Here at Food Box Mate, we absolutely love meal kits. For those who have never tried one before, you sign up for a weekly subscription and receive a box on your doorstep containing fresh ingredients and recipes for you to cook healthy, exciting meals at home.
The most popular meal kits in Australia are HelloFresh, Marley Spoon, Dinnerly and EveryPlate. I’ve reviewed each one thoroughly to help you decide which one is right for you.
Here are the top 10 reasons we think you should give them a go:
1) Try different cuisines
With a Meal Kit, you can spend your Monday in Spain, Tuesday in America, Wednesday in Thailand, Thursday in Brazil and Friday in Mexico thanks to the variety of meals available. These are perfect for exploring new meals and flavours that you otherwise wouldn’t buy at the supermarket, plus they’re often more authentic than the greasy fare you get at your local takeaway.
2) Cook with new ingredients
One of the most exciting parts of getting a Meal Kit is experimenting with new ingredients that you haven’t cooked with before, often discovering some incredible foods that you just want to use time and time again. It’s really fun to learn all about different spice mixes, vegetables and flavour combinations that you can only discover through trying new foods.
3) Save money on your weekly shopping
Ok, so I admit this isn’t strictly true – subscribing to a meal kit is often more expensive than buying the ingredients yourself. However, this really assumes that you actually do cook from base ingredients rather than rely on takeaways, that you buy ingredients in bulk and you use all the food that you buy. The efficiency and convenience of a Meal Kit is where you really save money, so I recommend you track your weekly food spend and see if you could actually save money by switching to a Meal Kit.
All the providers we review offer significant discounts on the first box to give them a try so make sure to check out our comparison page to see what offers are available.
4) Skip the weekly supermarket trip
Every week, ingredients will be dropped at your front door ready for you to get cooking. Some Meal Kits require you to have some staple ingredients but most will provide every single item you need to make delicious meals from scratch. This means that you don’t need to waste time rushing to the supermarket to buy ingredients before you can start cooking – great for saving time during a busy week whilst still eating fresh, healthy food!
5) Learn new cooking techniques
Not only are you trying new cuisines and new ingredients, but you’re also learning new techniques to use ingredients that you can apply across all your cooking. I discovered the lift that fresh herbs can bring to a dish through Meal Kits – adding a fresh kick of parsley or coriander can really transform a meal. Have you ever julienned a carrot? stirred through fresh Pak Choy at the last minute? used cornflour to thicken a sauce? made fresh crispy chicken nuggets? Meal Kits will help you discover these techniques that’ll turn you into a home chef.
6) Reduce food waste
One of the biggest frustrations with supermarket food is that you’re often limited with the quantities you can buy, especially if you only need a small amount. This means that ingredients get thrown to the back of a cupboard or sit in the fridge half used for weeks before they get thrown out. Meal Kits remove all of this problem by only sending through the exact amounts of each ingredient for you to eat that week.
7) Impress your friends and family
Have you ever had family over and had to get a takeaway because you weren’t confident in your cooking? or had a games night with friends and only put burnt pizzas from the freezer on the table? Meal Kits can change all this! They provide simple, easy to follow recipes and add the special little touches that make a dish memorable (see people’s reaction when you put some herbs or nuts on top of their food).
8) Control your portion sizes
We all know that the success/failure of a diet comes down to how much you eat. It’s really easy when cooking your own food to make too much or have the wrong ratio of carbs/protein/vegetables which will derail your dieting efforts. Instead of going to extreme lengths like buying smaller, neon plates it’s much easier to cook from a meal kit. This way, you know you’re getting the right amount of calories and nutrients.
9) Discover new recipes that you can reuse
I think everyone has faced that dilemma when you’re standing in the supermarket wondering what you should cook that evening, which most often leads to buying your default (boring) meal or a microwave meal. With each Meal Kit, you build up a great catalogue of recipes that serve as inspiration every time you feel stuck with what to cook. I recommend highlighting your favourite meals when you cook them and heading to these when you feel the temptation of going back to those microwave meals.
10) No risk – cancel any time
Every Meal Kit provider offers a no-risk subscription that you can cancel at any point 7 days before the next box is due. This means that if you’re away for a week or you just don’t feel like they’re right for you, it’s incredibly easy to pause or cancel your subscription. So, why not give it a try?
