My Extensive Dinner Ladies Review (2025) Including Everything You Need To Know

Ever wished you had a freezer full of home-cooked meals ready for those busy weeknight dinners? That’s exactly what Dinner Ladies delivers – quality pre-cooked meals that taste like they’ve just come from your mum’s kitchen.

While services like YouFoodz, My Muscle Chef and Soulara focus on microwave-ready meals, Dinner Ladies takes a different approach. Their meals are designed to be properly reheated and assembled into complete dinners, giving you that fresh-cooked experience without the prep work.

After testing Dinner Ladies extensively over several months, I’ve found their approach sits perfectly between convenient ready meals and traditional meal kits. They handle all the time-consuming cooking and prep, leaving you to simply reheat and add finishing touches for a proper home-style dinner.

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Dinner Ladies was started in 2007 by two mums, Sophie Gilliatt and Katherine Westwood. Starting small, they delivered fresh dinners to friends in Sydney who simply needed some support with cooking for a family.

Fast forward to today and they now employ over 40 people, sourcing food from free-range, sustainable sources across Australia. See what we thought by jumping into our Dinner Ladies review.

Getting started with Dinner Ladies

In 2024, Dinner Ladies launched another website redesign. The new header features their script logo alongside a bold “HEAT UP. FEET UP. EAT UP.” tagline, with a neutral color scheme and straightforward navigation.

While the design is clean and functional, some might miss the more distinctive character of their original branding. That said, the new layout does make it easier to browse and order meals.

There are no gimmicks with the menu, it’s a straightforward list of delicious-sounding meals. You can filter down the menu in various useful ways including:

• By Meal Type (Mains, Sides, Desserts, Small Bites, Kids)
• By Preparation (No Prep, Some Prep, Microwavable)
• By Protein (Beef, Lamb, Pork, Poultry, Seafood, Vegetarian, Plant Based)
• By Serves (Dinners for 1, 2, 3, or 4+)
• By Allergens (Extensive list including free from gluten, sesame, milk etc.)

This is a great and thorough filtering list through the menu, allowing you to easily find the types of meals you want.

You’re able to build up your order without any restrictions based on whatever meals are available at the time. Selecting meals is as simple as adding them to your basket, often choosing between either a small or large size.

Now is the perfect time to mention that all Dinner Ladies meals come frozen. They’re snap-frozen immediately after cooking to preserve freshness and extend shelf life. Each meal comes with a best-before date printed on the label, typically allowing for 3-6 months of freezer storage without any loss in quality.

Technically, the meals can safely last several years in their frozen state, though the quality may start to deteriorate after 6-9 months. The advantage of this long shelf life is that you can stock up your freezer with meals and pull them out whenever you’re in a pinch, without worrying about them spoiling quickly.

Meal variety and options

The Dinner Ladies menu is dynamic, with fresh dishes added weekly while maintaining a core selection of customer favorites that are always available. There are always 60+ main meals to choose from, plus another 10+ sides. They regularly rotate through previous popular recipes, bringing back seasonal favorites throughout the year.

I find that this frequent menu rotation provides plenty of variety, allowing you to order regularly from Dinner Ladies without getting bored of the menu. If there’s a dish you particularly enjoy that’s no longer available, it’s worth checking back as it may return in future rotations.

Examples of some of the meals available when I ordered included:

• Classic Beef Lasagne
• Butter Chicken
• Classic Minestrone
• Super Loaded Veggie Rice
• Chili Jam Chicken

The menu offers an impressive variety across cuisines and cooking styles, though seafood options are somewhat limited – likely due to the challenges of maintaining quality in frozen fish dishes.

Dinner Ladies offers meals in various portion sizes, with most dishes designed to serve 1, 2, or 3 people. Some popular dishes are available in multiple size options, but this isn’t consistent across the menu.

It’s essential to carefully check the serving sizes listed for each meal when ordering, as they can vary significantly between dishes.

Each recipe comes with detailed information about the ingredients, allergens, nutritional information and recommended serving approach. For example, the duck ragu is recommended “with fresh pappardelle, polenta or gnocchi, grated Parmesan and a green salad”.

