July 1, 2020
RealEats Review
Category:
Prepared Meal Reviews
We were given a sample of Dinnerly to review. This post contains affiliate links and if you make a purchase we may be compensated. All opinions are our own.
Dinnerly takes a simple approach to meal kits – fewer quality ingredients per dish, easy kid-friendly recipes, digital recipe cards, and simple packaging. This combination allows for shorter cooking times and lower costs while providing meal kits that the whole family will love. Read on for our full Dinnerly review and unboxing video.
For this Dinnerly review, we ordered 4 portions of the Stir-Fried Peanut Noodles, the Chinese Take-Out Pepper Steak, and the Tuscan Rosemary Pork Tenderloin. We also ordered 4 portions of Dinnerly’s “Holiday Meals” which included Warm Sugar-Glazed Scones and a Sausage, Egg & Cheese Brunch Bake.
All of our ingredients were fresh upon arrival and lasted throughout the week while we made the recipes. Dinnerly recommends that you make seafood dishes within 1-2 days, ground meat and chicken within 2-3 days, and other meat and veggie dishes within 3-5 days. We thought we received everything but realized later that we only received a half portion of broccoli with the pork tenderloin dinner. We added a salad that we had on hand to complete the meal, but this is obviously disappointing. On the other hand, we had more than enough rice for the pepper steak dinner, noodles for the peanut noodle dinner, and potatoes for the pork tenderloin dinner.
Much of the Dinnerly packaging can be curbside recycled including the box, box liner, bottles, and containers. The ice gel packs can be emptied into the trash and then recycled at a local recycling center that accepts #4 plastic. The cool pouch and foil pouch can be recycled at centers that accept #4 and #7 plastic.
We love that Dinnerly uses less packaging compared to other meal kits, but that means your ingredients will need to be sorted and recipe cards do not come in your box. This isn’t a big deal for us, but some may have to get used to not having paper recipes or ingredients bundled together. If you love to keep your recipes to use later, don’t fret, they are all saved in your Dinnerly account.
All recipe instructions are online. This means that you have to pull them up on your phone, tablet, or laptop while cooking. We don’t mind this as it saves paper, but if you like to have paper recipes you may want to print out a copy before you start cooking for the week. The instructions are simple by design as Dinnerly uses fewer ingredients in their recipes. This cuts down on cost and prep/cook/clean up time. The instructions do not include images for each step, like other meal kits, but are still easy to follow. We always recommend reading the whole recipe before you begin!
Our favorite Dinnerly meal this week was the Chinese Take-Out Pepper Steak. It was both easy to make and tasted delicious. Like take out but better (healthier and less expensive!). The pork tenderloin was nice, but nothing special. We’ve seen this recipe before on Dinnerly as well as on other meal kit sites.
We were super excited to try the Holiday Meals as we have never ordered them before. We knew that we would be spending Easter at home this year and decided to add the brunch bake and scones to our weekly order. I made the scones with my 9-year-old son and he loved how easy it was. He read through the instructions and completed the recipe with little adult help. Yay! And they turned out so yummy. We had plenty of chocolate chips and cherries to pack into every scone. The sausage, egg, and cheese brunch bake was ok, but we felt like there was too much bread and not enough flavor. We added some red chile flakes to bump up the heat which helped. I would say this was more of a brunch stuffing that could be served as a side dish to your main course.
Yes! We enjoy Dinnerly for the ease of recipes, simplicity of meals, and low cost. We loved the Holiday Meals and would purchase them again as they made cooking our Easter brunch a breeze. With only 3 people eating we had plenty of food and leftovers for days. Our family loves global flavors and likes to try new recipes so for us we will order from Dinnerly when the menu is interesting and will keep them in our meal kit rotation.
More information can be found on the Dinnerly page on Meal Finds.
Wondering what your Dinnerly box of meal kits will look like? Watch the unboxing video below.
