How I Failed at All Things Meal Prep and What You Can Learn From It: A Meal Prep Service Review

I can’t cook like a chef. Or a line cook. Or even a 10 year old with a spatula.

I’ve tried various meal prep services, hoping to change this about myself. But I’ve finally realized something important.

Meal prep and planning services are for people who actually like to cook. These services are for people who don’t have time to figure out what to make,  list the ingredients and shop for them.

Because of online grocery ordering and pickup at my local grocery store, I have absolutely no problem getting groceries. It takes me about 30 minutes a week to submit the order and then stop by and pick it up on my way home from work. I don’t need to pay a premium to have ingredients shipped to my door.

No, what takes me a ton of time and effort is the actual cooking part.

Today I’ll review two services I’ve tried to spruce up my dinner-making, and why I decided that neither is for me.

HelloFresh

I tried HelloFresh because I got a coupon for a free week from my boss. She made it sound awesome, and my husband was working evenings so I thought I’d give it a try.

HelloFresh delivers a box of ingredients and recipes right to your door each week. A typical HelloFresh package provides 3 meals a week for a family of four at about $96 a week.

What I liked

Note the short paragraph.

The good thing was that I didn’t have to come up with meal ideas and shop for the groceries. I also liked trying meals outside of our usual rotation. It was fun to mix things up a bit. And the food comes in its own little packages so it’s kind of fun to unwrap it all.

On the other hand….

I still had to go to the grocery store

HelloFresh covers dinner only. We still needed food for breakfast, lunch and snacks. So it didn’t save me a trip to the grocery store.

My meal prep approach is very … streamlined? (OK, boring.) So I wasn’t spending hours on Pinterest finding new recipes to try, and then painstakingly making a list of ingredients. My approach is more “get some veggies, meat and starches and throw them together somehow”. So HelloFresh didn’t save me much time in terms of selecting meals.

The packaging is kind of over to the top

You guys, there was SO. MUCH. FREAKING. PACKAGING. Like, two tablespoons of mustard in a tiny jar. I mean, really. I’m not the most environmentally conscious person ever but that just seems wasteful – especially when I already have a perfectly good 12 oz bottle of mustard in my fridge.

The actual cooking part was rough

At some point, after unwrapping the millions of ingredients from their tiny packages, I actually had to, you know,  cook. And let me tell you – that was an utter disaster. The prep times provided by HelloFresh are pretty…shall we say, optimistic?

Maybe they just hadn’t accounted for my utter ineptitude in the kitchen and their professional chefs could whip this stuff up in 20 minutes flat. They definitely didn’t count on my googling “julienne” 10 times. But still.

In the evening, we’d get home, I’d pull out the food and the recipe. I’d send the kids off to play or, more likely, watch TV because everyone is STARVING and grumpy when we get home. Two episodes of Bubble Guppies later, I might have prepared a slightly burned version of the meal.

The kids didn’t love it

And, 9 times out of 10, the kids wouldn’t eat it. They actually refused to eat a hamburger from HelloFresh.

And these aren’t super picky eaters. Their favorite food is salmon, they like sushi, they’re usually willing to try things. But it was like the more time I spent on it the less likely they were to want to eat it. There is a law of nature in here somewhere.

I would end up eating the HelloFresh meal (either 2 portions because I was also starving and determined to get my money’s worth or very little because I screwed up the recipe somewhere and it tasted like cardboard). And I’d feed the kids chicken patties.

The price is not right

For what it’s worth, the price is on the high side if you’re concerned about budget. The family plan (3 dinners with 4 servings each) is $96, which is better than going out to eat but worse than buying simple meals at the grocery store. Our usual grocery bill for dinner food runs about $50 for 4 dinners with 4 servings each, and that’s without doing any price comparison or couponing or anything.

TL;DR

My take: If you’re going to feed the kids chicken patties, do it at 5:30 pm rather than 7:30 pm and skip the expensive ingredient delivery service.

Who Would Like It: People who like to cook but have no time to prep or shop. People who are eating takeout every night.

Prep Dish

Prep Dish is a bit different. This is a service that gives you a meal plan for each week. You also receive a grocery list and a detailed guide to prepping ahead of time and then cooking your meals on the day of. Each plan includes four dinners, a breakfast, snack and salad. You can choose from a Paleo or dairy-free option.

This sounded like a cool concept to me! I buy my own groceries (that’s the easy part), spend an evening prepping and then have yummy meals all week!

Well, as you can imagine given my kitchen ineptitude, it didn’t quite go that way.

It did streamline the grocery order

I submitted my regular grocery order on a Monday, including the PrepDish items for the week. My grocery bill came out to about 10% higher than usual, which isn’t bad at all. I picked up the groceries and headed home.

My kids liked the banana nut muffins

After a quick sandwich for me and the girls (ah, the irony!) we gamely launched into meal prep.

On a positive note, my kids really had fun making and eating the breakfast recipe – banana nut muffins.

That was pretty much where the fun ended.

I tried. Really, I did.

Really, I wanted to finish the prep plan. It was two pages. I thought I could do it!

I chopped some veggies (do you know how much of a pain it is to “finely chop” kale? do you?). I sauteed onions (and kale, my new nemesis). I made some cauliflower rice (process to “consistent size”…uh huh).

This took me two hours. Yep, that’s right. After the kids made muffins and went to bed (traitors) I spent two hours on onions, kale and cauliflower rice. That’s when I quit.

If there’s a slow-cooker involved, I’m in

I will say – I made the slow-cooker recipe for chicken thighs, and that was right up my alley. Dump chicken, salsa and onions in a slow cooker. Turn on. Walk away. That was a win, and we ate it for dinner on a busy day. The chicken thighs made the meat turn out less dry than my usual bone-dry slow-cooker chicken breast. The leftovers lasted my husband for a lunch or two as well. That I liked!

The muffins were also good, and I enjoyed having them for breakfast because they were yummy and didn’t require any prep. Just grab and eat, perfect for those mornings when you’re trying to do a million things.

TL;DR

My take: I just don’t want to spend hours on Sunday afternoon prepping for the week’s meals. That is zero fun to me. I’d rather spend my weekend doing other things, and I accept that about myself.

Who would like this: People who like to cook and enjoy spending a weekend half-day slicing, dicing, sauteeing and baking so they can head into the week feeling totally organized and prepared.

Meal Prep for People Who Don’t Like Cooking

I’m very thankful that my husband enjoys cooking and is pretty good at it. When I’m on my own, a rotisserie chicken, guacamole, black beans and rice go a long way. I’ve concluded that the only meal service that would work for me would be pre-cooked meals that just need to be heated. Know thyself, right?