There are so many food meal services on the market; some claim to make dinner prep faster; others profess to save you money; and many will apparently teach you to cook like a pro. We’ve been on a mission to test out these claims. We’ve tried out Blue Apron, Green Chef, and Dinnerly.
I feel a little bit like Goldilocks trying out these meal services. This one is too expensive; this one’s too complicated; this one’s recipes are too basic. But I think I found the one that’s just right: Plated. Now, everything wasn’t perfect—but it interested me enough to keep going. Plated offered me my first box to try for this review, but I was intrigued enough with the recipes and the ease of making them that I kept going beyond my first week and have continued paying for meals for a few weeks on my own.
But let’s back up to how I got to this “perfect” box: When you sign up for Plated, you can select whether you want recipes that serve two, three or four people; and for each box, you can decide if want to receive meals for two, three or four nights a week. I went with serving for two, three nights a week. Without discounts, that would be $71.70 per week. Currently, new customers receive a discount for the first four weeks.