Independent Dinnerly Review – Simple Budget Meals for Australians (2025)

Tired of meal kits that break the bank? As a long-time reviewer, I’ve tested dozens of Dinnerly boxes since 2020. This budget-friendly service delivers meals from just $5.99 per portion – less than half the cost of most competitors.

The promise of cheap, convenient meals raises obvious questions: How’s the food quality? Are portions filling enough? What’s the catch?

After cooking hundreds of Dinnerly meals in my kitchen, this review reveals exactly what you can expect – from ingredient freshness to recipe variety and overall value.

Whether you’re feeding a family on a budget or simply looking to save on convenient meal kits, I’ll help you decide if Dinnerly’s stripped-back approach is right for your kitchen.

Check out Dinnerly with a $145 discountGet up to $145 off across your first 5 boxes with our unique discount link

Dinnerly offers either a 2 or 4 person box with between 2 and 6 meals per week for their budget meal kit service. Simply choose which meals you want to eat and wait for your delivery day to arrive. Each delivery includes all the raw ingredients you need to cook up all your selected meals.

There are two major differences between Dinnerly and other meal kits on the market that you should know about upfront.

1. They don’t provide any physical recipe cards so you need to rely on the digital recipe.
2. They don’t provide quite a wide range of staple pantry ingredients such as Soy Sauce, Vinegar, Garlic etc. so if your pantry is a little bare you will need to venture out to the supermarket in order to make your meals.

Getting Started with Dinnerly

Signing up with Dinnerly is a breeze. Start by simply selecting the size of your box, then the number of meals you want each week. Since I first reviewed Dinnerly, they’ve added options for as low as 2 and up to 6 meals per week which is a great addition.

After entering your address and payment details, you can edit your meal choices up to 7 days before delivery. While subscriptions are flexible and easy to cancel, remember that any changes must be made at least 7 days before your scheduled delivery.

You’re able to set your meal selections up to 4 weeks ahead, so it’s super easy to plan your weeks. Dinnerly even asks for your flavour preferences so they can suggest default meals. This means that even if you forget to choose your meals, you’re quite likely to get food you’ll like!

You can preview the menu for the next 4 weeks on their website before you order. This might help you get a sense of whether you’ll like the food on offer.

Exploring Dinnerly’s Menu

Each week, Dinnerly provides a rotating list of 100+ recipes. This is an insane amount of options and variety, making it easy to find meals you’ll love. That includes around 15 different vegetarian meals, making Dinnerly a good option for plant-based dieters.

It’s important to set your expectations with Dinnerly food as most of their meals only have 6 or 7 ingredients. As a result, they are limited to fairly simple dishes and this really shows with the meal options available.

I don’t always see this as a negative though, as simpler dishes are often quicker and easier to cook. It’s hard to argue against saving both money and time.

I think the options available align Dinnerly with dishes that you would cook up normally at home rather than some of the more expansive, experimental dishes offered by their competitors like HelloFresh and Marley Spoon.

Some of the options available when I ordered included:

• Veggie Risotto
• Mongolian Lamb Stir Fry
• Spanish Beef Meatballs
• Chicken & Veggie Soup
• Chorizo Shakshuka
• Cheesy Tex-Mex Pork Nachos

For those with special diets, Dinnerly clearly labels meals as “no added gluten” (around 20 meals a week) and “dairy free” (around 30 meals a week). Annoyingly, you can’t filter on these options, so you have to scroll through the list and spot recipes that have these labels.

If you have any other preferences or intolerances, the ingredients of each dish are made very clear so you can organise your meals around your requirements and make substitutions where necessary.

Check out Dinnerly’s Upcoming Menu

I was very impressed by the range of meals on offer with Dinnerly. Although the menu is full of very simple dishes, you could easily go a long time without having a repeating meal. This is likely a direct result of the large supply chain they have access to with their owners at Marley Spoon.

Customising Dinnerly Meals

Similar to Marley Spoon, Dinnerly allows you to customise some of their meals. Customisation is only available on selected meals, and generally involves switching out a single ingredient. Some examples include:

• Doubling the quantity of an ingredient.
• Switching between meat and plant-based ingredients.
• Switching to low-calorie alternatives.

