DIY Meal Delivery Kit or Meal Planning App?

April 2, 2018 11:11 AM

I got a free week of one of the meal delivery services. Is there a way to replicate that without the hefty price tag? What sort of meal planning apps or sites do you use and why?

What I liked:
-ability to choose 3 meals out of about 6, so some choice, but not overwhelming
-mains plus sides, whole meal taken into account
-fairly simple, everyday type meals - I think I chose cheeseburgers, shrimp tacos, and pork tenderloin (that examples aside, vegetarian or vegan options welcome!)
-whole meal step-by-step directions - put this in oven, then chop that
-in season ingredients
-shopping list
-healthy choices
-kid-friendly modifications/suggestions. Unfortunately my kid is a picky eater, but he gets fed so I don't need to necessarily plan this around him. I think it’s fairly important that he see me enjoying a varied diet, so I don’t want to completely cater to him
-the app with the whole meal prep broken into about 6-7 slides. That simplified things for me in my head (I have a 3 year old who never stops talking, so following long write-ups is hard)
-ability to select or adjust recipes for 2 people. I’m the only adult in my household, so I rarely want to cook a dish that’ll serve 4. 1 portion of leftovers is fine, 3 is too much (even for freezer, etc)
-I want to start with about 3-4 meals a week, not 7 (or 21!)

Could do without:
-expensive price. I’m willing to pay some, but $60 for 6 portions is too much. I’m willing to shop for my own groceries

Does not need to have:
-ingredients shipped to my house
-ingredients used in more than one recipe (ie: chop onion on Monday for use on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday)

I used What To Cook This Week on Epicurious once and it was great, but I've found my interest in the recipes varies significantly week-to-week and sometimes it makes me feel overwhelmed.

posted by valeries to Food & Drink (11 answers total)

Blue Apron puts up all their recipes, and you can search by protein/main ingredient, by cuisine, by season, or use the week-by-week recipe sets. You can get each recipe as a PDF (so if you want to save or print a full cookbook for yourself, you can), and there are user-supplied tips, which often include modification suggestions.

It might be a little overwhelming in the choice sense, though, since there's a lot on there.
posted by halation at 11:20 AM on April 2, 2018 [6 favorites]

I tried eMeals a while back. I thought it was pretty good, but I couldn't get my husband to buy into the idea. If I were the sole decision maker, I think I'd still be using it. It meets most of your qualifications, including the ability to adjust recipes for 2 people. Not sure about the format of the recipe being in slides - it wasn't when I used it but that was a few years ago.
posted by Kriesa at 11:27 AM on April 2, 2018 [1 favorite]

You may be able to find inexpensive meal kits at your local Walmart.
posted by capricorn at 11:31 AM on April 2, 2018

Best answer: Mealime may work. You choose what kind of diet you eat and then pick from a menu of choices, as many meals as you like. You can set the meals for two or for four. You can exclude recipes with some ingredients if they're deal breakers. There's a grocery list. It's free! I think the paid version only gets you more recipes and detailed nutritional breakdowns.

The main problem I see for you is that the recipe is just a normal text recipe: no cards, no photos.
posted by hollyholly at 11:35 AM on April 2, 2018 [8 favorites]

I really like What To Cook and How To Cook It by Jane Hornby. It's neither a service nor an app but it does have the format that you're looking for and there's a good, but not overwhelming, amount of recipes. You would need to buy the ingredients yourself but could you order them online?

The format also works as a picture book - you could read through with your child, talking them through the pictures and what you'll be excited about making, or deciding together what to plan for the week.
posted by freya_lamb at 11:56 AM on April 2, 2018

I use CookSmarts for almost exactly this. However, the directions are numbered bullets, not slides.
posted by samthemander at 11:56 AM on April 2, 2018

I'm very pleased with the Paprika recipe manager and it checks your boxes for recipe scaling, scheduling flexibility and grocery list management.

The only thing I'm unsure of is that it doesn't come with a built-in recipe database, so you'd have to look for recipes that interested you - whether on the Blue Apron site or wherever else - and load them into the app (which is super easy as the app automatically strips out the ingredients and instructions, but it's an extra step.)
posted by superfluousm at 11:59 AM on April 2, 2018

Not sure if it helps, but when we switched to the vegetarian option in Blue Apron, I was pleasantly surprised when they seemed to overcompensate for the lack of meat by including way more vegetables. Meaning we almost always got dinner and lunch the next day out of each meal, so $5 per meal instead of $10!
posted by Grither at 12:47 PM on April 2, 2018

Seconding Mealime. I've been using it for a couple years now.
posted by lazuli at 1:25 PM on April 2, 2018

Marley Spoon makes all their recipes available in the mobile app, even if you cancel your account. You can sign up for the free first box and cancel immediately after - I had friends who did this and they weren't charged at all. As a former paid user of the service who can't afford it right now, having free access to the recipes has been super helpful. I particularly like the way they seem to be written with tired/busy/stressed people in mind - there's no getting to the end of a recipe and then realising you should have preheated the oven, for example. It really is simple and step by step.
posted by embrangled at 6:45 PM on April 2, 2018

Update! Cooking mode in Mealime shows cards for steps (no pictures), I discovered tonight while cooking.
posted by hollyholly at 8:47 PM on April 4, 2018