It’s important to realise that Dinner Ladies do not always provide full meals. You often have to add additional food such as rice/pasta or salad to build out a full main meal.

For those with a sweet tooth, you’ll also find the occasional cake finds its way onto the menu. At the time of updating this review, it was an enticing sticky date pudding that serves 4 people. Yum.

Special diets and food intolerances

Dinner Ladies provide meals that are free from all common allergens, including nuts, gluten, dairy, sesame and soy. However, they can not 100% guarantee there is no cross-contamination in their kitchen, so it’s not recommended if you have a severe allergy.

The Dinner Ladies kitchen is not free from allergens. While we take every precaution to make sure our labelling is accurate and to prevent cross-contamination between dishes, we cannot 100% guarantee that any finished dish will be free from a given allergen. For that reason, we are unable to label our food “gluten free”, “dairy free:, etc. We do not use LUPIN in our kitchen.

Special Diets

There is always a reasonable selection of vegetarian dishes, with 12 different dishes available at the time of writing this review. The options get quite a bit more limited if you’re on a vegan diet, with just 3 dishes available. You might find our top plant-based meal delivery services of interest.

This is still enough choice to fill up your freezer every month, so I would still recommend Dinner Ladies for anyone on a special diet, or who has a food intolerance.

Delivery options

Dinner Ladies currently services most major population centers across Australia, including:

• All of New South Wales and ACT
• All of Victoria
• Metro areas in Queensland, South Australia, and Western Australia.

Delivery costs vary based on your postcode, normally between $10 – $15 for standard delivery. There are two important thresholds to be aware of when ordering:

1. Minimum Order Value: Each area has a minimum order requirement of $75 – $100. This minimum must be met AFTER any discount codes are applied. For example, if your area has a $100 minimum and you have a $25 discount code, you’ll need to order at least $125 worth of food.
2. Free Delivery Threshold: The delivery fee is waived for orders over $150 – $200 (varies by location). Like the minimum order, this threshold must also be met after any discounts are applied. For instance, if you have a $25 discount code and your free delivery threshold is $200, you’ll need to order $225 worth of food to qualify for free delivery.

Given these thresholds, it’s often most economical to place larger orders and store meals in your freezer for future use. This way, you can meet the free delivery threshold while taking advantage of any available discounts.

You’ll be offered a range of delivery dates and times during checkout, with slots varying depending on your postcode. In Sydney, I could choose slots between 8am – 1pm or 5pm – 9pm. In Melbourne, for example, that shifts slightly to include overnight delivery between 12am – 7am.

How much does Dinner Ladies cost?

Prices are highly variable for Dinner Ladies meals. There seems to be very little standard pricing, which suggests they are working out the price based on the cost of ingredients in each dish. This can mean some dishes feel reasonably priced, whilst others feel quite expensive.

For meals designed to serve 2 people, total prices generally range between $12 – $22 (or $6 – $11 per person), with some premium dishes costing up to $32 total. This makes Dinner Ladies quite competitively priced compared to other prepared meal services.

Price-wise, Dinner Ladies sits closer to premium prepared meal services than traditional meal kits. The varied pricing structure reflects their focus on quality ingredients and home-style cooking.

Remember to budget for accompanying ingredients like pasta, rice, or salad that aren’t included with most meals. These additional costs should be factored into your meal planning.

My Dinner Ladies box

My delivery arrived in Dinner Ladies’ signature branded box, featuring their distinctive rose and dove design. What impressed me most was their eco-conscious packaging choice – a recycled wool liner instead of traditional foil insulation, demonstrating their commitment to environmental sustainability.

How’s the food?

Now we understand more about the Dinner Ladies service, the question remains over whether the food is any good.

In my opinion, every dish was enjoyable and tasted fresh even after their time in the freezer. I didn’t have any problems with mushy or watery food that is usually one of the major challenges reheating prepared meals from frozen.

