The butcherbox
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David lives in Brooklyn where he’s logged more than a decade writing about all things edible, including meal kits and meal delivery subscriptions, cooking, kitchen gear and commerce. Since earning a BA in English from Northeastern in Boston, he’s toiled in nearly every aspect of the eats business from slicing and dicing as a sous-chef in Rhode Island to leading complex marketing campaigns for major food brands in Manhattan. Kitchen tech, food, cooking, commerce, meal delivery and meal kits. There are meal kits for every taste, diet and budget, including affordable meal kits that are about the same price as if you’d bought the groceries yourself.
We love a deal here at CNET, but not at the expense of quality, so I put the most wallet-friendly meal kit in 2022 to the ultimate test. 5 per serving if you order a meal plan with recipes for four. With a price that seemed too good to be true I had to try the service for myself. It’s the best budget meal kit service I’ve yet to try and the one I’d recommend for anyone seeking an inexpensive meal kit service to help lighten your weekly cooking load. Read more: Are Meal Kits More Expensive Than Buying the Groceries? For plans, you can choose either three, four or five meals per week with either two or four servings per meal.
The price per serving stays the same no matter which plan you choose, so there is never any is-this-a-better-deal calculus to perform. Just order what you think you’ll need. Next comes the fun part: You pick meal kits from a menu of roughly 13-16 recipes. The meals change weekly with favorites popping back into the rotation often. There is loads of information available about each one including calories, nutrition and the time it takes to make.
Meal kit deliveries come sealed with large ice packs and are meant to stay cold for up to 48 hours, just in case you’re not home to receive them on a particular day. On any given weekly menu you’ll find options for meatloaf, pork chops, chicken pot pie, tacos and pasta recipes. Sides are equally hearty, including lots of mashed potatoes, roasted carrots, white rice and noodles. There are really only lunch and dinner meal kits and no breakfast or snack options, although you can select a protein pack of chicken breasts and ground beef for meal-planning purposes. The most complicated recipe I made was meatloaf and even that took just 30 minutes. Each card also clearly states what you’ll need that isn’t provided — cooking oil, butter, ketchup — so you’re not caught flat-footed without. If you’ve chosen to swap a side or protein, there are little addendums up in the corner to address any slight changes to the recipe.
There aren’t a lot of decisions to make, starting with the meal kit plan itself. Busy people, too, since it’s also a time-saver, eliminating trips to the store as well as time spent ruminating over what to make. 6 a serving if you only order recipes for two. It was simple to make but interesting and also very satisfying. Putting wasabi in mashed potatoes is definitely my new default. Sweet potato and pepper quesadilla with fresh salsa and chipotle sour cream: This was a perfect hearty lunch, especially when you feel like you’ve been eating too much meat.
The fresh salsa made it for me and I’ll put sour cream on anything. Spicy umami pork chops with ginger rice and roasted carrots: Another very simple-yet-flavorful dinner. The hoisin and ponzu made good on the promise of umami and the fresh ginger made the rice really pop. The company puts all your produce and other ingredients in one cardboard box, whereas others individually package each meal creating more plastic and waste. Most of the packaging, including the cooler box and ice packs, are also curbside-recyclable. At just five bucks a serving, I also felt like I was getting a genuinely great deal, and that’s probably because I was.
