After toiling in the kitchen for four weeks - ah, who am I kidding, it was actually an enjoyable experience - here's a summary of my trials using four of Canada's meal kit delivery companies. For the home cook wannabes, they’re a huge time saver: all the ingredients (except for the staples) are delivered to your home and they arrive in the quantities required for the recipe (no pesky measuring needed).  Just wash, chop, and cook and in under an hour (for the most part), you’ll be serving a hot meal in no time.

All the companies use a similar operating model:

Every home chef differs, so it’s difficult to say what I like or dislike about a company would be the same for your family. The table below summarizes my experience using each service for one week testing three recipes for a family of two into elements I deem important below. Based on the results, I’ve classified the company as a “best for”, but only you can decide if that’s truly what’s best for you. 

• Type of box – vegetarian, chef (a variety of meat and vegetarian), or custom (you select your own meals)
• Number of meals
• Number of people it feeds

After one week of using a meal kit delivery service, the home chef in me was ignited and wanted to continue. Hence, I sought out other Toronto companies and Prepd graciously offered a week of meals to prolong my culinary creations – something my husband was happy about as well.

Dependability

Prepd’s Sunday delivery date works the best for my schedule: I like being home to put everything into the fridge as quickly as possible (although Prepd froze the proteins and there were tons of ice packs so could be left outside for a while) and gives me a chance to cook one of the meals on Sunday – the evening I’m home the most and generally have time to cook.

Similar to competitors, ingredients are clearly labelled and packaged (except proteins) into a separate bags for each dish.  With the exception of salt, pepper, and oil, everything required for the recipe arrives in the kit. Simply wash and prep the produce and you’re ready to go.

I particularly like that Prepd offers a pick-up service to return boxes and ice packs. Yes, I know items can typically be recycled, but manufacturing and even the recycling process still uses resources and energy, so anything we can do to re-use something helps the environment.

Additionally, their boxes were smaller (fitting all the ingredients perfectly) and were less reliant on unnecessary packaging (for example, not wrapping items such as carrots in plastic wrap, instead just placing them in the bag).

Recipes: Ease of Use

Overall, recipes were very straight forward, laying out instructions in chronological order. For example, the recipe would indicate to continue making the salad while something is in the oven, so you literally just follow the directions step-by-step. Looking back, there may be a few steps I’d process differently – in the lentil salad mixing in the herbs and shallots with lentils first, then adding the spinach as after adding the leafy vegetable it makes everything difficult to combine – but, it’s a very small change.

Prepd also required minimal equipment. With the salmon recipe, the carrots and almonds were also placed on the same baking sheet, so everything’s essentially made in “one pan” minimizing cleaning. Even the dressing for a salad could be made in the container holding the mustard – add oil and vinegar into the mustard and shake up to create the dressing.   

How It Tastes

Wow, the recipes sure incorporate a lot of herbs and spices. Even the vegetable soup combined pesto and vegetable bullion to make a very flavourful soup. Moreover, the selection of vegetables (carrot, leek, kale, onion and broccoli) created different flavours and textures to add interest. Including white beans into the dish made it hearty and filling (even more so with the generous portions of toasted bread). With plenty leftover, this re-heated nicely for lunch the following day.

My favourite meal was the salmon salad – fantastic hot the night of and cold for lunch. To be honest, after looking at the ingredients, I was skeptical whether I’d like the dish: carrots, dill, and chopped almonds? Not exactly my favourite things, let alone mixed together in a salad. Boy was I wrong! The sweet carrots with the dill and lentils actually worked nicely together; the chopped almonds much better than the slices I find too crunchy.

The lamb and beef koftas was the sole dish that tasted mediocre, simply due to the overpowering dry meat patties. Unfortunately, since I haven’t used their spice mix before, it’s hard to judge how much to add “to taste”… especially, when you’re adding it to raw meat – how do you even taste? Knowing how strong chili powder is, I already decreased the amount that came with the package, but unfortunately didn’t know what to do with the spice mix. Adding it all was a big mistake - the kofta became grainy and overly citrusy.

The patties were also hard to bind together, something wet (other than using wet hands to form the kofta) would definitely help and make the meat moister. With something already so flavourful, the condiments could have been toned down – the yoghurt would have been better plain, I found the additional feta made it too thick and salty. Also, the garlic incorporated in the yoghurt would have worked better in the meat, as the pungent raw garlic along with red onions was too much. Just imagine how great your breath smells afterwards.

Conclusion

Prepd’s recipes inspired me to combine a variety of ingredients and herbs together. At times, I didn’t think I’d necessarily like everything, but never one to not try something, I followed the formulas and (for the most part) wasn’t disappointed.

Although the dishes don’t necessarily look the most exciting from the pictures, they were actually full of bold flavours and with such generous portions, enough to try again the following day.

Price and How to Order the Service

If you’re living by yourself, congratulations – Prepd has a one person plan! With three meals per week, it will cost you $40 or $13.33 per meal.

For two and four people, the three meal plans and both work out to $10 a meal ($60 and $120 for the two and four person, respectively). All prices are inclusive of taxes and delivery charges – definitely one of the most economical services.

