We Test Easy Dinners with Dinnerly

Coming home from work with dinner on your mind… what shall we eat tonight? Do we have the ingredients in the fridge? Do we have the recipe handy? It can all be a little too much. Whether it is a weekly shop at the local grocery or a daily stop, it isn’t a good use of your time to think all of this through and prepare all the ingredients, recipe etc. So, a service named Dinnerly was started and it aims to make healthy dinners easy for you and the family to enjoy minus some of the fuss.

Dinnerly is not a service which ships you meals that just need to be thrown into the microwave for 10 minutes and consumed on a carefully balance tray while you watch TV. It ships you all the ingredients you need to make three healthy meals for the week for two or four people.

The ingredients shipped are exact to minimise wastage that occurs through our normal shopping habits, there are no left over ingredients here. You’ll also receive the recipes in advance so you’ll know what to be excited about but also ready to prepare the meal when the day arrives. The recipes we tried were all rather straight forward without a culinary masters course required.

The whole box, meat, veggies, spices and more, arrives in the wee hours of the morning, the delivery person won’t bang on your door to wake you, they leave it at the door and SMS you a photo of the box. This is perfect to wake up in the morning, bring the goods inside and pack them away, it brings up the tooth fairy experience from when you were a child.

It was really interesting to unpack the loaded box and see the care that went into ensuring the meat stays cold, the veggies arrive crisp and the canned or boxed items aren’t squashing anything. We were a little surprised to see some items such as the zucchini come as a half, literally cut in half. For an item that will now sit and wait for the day it is included in the recipe, I would have preferred it to remain whole. We decided to cook that one as soon as possible to avoid any wastage. What was also interesting was that some recipes will indicate whether certain ingredients will require you to already have it or buy it in preparation. This could be as simple of olive oil or garlic but one recipe required tomato paste which we don’t normally keep stock of, so be ready to read those recipes before cooking day!

Importantly, nutrition is important in any meal and with Dinnerly we found all of the recipes to be full of vegetables, quality meat and a good balance of flavour. All three meals tasted great and none were oily or fatty in any way. The portions felt like a good amount and going back for seconds wasn’t required. We also learned a few things through the recipes which we can use when Dinnerly is not in our house for any reason.

On the Dinnerly website you’ll find weeks in advance to highlight the dishes you’ll be receiving for dinner. You are not locked into the system and don’t need to receive a box for the week if you so choose. We love a no commitment deal. Speaking of deals, how much does it all cost? For two people you will be looking at $47.95 including delivery and for four people it is $77.95. This is three dinners so the break out is as low as $5.75 per portion.

If you’re time poor, or not creative, or just want things to be laid out for you, but you enjoy cooking at home for your family then this is a really good option for nutritious dinners at home. We love that we’re moving away from the frozen meals concept and onto wholesome, fresh ingredients that have real flavour and still follow the loving process of cooking.

More info: Dinnerly