Meal kits lend a hand to Sonoma County home cooks

Around the country, there’s a new trend popping up in the kitchens of busy home cooks: prepped, delivered meals that bridge the gap between a veggie box (CSA) subscription from a local farm and the usual shortcut of a takeout meal or pizza.

These meal kits, delivered to your door in a refrigerated box with raw ingredients portioned out and often prepped, allows busy or uninspired home cooks to get a delicious dinner on the table within 30 minutes.

There’s no thinking ahead, except for choosing your meals or meal plan. No stressful shopping. No rooting around in cabinets looking for ingredients. Just a recipe card with a photo of the finished dish, some instructions for simple slicing or dicing, searing or poaching, and the satisfaction of having made a tasty, healthy meal for your family, almost from scratch.

Even excellent cooks who don’t think twice about throwing dinner parties for 15 are signing up because, at $10 to $15 a serving, the meal kits can be cheaper than eating out. They can also eliminate food waste (although they often add packaging waste) and can provide even savvy cooks with a few new flavors and techniques outside their comfort zones.

“Once you pour yourself a cocktail and open up the bag, the actual ingredients are there,” said Stewart Allen of Healdsburg, who subscribes to the New York-based Blue Apron for himself and his partner, Thomas Pope.

“You put the music on, you have your recipe, and you just start cooking. It makes it so easy, and you haven’t forgotten any ingredients. It’s all there.”

Allen, who travels for his own interior design business, decided to sign up with Blue Apron last year after realizing he was eating out way too much.

“This was a way to save money,” he said.

“You can eat Mexican food for $10 a meal, but you don’t want to do that every night.”

Shirley Chilcott of Santa Rosa was sold on the idea after a friend signed her up for a free week of meals from Blue Apron. As the sole cook in the family, she was in a cooking rut and running low on inspiration.

“I was pretty tired of my own cooking,” said Chilcott, a retired schoolteacher who cooks most nights for herself and her husband, a retired doctor. “There are a lot of things I wouldn’t have thought of doing myself.”

Former restaurant owner/chef Adele Barnett of Healdsburg signed up for a couple of weeks with Blue Apron and was impressed with the innovative recipes and flavors.

“The food is delicious, and it’s very interesting,” said Barnett, who splits the meals with a friend. “One time I had an avocado, English pea and pistachio guacamole that was delicious.”

However, Barnett ended up switching to the Bay Area’s Sun Basket because she wanted all-organic ingredients and more diet options, such as a Paleo plan that eliminates carb-heavy potatoes and pastas from the meals.

Another new option is Din, also based in the Bay Area, which provides organic and sustainable ingredients and ready-made sauces that elevate the meals to “restaurant quality” by providing more finesse and less prep.

Here’s the rundown of these three meal plans, emblematic of the main options available out there. If one doesn’t suit your taste, it’s easy to cancel and give another one a try.

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BLUE APRON

This is a big brand with a national reach. It’s headquartered in New York along with HelloFresh and Plated, and has been around for a few years.

While not organic, the company is sensitive to the values of healthy eating and sustainability.

Its founder and COO, Matthew Wadiak, is a champion of heirloom produce, and its culinary director came from Stone Barns Center in Pocantico Hills, N.Y.

The company works with 31 farms, using produce from California producers such as Riverdog Farm in Guinda and purveyors like Community Grains of Oakland.

Customers sign up online and can choose three of five different menus for the week, with choices that include vegetarian, pescatarian or meat and fish lovers’ meals. You can choose between two or four servings per meal and pick preferred delivery days.

Each serving costs $10, so three meals for two adds up to $60 a week. Delivery is free.

The meals take about 30 minutes to prepare, with an average of six ingredients to wash and dice. Directions are clear and accessible, even to beginners.

“My niece gets Blue Apron, and her 15-year-old son loves to make all the food,” Barnett said. “He won’t let anyone help.”

One of the three meals is often Asian-inspired, such as a Chicken Pad Kee Mao (Drunken Noodles), Thai Chicken Burgers and Stir-Fried Ginger-Basil Chicken. Those sensitive to spice can dial back the heat.

“The first one knocked our socks off,” Allen said.

“It was a Chinese dim sum dish. It was perfect for us, because it was spices and ingredients we would never buy, and the preparation was easy and the end product was great.”

The serving sizes are generous, with enough left over to enjoy for lunch the next day, if you eat lightly.

