Plated Subscription Box Review + Coupon – February 2017

Plated delivers a weekly box of pre-portioned fresh and seasonal ingredients, everything you need to cook their chef-designed recipes at home in your own kitchen. Each week, they offer a different menu, and you can select which dishes you’d like to make, how many plates of each dish you’d like to serve, and when you’d like to receive your delivery. You can skip a week at any time.

At least three of the dishes offered on every menu are vegetarian. Plated also regularly rotates in vegan and dairy-free options. They’re committed to using sustainably sourced seafood, seasonal produce, and meat that’s free from antibiotics and added hormones. (Check out Plated Menus to see what's coming in future weeks!)

Plated also makes it easy to pick recipes that suit your lifestyle. Each recipe clearly lists calorie content and prep time.

Check out all of our reviews of Meal Delivery Services to see every meal kit subscription box option!

My Subscription Addiction pays for this subscription. (Check out the review process post to learn more about how we review boxes.)

The Subscription Box: Plated

The Cost: Recipes begin at $12 per plate.

• 2 recipes (4 plates)= $48 per week (+ $6 shipping).
• 3 recipes (6 plates)= $72 per week (with free shipping).
• 4 recipes (8 total plates)= $96 per week (with free shipping).
• Dessert costs $4 per serving.

ACTIVE DEAL: Get 25% off your first four weeks (up to $159 in savings). No coupon needed - just use this link.

The Products: All of the pre-portioned fresh and seasonal ingredients you need to make chef-designed recipes at home in your own kitchen.

Ships to: 95% of the U/S. (Currently, Plated does not ship to Hawaii and Alaska, and there are also a few cities in Texas, including San Antonio, Corpus Christi, Laredo, and Midland, where they don’t yet ship.)

Check out all of our Plated Reviews and discover more meal boxes in the Meal Subscription Box Directory!

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Each week, Plated offers a different menu with 11 dishes to choose from. After your first order, you can also add on dessert at a cost of $4 per serving. There are two different desserts available each week.

When my box shipped, I received an email letting me know that I would need to have the following “pantry items” on hand: olive oil, black pepper, and kosher salt.

Plated packs every box with meats on the bottom, surrounded by cold packs, and everything else on top, bundled by recipe.

Meal #1-  Truffled Grilled Cheese with Creamy Tomato Soup

Calories Per Serving: 780

Cook Time: 25-35 minutes

For the week of Valentine’s Day, Plated released this dish that seemed perfect for a romantic night in. (How cute is the heart shaped grilled cheese?)

To make the soup, I combined vegetable stock, fire-roasted tomatoes, sugar, and water and brought it up to a simmer. After cooking for a few minutes, I used an immersion blender to puree the soup and then added heavy cream, Parmesan, crushed red pepper, and basil.

For the sandwiches, I layered cheese and truffle oil between slices of bread and then spread mayonnaise on the outside of the sandwiches before cooking them in a large pan on the stovetop.

The heart shaped sandwiches were adorable, but I’m quite fond of the crust so I decided to leave the sandwiches whole.

This meal was okay, but it didn’t wow me. First of all, I think the soup would have benefitted from cooking for a bit longer. It was nice, but I think a longer cooking time would have resulted in the flavors melding together a bit more. I also think the sandwiches were a little heavy on the truffle oil. I don’t mind truffle oil in small quantities, but I found the truffle flavor in this dish overwhelming.

Meal #2- White Pizza with Crispy Brussels Sprouts and Balsamic Glaze

Calories per Serving: 770

Cook Time: 35-45 minutes

For my next meal pick, I decided to go with this white pizza recipe.

I began by sautéing red onion and Brussels sprouts and seasoning them with red pepper flakes and maple syrup.

I then constructed the pizza by brushing the crust with olive oil, sprinkling on a layer of cheese, dusting on some herbes de Provence, and topping the pizza with the veggie mix.

I baked the pizza until the cheese started to bubble and the crust browned. When it was ready, I took it out of the oven to cool slightly and then drizzled over some balsamic glaze.

Unfortunately, this dish was another miss. I’m usually a big fan of Plated’s pizza recipes, but this one did not work for me. The veggies were spicy (from the red pepper flakes) but also really sweet (from the maple syrup), and I didn’t think that the addition of the balsamic glaze complemented the other flavors. Overall, there was just too much going on flavor-wise.

Meal #3- Moo Shu Chicken with Pancakes

Calories: 670

Cook Time: 25-35 minutes

For my last dish this week, I decided to go with Moo Shu Chicken Pancakes, one of Plated’s fan-favorite encore recipes.

I roasted the chicken for this dish in the oven and then prepped the veggies. In a hot sauté pan, I cooked garlic, ginger, red cabbage, mixed mushrooms, and scallions.

When the chicken was cooked through, I chopped it and added it to the pan with the veggies. I mixed in soy sauce and hoisin sauce and then constructed the pancakes.

I can see why this is a fan-favorite recipe! The pancakes were extremely tasty, and this meal ended up being my favorite of the week. I loved the combination of chicken, cabbage, and mushrooms, and the sweet and salty seasoning was delicious.

Verdict: This box from Plated had some highs and lows. I loved the Moo Shu Pancakes, but I wasn’t too hot on the other dishes. Plated is a little pricier than some of the other subscription meal boxes out there (Home Chef, Hello Fresh, and Blue Apron are all a bit more affordable), but Plated regularly comes up with recipes that really wow me. This box wasn’t a home run, but it’s a rare miss. For that reason, it’s one of the meal boxes I look forward to most every month.

Do you subscribe to Plated? Have you tried any of the meals I picked this week?