Plated Subscription Box Review + Coupon – June 2017

Plated is a weekly meal kit delivery subscription that delivers you pre-portioned ingredients and recipes to help you make chef-designed recipes at home. They offer different weekly menus and randomly pick recipes for you based on preferences you submit when you sign up. If you'd rather pick your own recipes from the weekly menu, it's easy to hop in and change your order on their website or their handy-dandy app.

I've tried a couple of other meal kits thus far and it's really made me love cooking, which I previously didn't like doing. I don't think I have the creative mind to come up with things that'd be tasty, and even though I'm good at following recipes, I always end up spending so much money gathering all the ingredients to make one meal I may have found on Pinterest. Being a single lady whose roomie (who normally eats all of my leftovers) is gone for long periods at a time, it takes forever for me to get through a normal-sized box, bag, or package of anything. Produce usually spoils by the time I can use all of it, and I hate being wasteful! What I'm trying to say is that I love how many meal boxes are available because they're perfect for me.

Plated is committed to using sustainably sourced seafood, seasonal produce, and meat that’s free from antibiotics and added hormones. Like most meal kits, Plated won't include standard pantry items (think salt, pepper, olive oil). They will, however, email you to let you know what pantry items you should have on hand for that week's box. Prep time and dietary details are listed with each recipe. And if you love a recipe, you can rate it and download a digital recipe card via your online account. (Highly rated recipes sometimes come back as "Encore" recipes for you to order again, so don't forget to leave your star rating each week!)

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

This review is for the 2 recipes (4 plates)= $48 per week (+ $6 shipping), plan. I chose to have chicken, beef, shellfish, and fish as options to include in my recipes. 

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 (available after your first order)

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!

Keep Track of Your Subscriptions: Add this box to your subscription list or wishlist!

Buffalo Chicken Pizza with Greek Yogurt Ranch Dressing

Calories per Serving: 760

Total Prep and Cook Time: 30-40 minutes

I'm so excited for this recipe because I'm a major pizza fan (who isn't?) and buffalo chicken is probably my favorite kind, which is not available at every pizza shop!

Per usual, all of the needed ingredients come packed in the perfect portion sizes that you'll need. Plated has pretty minimal packaging which is important to consider. They even included butter, and parchment paper, which I normally have on hand but am happy to have portioned out.

The instructions are clear and precise and include some photos. They also include recipe tips if applicable. The thing I have the most trouble with when cooking outside the meal plan box is how to time everything. Plated does a great job of organizing things based on time, so you are always prepping something while another part of the meal is cooking.

Here are my little chickie breast friends cooking. While that was happening, I was making the ranch dressing which I can't show you because I forgot to take a picture! Blerg! I was actually pretty stoked to have to make it instead of it just being included in a packet. Can you believe I've never made ranch dressing? It was just buttermilk, greek yogurt, mayo, and some salt + pepper. Plus this lovely chopped chives:

Next, I had to roll out the included pizza dough:

I've had some trouble with dough in the past, but this was easy to roll out and I was also impressed that they included a bit of flour to put down beforehand.

I brushed the dough with olive oil after placing it on my baking sheet (with that included parchment paper), then added the TWO kinds of cheese and popped that bad boy in the oven. YUM.

While that was baking, I made the buffalo sauce, which I also shockingly have never made. So simple now that I know, and it smelled amazing.

I had chopped up my cooked chicken breasts, and now put them into the buffalo sauce pan to coat.

After 12 minutes, my dough and cheese were perfectly browned! Have you ever seen something so beautiful?

All that was left was to put the chicken on, and drizzle the ranch dressing! No more cooking needed.

Even though the pizza was rectangular shaped, I opted to cut into triangles anyhow. 😉

Gaaaaaah, this was really tasty pizza, everyone! I was really happy how it turned out. This is something I could easily make again myself when I'm feeling the urge. It was also enough to feed myself and two friends, even though it is a "meal for two". The only bummer is that I wish it had a side salad or something to go with it. I suppose that one is on me. Harumph.

Coconut-Poached Chicken with Jasmine Rice and Crispy Shallots

Calories per Serving: 600

Total Prep and Cook Time: 30-40 minutes

The next recipe I got was also a chicken dish, which is kind of a bummer since I'd like to try as many different meat recipes as possible, but chicken is my favorite, so I'll let it go.  I suppose I could have swapped out this recipe for something else, but I love anything with coconut, so it looked really tasty to me!

Here we have our lovely meal 2 ingredients. Mmmm coconut milk...

The first thing I did was put the rice on since it takes a while to cook. Then I prepped my chicken with salt and pepper and added it with most of the can of coconut milk (reserving a few tablespoons) in a large pan.

While that was all cooking, I started to prep the mint, chives, basil, and the cutest little hot pepper.

Then I made the dressing, which again, is the easiest darn thing to make, and yet I never do it (unless ordered to by a meal kit). When will I learn?

Once the chicken was done, I shredded it with two forks (which is something I learned from my favorite slow cooker verde chicken recipe years ago).

The final step before plating was to fry the shallots. My friend Shadrach took care of this while I was doing the above chicken-shredding, bless his heart. While on the topic, I'll mention that this Plated box is the first meal kit I've made with help from another person, and it was super fun! I'm used to making them alone, and while it's 100% achievable, making a meal together was a rather enjoyable experience.

After everything was finished, the directions have you add the chicken, along with all of the veggies, to the salad dressing and toss.

And voila! We have our completed, plated, coconut-poached chicken, served with salad over rice.

I kind of love putting a big ol' salad on top of something warm, like the rice here. It's not something I would ever think to do! The chicken had the perfect amount of coconut essence, and I loved the included mint and basil in the salad. There were no leftovers between the two of us, and I felt pretty healthy even after consuming this large mound of food.

Verdict: My first Plated experience was a success! I really enjoyed both recipes and had no problems following the recipes, and prepping all of the ingredients with ease. I was bummed that the pizza didn't have a bit of a side, but it was still filling. At about $12.00 per serving, it's more than some of the other major meal kits (like Home Chef, Hello Fresh, and Blue Apron), but on-par with other (like Green Chef, which is organic). It all depends on what you're after with a meal kit! At the end of the day, I don't have a fridge full of rotting produce and didn't have to go grocery shopping. I also got to try two new recipes, and taunt my friends with delicious food pics, showing how awesome of a chef I am now. That is truly priceless.

Have you tried Plated? What do you think?