Those with bigger appetites can add salads or seasonal vegetables.

One of the perks of Blue Apron is that you get a big recipe card that can be neatly stored into a binder and used at a later date.

“Their Chicken Piccata was super easy,” said Allen, who has a binder full of recipe cards. “I did that again for a dinner party.”

The down side is that the packaging, while recyclable, adds up rather quickly. Between the box, the aluminum foil bags, the gel packs, the plastic bags and boxes for the ingredients, recycling requires a bit of work.

The upside is that even when the box is left out in the heat, it stays cold.

The company responds quickly and professionally to complaints, getting back to customers within 12 hours, often crediting their accounts when warranted.

The deadline to cancel or skip a week is six days in advance, so you can’t procrastinate.

Summing up: Good for busy, working couples who would like to share the burden of cooking every night.

Also ideal for people who are intimidated by food and comfortable with the controlled aspect. Not great for those who like to wing it.

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SUN BASKET

Sun Basket and Green Chef both are meal kits that cater to those who want to eat organically and sustainably. Barnett tried both of them but settled on Sun Basket because it cost only $10 per serving, versus $15 for Green Chef.

Justine Kelly, the former head chef of the Slanted Door restaurant in San Francisco, sources from local farms such as Full Belly Farms in the Capay Valley to create the Sun Basket menus.

The menu includes Asian dishes such as Green Curry Shrimp with Pan-Roasted Bok Choy, as well as Mediterranean dishes like Summer Vegetable Paella and Roasted Chicken with Sauteed Kale, Sweet Potatoes and Artichoke Romesco.

With Sun Basket, as with Green Chef, you have more choices of healthy menus: There are Chef’s Choice (omnivore), Paleo-friendly, vegetarian and gluten-free menus.

Barnett shares three meals every other week with a friend, Heather Svendsen of Healdsburg. To ease scheduling, Barnett and Svendsen decided to get the Sun Basket meals every other week.

“We’ve loved it,” Barnett said. “We’ve had wild salmon, Asian chicken meatballs and pork chops with fennel and plum salad.”

There are seven choices each week from each of the four menus. You can order three meals a week for two, four or six people. Deadline to choose meals or skip a week is six days prior to delivery.

The box and all the packaging - insulation, ice packs, plastic bags and recipe cards - can be sent back to Sun Basket and reused for free.

The company sends you a pre-paid shipping label, then you can go online to the U.S. Postal Service for a free pick-up at your door.

Summing up: A good option for those who want more choices for specialized diets and want to eat organic food at an affordable price.

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DIN

Din was founded by Rob and Emily LaFave, founders of Foodzie, an online marketplace for artisanal foods.

The couple works with Bay Area restaurant chefs as well as an in-house culinary team to create meal kits that include ready-made sauces that boost flavor and elevate home cooking to “restaurant quality.”

The guest chefs come from well-known restaurants like Bar Tartine and Alta CA, as well as ethnic restaurants such as Kin Khao, all of San Francisco.

By providing the lion’s share of the prep work, the dinners take only 20 minutes to prepare and are simple enough to be put together by anyone in the household, whether they wear the chef’s toque or not.

Recent meals included a Fennel Pollen Pork Loin with Late Season Gazpacho and Caraway Rye Berries (both the gazpacho and horseradish creme fraiche were ready to serve) and Ginger-Poached Chicken with Chicken Fat Rice and Cucumber (with a tasty Nam Jim Sauce from Thailand that was ready to serve).

The cost is a bit higher- $15 a serving - but it may be worth it if you use it for special occasions, like Friday night dinner and a movie, or impressing a new date. And let’s face it: It’s still a lot cheaper than going out for a nice dinner.

The minimum order is two servings of two dishes for $60, but more meals can be added.

Each week, subscribers can choose from six meals, including vegetarian and gluten-free options.

Outside San Francisco, the meals come in a cardboard box with insulation, gel packs, a fabric tote and paper bags holding each meal.

Each paper bag also has a label listing all the ingredients and a “use by” date.

Bonus: You can return all of the packaging with every five orders, and the deadline to choose your meals or skip a week is just two days in advance.

Summing up: A little pricey, but great for folks who enjoy eating out in restaurants and want to channel their inner Top Chef, without having to hire a sous chef.

Staff Writer Diane Peterson can be reached at 521-5287 or diane.peterson@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @dianepete56.