However, it’s fair to say that none of the dishes I tried really blew me away with their flavour. I found that it was more like enjoying a familiar dish that you’d normally cook at home. That’s not a bad thing, just something to be aware of.

The ingredients lists are all very basic and focus on the traditional ingredients you’d find in each dish. This is a huge advantage when cooking for picky/fussy eaters as you won’t find any strong or unusual flavours.

One consideration with the food was portion size, which varies significantly between dishes. While the portions are designed to serve multiple people, I found that heartier eaters might want to supplement with additional sides. In my experience, the stated serving sizes are more modest than generous.

If you’re feeding adults with bigger appetites, I’d recommend planning ahead to have additional extras bought in to bulk out the portions. This may not be an issue if you normally eat moderate portions, are feeding younger children, or are on a calorie-controlled diet.

Cooking the prepared meals

Each meal requires a slightly different re-heating method depending on how it’s been packaged.

Some dishes come in aluminium trays that require 20 – 40 minutes in the oven (from defrosted) or 40 – 60 minutes if cooking straight from frozen.

Other dishes, mainly sauces/soups, come in soft plastic pouches that need to be reheated over the hob for 15 – 20 minutes, after having been defrosted. Then there are some dishes such as the chicken schnitzel that get reheated in a frying pan to create the crispy coating.

This all means that it’s highly recommended to plan your meals ahead and easier if you defrost each meal for ~24 hours in the fridge before cooking.

Dinner Ladies vs Ready Meals

There are some huge advantages to getting Dinner Ladies meals instead of your standard microwave-ready meals:

• Customise Your Meal – As you’re only getting the core protein/sauce for the dish, you’re able to customise the extras to make it into a full meal. That means you can choose to have salad, pasta, rice, chips or any other ingredient depending on your personal preferences.
• Multi-Person Portions – While most ready meals serve just one person, Dinner Ladies offers family-sized portions that can be shared, though you might want to add extra sides for heartier appetites. This makes meal planning more practical and cost-effective for households.
• Improved Textures – Unlike microwaved meals that often turn mushy, Dinner Ladies’ oven-heating method preserves proper textures – think crispy chicken coating and tender meat. The extra 30 minutes of heating time delivers significantly better results than a quick microwave blast.

Whilst these meals aren’t as convenient to cook as a 2-minute blast in the microwave, it’s hardly too difficult to put a tray in the oven for 30 minutes. You just have to wait a little bit longer!

Anything Else?

Unlike many meal delivery services, Dinner Ladies operates without any subscription model. You can order whenever suits you, with no lock-in contracts or recurring payments to worry about. The only limitation is the delivery van space available in your area, which helps maintain the quality of their delivery service.

For those looking to help out friends or family, Dinner Ladies offers gift cards that can make a thoughtful present. These are particularly valuable for new parents, anyone recovering from illness, or those going through an especially busy period in their lives.

The company also stands out for their customer service, with a responsive team ready to help with any questions about orders or delivery. This attention to customer care reflects their origins as a small, community-focused business.

Is Dinner Ladies Worth It? – The Verdict

After testing Dinner Ladies extensively, I’ve found they occupy an interesting middle ground between meal kits and ready meals. Their home-style cooking approach delivers rustic, familiar flavours that will appeal to those seeking convenient alternatives to home cooking. The ability to store meals in the freezer for 3-6 months offers valuable flexibility for busy households.

The service particularly shines for families seeking quality prepared meals, offering thoughtfully prepared dishes that taste home-cooked. The long shelf life means you can stock up during sales and use meals as needed, though you’ll need to plan ahead for defrosting.

However, there are some considerations to keep in mind. Portion sizes run small for the price point, and most meals require additional sides to create a complete dinner. While the quality justifies the premium pricing, it makes Dinner Ladies better suited as an occasional meal solution rather than an everyday dinner option.

For those willing to trade some convenience for better texture and taste than typical ready meals, Dinner Ladies offers a solid premium option. Just be prepared to supplement with sides and factor in the higher price point when planning your order.

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Have you tried Dinner Ladies before? Let me know what you thought in the comments below.