Most switches are free of charge, but some (such as doubling an ingredient) do incur a small surcharge per portion.

Currently, about 20% of Dinnerly meals offer customization options, though these are limited to specific ingredient swaps. While this is a good start, expanding customization to more meals and ingredients would improve the service.

Saver Meals From Dinnerly

Dinnerly prides itself on offering great value meals on a budget. Even knowing that, I was surprised to see them offering some meals at a reduced cost per portion. On top of a discount (like our exclusive new customer discount), this makes Dinnerly incredibly cheap.

Titled ‘Saver’, there are 5 recipes each week that are priced at -$1.00 to -$1.50 per portion.

Of course, there’s a good reason these are ‘saver’ recipes. They often use cheaper cuts of meat (or no meat), plus they ask you to provide some additional store cupboard ingredients. I’ve seen ‘saver’ recipes that don’t provide ingredients like eggs, garlic, and tomato paste that would be included with other meal kits.

The Marketplace by Dinnerly

Since early 2023, Dinnerly has also offered the ability to add ‘market’ ingredients and meals to your order. These are delivered in your weekly box along with all the other ingredients.

A lot of the recipes available are from ChefGood’s meal range because both Dinnerly and ChefGood are both owned by Marley Spoon. We’ve also reviewed ChefGood and thoroughly enjoyed their meals, though at $12 per portion they’re quite expensive compared to Dinnerly’s meals. If you’re interested in prepared meals, check out our complete guide to ready-made meal services.

There are also some interesting options for easy snacks, side dishes, lunches, and desserts. You’ll find significant crossover between Dinnerly and Marley Spoon’s marketplaces.

Drinks are available from companies like Press’d, Naked Life, and Remedy which provides an interesting range to choose from.

When I compared Dinnerly marketplace prices to supermarket prices, it was often around 10% more expensive to purchase from Dinnerly. There’s the added convenience of getting the food delivered as part of your already scheduled delivery, but I’m not convinced this justifies the extra cost.

Delivery Options

Dinnerly delivers to most locations across Australia (including Perth!), offering broader coverage than many competitors. While the $9.99 delivery fee might seem high for boxes under $80, it’s comparable to other meal kit services.

This pricing is in line with competitors though, and it reflects the costs of refrigerated deliveries across Australia.

Normal delivery slots are listed from 12:00 AM – 07:00 AM, or 08:00 AM – 6:30 PM. Dinnerly have also started offering a brilliant timeslot between 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM on selected delivery days in metro areas. Perfect for people who live in apartments and work during the day.

You need to have confirmed your order 7 days in advance, which is quite a long time. Fortunately, this can be done 4 weeks in advance so it’s not too difficult.

How much does Dinnerly cost?

This is where Dinnerly really excels. I compared the prices for all meal kits across Australia and they come in at a significantly lower price than any other options except for EveryPlate. You’re able to get 6 meals for a family of 4 (that’s 24 portions) for just $143.76.

$5.99 per portion!

This makes it genuinely affordable for a vast majority of Australians and can really compete with purchasing the ingredients yourself from a supermarket. Here are the full costs:

People	Meals	Price (Exc. Delivery)	Price per Serving
2	2	$39.96	$9.99
2	3	$53.94	$8.99
2	4	$67.92	$8.49
2	5	$79.90	$7.99
2	6	$89.88	$7.49
4	2	$67.92	$8.49
4	3	$89.88	$7.49
4	4	$111.84	$6.99
4	5	$135.80	$6.79
4	6	$143.76	$5.99

It’s worth noting there are additional costs beyond the delivery fee. You’ll need to supply some pantry staples like white wine vinegar, garlic, ginger, and barbecue sauce.

While these ingredients are relatively inexpensive per portion, you may need to buy full-sized bottles. Even factoring in these extra costs, Dinnerly remains one of the most affordable meal kits alongside EveryPlate – you just need to plan ahead for these staple ingredients.

Check out Dinnerly with a $145 discountGet up to $145 off across your first 5 boxes with our unique discount link

My Experience with Dinnerly

I’ve been ordering Dinnerly boxes regularly since 2020, trying dozens of different meals across many delivery boxes. For this review, I’ll focus on one recent box to give you a clear picture of what you can expect when ordering from Dinnerly. This allows me to share detailed photos and specific experiences, while my broader experience helps inform my overall assessment of the service.