At any time, you can pause or cancel your plan. So, you’re not committed to having to order a meal kit every week.

In my youth I loved cooking … the ritual of combining ingredients into a delicious creation and sharing it with loved ones. Once work came into the picture, the thought of all the time spent prepping and cooking compared to how quickly everything was consumed became taxing. It also became harder to cook for one once leaving my roommates after university; too often ingredients come in big portions and food was wasted. So, soon it became easier to just eat out or prepare easy meals, the more complicated creations left for Sundays, dinner parties, and special occasions.

I’ve heard about meal delivery services from friends who love how easy it makes cooking meals for their families. Sure, it sounded intriguing, but being a food blogger and my husband and I having active social lives, I had doubts whether cooking three meals a week was feasible. Then one day One Kitchen offered to provide me a week’s delivery to try – what a perfect excuse to let my inner chef come out again!

Dependability

Delivering on Monday and Tuesdays seems smart – most people go out on weekends and having a weekday delivery means customers don’t have to waste precious weekend hours at the supermarket.

As promised, everything arrived in a thick cardboard box with all the ingredients held in an insulated bag. Four ice packs also kept the meat frozen so everything was still intact and cold when I arrived home in the afternoon.  On an environmental note: it would be great if One Kitchen takes back the box, insulation bag, outer plastic bags, and ice packs to reuse. A drop-off pick-up sort of a program.  

Plastic bags kept all the other ingredients separated into their respective recipes and I just made sure they were stored together in the fridge.

As a warning, not everything is included in the kit. Some ingredients are understandable – oil, salt, pepper – things people should have at home. However, there were others that were a bit strange like with the vegetable tart you’re expected to have cider vinegar (luckily I had it), but the recipe includes flour.  Perhaps the vinegar wasn’t a key ingredient (used in the dressing for the salad) and could easily be replaced with something else.

It would be nice if One Kitchen provides a list of ingredients and equipment required for each recipe (on the website), so people can ensure they’re prepared before choosing it for delivery.

Recipes: Ease of Use

For the most part the recipes are pretty easy to follow. They include the ingredients in the proportions required, so you don’t need to measure or weigh anything. Simply wash and chop the produce and you’re set.

Plenty of information is included on each recipe card including pictures and even wine pairing suggestions. If you’re still lost, you can go on their website and watch their quick videos that provide an overview. 

I wouldn’t say the service is for someone who’s never cooked before as the recipes do use terms that could confuse a novice (such as "scoring" a border on the puff pastry). Even I had to watch the video to make sure I prepared the pastry properly.  

In terms of timing, each recipe took me anywhere from 30-45 minutes to make, this was based on taking my time to do it and washing & chopping the vegetables. 

How It Tastes

All three recipes were very different, One Kitchen sure has variety (except for seafood on the week of my delivery … though I do see they have shrimp pasta now).

The vegetable tart with green salad was my favourite:  the tart’s pastry turned out perfectly, rising beautifully into a flakey glory. I was surprised by the amount of onions and shallots used in the vegetable medley, but the stronger aromatics really helped to make the tart tasty.  Of the three recipes, this yielded the most food … it could seriously feed four people if you purchase more lettuce. I appreciate having lunch the next day, the vegetable tart delicious even cold.

At first I thought the stuffed chicken breast would be difficult to make, but it turned out to be the quickest. The chicken remained moist and the mushroom and sage mixture inside quite delicious. Cheese helped hold everything together and also add some creaminess. Since the recipe was predominantly baked, it also wasn’t oily. The only small change I’d make is using less lemon on the roasted broccoli as it was a bit sour, although somewhat refreshing with the meaty chicken.

Despite regularly making beef chili during the winter, I even learnt something new from One Kitchen. With this recipe, I was advised to take a third of the kidney beans and puree it in a food processor (a gadget I don’t own … luckily, the blender worked). The resulting chili was thicker and creamier than my past recipes, a great trick I’ll continue using. 

Additionally, I would have never thought to add an avocado salsa on top - generally relying on cream cheese and cheese – it really changed the chili adding freshness  on account of the raw onion, lemon and avocado.  

Conclusion

It was fun and exciting to cook again! Certainly my husband and I made it a priority to leave work at a decent time, not go out, and go home to enjoy a meal together. Of course, it took time (about 45 minutes per day to be exact) so I don’t think it’d be something I could do every week. But, the ritual would be great to do once every month or so when we’re sure we’d be home.

Price and How to Order the Service

At about $10.00 - 11.50 per serving, One Kitchen’s prices are in line (if not a bit lower) than competing services. The smallest plan is the two-person three meals one ($68.94 total or $11.50 a serving) and the price reduces to $10.00 per serving ($159.84 in total) for four meals for a family of four. The pricing also includes delivery and taxes.

Even though One Kitchen is a subscription based service, you can always skip a delivery or cancel at any time. So, it makes it easy to use on a periodic basis. This could even work for dinner parties if you’re not sure what to cook and want a safer “fool-proof” option.  

If the above has intrigued you, sign up and try a week for yourself. One Kitchen is offering Gastro World readers 40% off any box for new customers. Just visit their site, pick any of the plans (including the largest one) and use Gastroworld as the coupon code.