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.
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