Having tried so many boxes over the years, I can confidently say that Dinnerly maintains consistent quality and service. The experience I describe below is representative of what you can expect when ordering from Dinnerly yourself.

My Dinnerly Review Box

My box arrived in the morning and was left on my front porch. I like the branding on these boxes, which include step-by-step instructions on what to do once you receive your box. The ingredients are packed separately, minimising the use of plastics where possible (e.g carrots), with the meats/cold items coming in a separate insulated compartment at the bottom of the box including a large ice block.

All the ingredients looked fresh and appealing, arriving in the right quantities. I was also pleasantly surprised to see the stock cubes were gluten-free – this is a really thoughtful and welcome touch to help cater for a wider range of people.

How’s The Food?

After cooking dozens of Dinnerly meals over multiple years, I continue to be impressed by how much flavor they create with minimal ingredients. Their clever use of spice blends and sauce combinations consistently produces tasty meals that I regularly choose to cook again. This proves that a budget-friendly meal kit doesn’t mean compromising on taste.

The quality of ingredients has remained consistently good throughout my many boxes. The meat is reliably fresh (often free-range chicken), and vegetables arrive crisp and ready to use. Ingredients consistently last until their designated cooking day, which is particularly impressive given the budget-friendly nature of the service.

There are two main areas where Dinnerly could improve:

1. Quantity – After trying numerous boxes, I’ve noticed that portion sizes can vary significantly between meals. While some dishes are generously sized, others barely satisfy hunger. This seems to stem from Dinnerly’s strict cost-per-meal targets, where portion sizes appear to be adjusted to meet price points rather than consistent serving sizes.
2. Recipe Clarity – Despite years of recipe updates, the digital instructions still need improvement. Common issues include unclear portion scaling (particularly confusing when cooking for 2 vs 4 people) and sometimes problematic timing in the step ordering. These issues persist across many recipes and could be easily fixed to improve the cooking experience.

Ultimately, any home cook with moderate ability will be able to understand the recipe and cook from basic principles without much trouble. However, this might challenge some newer cooks who would want some clearer guidance.

Nutritional Analysis

Researchers at the University of Sydney have analysed the nutritional qualities of the biggest Australian meal kit subscription services, with the summarised results published below with permission from the original authors.

All values are ‘per each recommended individual serving’.

	Dinnerly	HelloFresh	Marley Spoon	Pepper Leaf
Food Groups (no. of serves)
Vegetables	2.6	3.1	2.8	2.6
Grains	2.4	1.8	2.5	2.8
Meat	1.4	1.3	1.7	1.3
Macronutrients
Energy (kcal)	704	880	690	707
Protein (g)	34.4	38.9	41.9	35.0
Total fat (g)	34.8	53.4	30.3	32.2
Carbohydrate (g)	58.2	56.0	56.8	63.6
Sugars (g)	14.9	17.0	10.9	10.7
Sodium (mg)	853	1426	779	866

This table shows that Dinnerly doesn’t compromise on portion sizes for the price, the amount of meat/vegetable you receive is comparable to every other service. Where Dinnerly is let down slightly, is the amount of sugar in their recipes. Fortunately, it’s often very easy to adjust recipes to keep the sugar content down.

Digging into the research, Dinnerly was highly praised for the percentage of grain servings that came from whole grains (60%). If you’re trying to increase the amount of whole grain in your diet, Dinnerly is a great option for you.

Thanks to Dr Alice Gibson and Dr Stephanie R Partridge of the University of Sydney for their research. If you want to read their paper, it can be found in the Nutrients journal.

A Qualified Nutritionist’s Dinnerly Review

The disappointing nutritional aspects of Dinnerly are the high sodium, saturated fat content and energy-dense meals. On average, you’ll find around 853mg of sodium per meal compared to the recommended amount of <500mg. There’s also more than 50% of the recommended amount of saturated fat for your main meal of the day (9.6g vs >6g).

Additionally, the meals are nearly 300kcals above the recommended amount for what an average Australian adult requires (853kcal vs ~500kcal). This is equivalent to a large snack, so you could adjust the rest of your daily food to account for having a larger dinner.

