable. Interestingly enough, instead of sending the recipes in the box along with everything else, recipe cards were emailed directly to me.
I decided to make the Chicken Chipotle Tacos as my first meal. I laid out all the ingredients to make sure I had everything I needed. Keep in mind that certain basic ingredients such as salt and oil are not included in these boxes. Similar to other meal kit services, it is assumed that people have them readily available in their homes. Although the recipe card tells you that it takes about 30 minutes to prepare everything, that certainly was not the case for me! Personally, I do not have that much experience cooking with recipes, so getting used to the directions took a little bit of time. Cooking times are estimates and really depend on your level of experience.
Once I read through the recipe and made sure that I had everything we needed, I got to cooking! Dinnerly does a really great job of making sure that simple and easy to use ingredients are included. Also, the portion sizes were big enough to feed 4 people. In the end, the Chipotle Chicken Tacos turned out pretty well.
The day after I took a stab at the Creamy Tomato Pasta. I think this was probably the most fun meal I’ve made! After learning from my experience with the Chipotle Chicken Tacos, I was much more comfortable when it came to following the recipe.
Similar to what I said for the previous meal, even though the recipe says it’s a 30 minute process, it probably took me around an hour. Again, one’s level of experience and other factors easily contribute to the amount of time it takes to make the meal. At the end of the day, I can easily say that I am pleased with the way everything turned out. Each meal was filling and tasted great, all while appealing to a college student’s budget.
Happy cooking!
Images courtesy of author.