Cooking is not my forte.
I like to cook – kind of – but I don’t excel. Does that make sense? No? I know…I’ll try to find a way to explain that so it makes a bit more sense.
I love Food Network. I’d love to cook well, and there are a few dishes I’m quite good at making. But only because I’ve made them a million times and perfected them.
I don’t follow endless directions well. There’s just too much going on with a real recipe for me to handle it will. I prefer to bake, and I’m really good at baking. It’s easy when everything is basically in one pan. It all cooks the same time, there’s one thing at a time that requires my attention. Cooking is too much.
So I married a man who cooks like a champ, enjoys spending time in the kitchen, and keeps us well fed and happy.
When the amazing people from Dinnerly reached out and asked me if I’d like to try their dinner subscription service, I figured I might as well try. Perhaps I could cook some new dishes for my family quickly and with six or fewer ingredients, I was on board with it.
What is Dinnerly?
It’s the most affordable, simplest dinner subscription service on the market. The company provides up to three meals per week, delivered to your door with every single ingredient you need to cook dinner save for a few household items you already have in your pantry. It’s in a cooler, it’s fresh, and it’s simple.
You have everything delivered, you cook the meal, and you don’t need to grocery shop, meal plan, or stress about how you’re going to feed your family. The good news is that most of the recipes they send are on the healthy side. As a family who tends to skip the starches and breads in favor of additional veggie sides, simple grilled or baked chicken or fresh fish and – always – Filet Friday, we were on board with the healthier options.
What Makes Dinnerly Different than Other Subscription Services?
Simple – it’s far more affordable, far simpler, and a lot less stressful. You don’t have a half dozen different menu options in different categories to choose from. You have three. You choose them, you make them, you enjoy them – and even the ones I didn’t think sounded amazing when we received the box were so good!
The meals are $5 per person. You can order a 4-person package or a 2-person package. My husband and I have four small kids, and the 4-person boxes were more than enough food for all six of us. There was so much left over!
Additionally, Dinnerly makes the job SO much easier than other companies because every meal consists of six ingredients or less. It’s quick, it’s delicious, it’s easy. What more do you want?
What Else Should I Know?
The one thing you should know before anything else is you should check your recipes online before your box arrives is you will need a few things from home for some recipes. It’s all simple things, however, like salt and pepper or a little oil. You have it lying around, so it’s never a big deal.
Dinnerly also makes sure you’re able to get your recipes online through your confirmation email. This saves paper, and it saves you money as a result. You save all the recipes on your computer to reference later, and you aren’t inundated with paper recipes to file, put away, lose, or store. I mean, I cannot handle another needless piece of paper in my house, and I imagine you feel the same.
{Our meals consisted of the three pictured here: Potato Rosti, Meatloaf and Caramelized Cabbage, and Creamy Chicken Tetrazzini}
How Was Dinnerly For Us?
Welllllll…it was amazing, but only because my husband saved the day. I tried. I did. But again, even with only six ingredients, I struggle to cook more than one thing at a time or follow multiple steps at a time. Things burned. I used all the shallots in the meatloaf and saved none of them for the other meal half of them were meant for – because who reads directions in advance?!
Me. And you. We should all read the directions quickly before we make things. It does limit the complications and makes cooking easier. Of course, I’ll never admit this to my husband. Obviously.
Dinnerly was great once my husband took over. He found it simple and easy, quick and efficient, and his cooking was far better than mine. We have already signed up to use Dinnerly again when we have the time to cook at home three nights a week – once the kids’ activities calm down a bit over summer vacation!
Dinnerly was a great choice for our family because we don’t like complicated meals. We like fresh food, healthy food, and we simply don’t care much for the ‘traditional’ dinner items most people eat on a regular basis. We like more veggies than anything else, we like everything fresh and nothing pre-packaged or frozen, and we like simple menu items that taste flawless. Dinnerly definitely delivered – literally and figuratively!
Visit Dinnerly to see for yourself what the subscription service is like, what it entails (you choose how often you want it and only get deliveries when you decide!), and what’s for dinner this week.
Tiffany Raiford 