Fibre is very important for a healthy diet and Dinnerly ticks the box here, providing 10.7g per serve!! The meals also contain 2.6 serves of vegetables on average, which contributes to our daily 5 serves per day. This is a big win in my book as most Australians don’t reach the recommended number of serves of vegetables and having half at dinner can be a great help.

To make Dinnerly a bit healthier, I would try to use less salt when cooking and opt for salt-reduced pantry items like salt-reduced soy sauce.

Comparing Dinnerly to Grocery Shopping

With the primary selling point of Dinnerly being price, I wanted to see if it actually provided value versus purchasing the ingredients yourself. For this, I’m going to take 2 recipes – Chicken & Veggie Stew and Spanish Beef Meatballs.

The following tables present the ingredients and their associated costs (2 portions x 5 nights) when purchased from Woolworths.

Chicken & Veggie Stew Cost Comparison

Ingredient	Cost at Woolworths ($)	Dinnerly Cost ($)
2 Chicken Stock Cubes	0.28	Included
125g Brown Rice	0.31	Included
1 Large Free-Range Chicken Breast	3.50	Included
1 Bunch Pak Choy	2.50	Included
1 Sweet Potato	1.25	Included
2 Carrots	0.74	Included
Total	8.58	15.98

Spanish Beef Meatballs Cost Comparison

Ingredient	Cost at Woolworths ($)	Dinnerly Cost ($)
70g Mixed Salad Leaves	1.15	Included
100g Greek-style Yoghurt	0.76	Included
5g Spanish Spice Blend	0.15	Included
Beef Mince	3.75	Included
1 Red Onion	0.53	Included
250g Butternut Pumpkin	1.25	Included
Total	7.59	15.98

While this comparison uses just two meals (and prices can vary by location and season), it suggests Dinnerly costs approximately $4.50 more per portion than buying ingredients yourself.

Given the convenience of pre-portioned ingredients, planned meals, and varied recipes, many customers might find this premium worthwhile. It’s worth noting that buying individual ingredients often requires purchasing larger quantities than needed for a single recipe, which can lead to waste if not used elsewhere. Those “savings” can disappear fast!

The Dinnerly App

As Dinnerly don’t provide recipe cards, they ask that you follow recipes either in the browser or on their app. I wanted to give their app a twirl so downloaded it to my iPad and followed all the recipes from there. I would rate the app as ‘usable’ based on it providing readable recipes but not doing it very well.

Firstly, the app doesn’t have a horizontal mode, so it forces you to use it vertically – this makes sense on a phone but much less so on a tablet. Secondly, the recipes have incredibly large, useless drawings, meaning you’re constantly having to scroll up and down with mucky hands.

I was also left disappointed with the amount of nutritional information provided with the meals, only providing Energy, Fat, Carbs and Protein. This isn’t really enough in this day and age to help people manage their diets properly. I hope Dinnerly can improve their nutritional details soon.

My Overall Thoughts

After years of testing Dinnerly boxes, I can confidently say they’ve carved out an important niche in the Australian meal kit market. Their focus on simplicity and affordability makes home cooking more accessible, particularly for families and budget-conscious households.

Dinnerly consistently impresses with their fresh ingredients at competitive prices, while offering achievable recipes that help build cooking confidence. Their extensive weekly menu of over 100 choices and flexible subscription options make it easy to find meals that suit your household’s needs.

There are some compromises to consider with the service. You’ll need to stock basic pantry ingredients yourself, and the digital-only recipes could be clearer in their instructions. Portion sizes can vary noticeably between different meals, and the customization options are more limited than premium services.

The service is particularly well-suited to budget-conscious households looking for variety in their meals and busy families seeking quick dinner solutions. It’s also an excellent choice for novice cooks wanting to build their kitchen confidence or anyone looking to reduce their weekly grocery shopping time.

While those seeking premium ingredients or gourmet recipes might want to explore other services, Dinnerly excels at its core mission: delivering reliable, affordable meals that encourage more home cooking. The service proves that eating well doesn’t have to strain your budget, even if you need to make some small compromises along the way.

Check out Dinnerly with a $145 discountGet up to $145 off across your first 5 boxes with our unique discount link

Have you already tried Dinnerly? What did you think of their low-cost meal kits? Let me know in the comments section below.

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