Dinnerly Meal Kit Subscription Box Review & Coupon – August 2017

Dinnerly is a subscription meal delivery service brought to you by Marley Spoon. It was created for people who like homemade cooking, but don’t like overpaying for the good things in life. They use the same quality ingredients as other meal kits, but keep the cost low by taking a simpler approach: digital recipe cards instead of paper, fewer ingredients per dish (which means less chopping and cleaning), simple packaging, and no fancy marketing campaigns.

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

Preeetttty cute box, Dinnerly!

This box was sent to us at no cost for review. (Check out the review process post to learn more about how we review boxes.)

This review is for the $68.99 Family Box (3 recipes for 2 adults and 2 kids).

Dinnerly ingredients come packaged inside recyclable foam cocoon with ice packs to keep everything cold until you can get it into your refrigerator.

Hurray! Buns packaged on top so they aren't crushed!

I like that they have a reminder to keep digging down to get to the items that need more chill.

One of the box flaps has a handy little checklist of what to do once you open your box.

The other flap has info on customer service, and where to access more info!

The Box: Dinnerly

The Cost: $30.99 a week + $8.99 shipping

ACTIVE DEAL: Use code PBYYGREZ to get 57.5% off first box and 20% off the next 3 orders
CODE: PBYYGREZ

Choose between a $30.99 Two Person Box (3 recipes for 2 people) or $60.99 Family Box (3 recipes for 2 adults and 2 kids)

The Products: Pre-portioned ingredients to cook meals in under 30 minutes. Each meal includes 6 ingredients and Dinnerly features quality ingredients like antibiotic chicken and free range ground beef to make family favorite meals like spaghetti with sausage meatballs and pan roasted chicken.

Ships to: U.S. Only

Good to Know: Dinnerly currently delivers to California and will include most of Washington, Oregon, Nevada, Utah, and Idaho, with expansion to midwest and southern regions expected by the end of August 2017. UPDATE! These states are now included: most of Texas, Illinois, Georgia, Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Colorado, Iowa, Louisiana, Arkansas, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia and Florida. 

Check out more Meal Delivery Services in the Food Subscription Box Directory!

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

Grass-Fed American Chop Suey

Nutritional Information per Serving: Calories 800, Fat 24.1g, Proteins 49.4g, Carbs 92.6g

Total Time According to Dinnerly: 40 minutes

Actual Time: 40 minutes

Dinnerly doesn't include paper recipes, so I had mine downloaded to my phone and would reference it there (I took screen shots to add here). I have to say, even though I appreciate that they're not cutting down more trees than needed (as well as keeping costs low), paper recipes are way easier than unlocking my phone when it goes to sleep, and zooming in and out with messy hands. I would suggest printing these out if you're able unless you have a tablet you normally use in the kitchen.

I was initially impressed with how few ingredients were needed for each recipe. It can be fun to get a recipe with loads of stuff, but also a relief when it's kept simple. A beloved friend was in town this week, so I brought this recipe and the next over to a friends house for a big gathering and cooked two meals at once for eight adults. Each of the recipes I received is suggested to serve two adults and two children, so I figured it'd be more than enough.

This one started with a large nonstick pan, and the onions were chopped and added first. Dinnerly included two large yellow onions, but the recipe called for "11 ounces". I'm sure that's a much more accurate measurement, but I'm so used to only receiving what I need and was like "ughhh i have to measure this out to see how much 11 ounces is?!" I'm a brat.

Next, I added the ground beef. Things were starting to smell delicious as it browned, then I added the chili powder provided. Again, it told me the measurement (4 teaspoons), which had me little confused, instead of just saying "add that whole packet we gave you". They didn't say that because they give you 1/2 ounce of the chili powder, which is technically only 3 teaspoons (even though that's a conversion for fluid ounces). It also doesn't make sense that they say to "reserve the rest for your own use" because I am down a teaspoon at this point, and have none left for future use (insert this meme). I ended up adding the whole packet. Someone, please send help.

Then, I was instructed to add the two full cans of tomatoes, plus five cups of water, and the pasta and started getting nervous about pan space. I mean, this was a large pan, but we were cutting it close. I added the tomatoes and four cups of water first.

I then added the pasta. Eeek! Also, the wording with this step said "Finish Pasta", which confused me because I thought "Finish? I never started it!". Semantics. I waited for this to simmer a while and my friend Ben remembered to add that last cup of water once things had thickened up a bit.

Once it was all in there, I let it cooked for 18 minutes and it was done!

I know, it isn't the most appealing photo to look at, but it was REALLY GOOD.

I opted to put some parmesan cheese on top, which wasn't included but my friend happened to have on hand. All in all, this was a one-pan meal which was awesome. Just make sure it's a HUGE pan, ok?

Harissa-Spiced Chicken

Nutritional Information per Serving: Calories 720, Fat 31.8g, Proteins 46.8g, Carbs 57.7g

Total Time According to Dinnerly: 30 minutes

Actual Time: 35 minutes

Another thing that's unique to Dinnerly is that they include suggestions for different ways to complete your meal at the end. Here, they've suggested different wines that would pair well with this chicken, as well as other options like beer or mint iced tea.

Here are the simple ingredients. Just five things!

While my friend Ben was chopping onion and potatoes, I took the chicken out and sliced into it down to the bone, as directed so that the spices could seep in.

We put the sliced onions and potatoes on a baking sheet and tossed them with olive oil, salt, and pepper.

We mixed the harissa spice blend with olive oil and coated the chicken drumsticks in it. There didn't seem to be quite enough for all of them, so we added a bit more olive oil and it was fine. Then we added them to the baking sheet with the veggies.

It all cooked for 20 minutes before I moved it up under the broiler. That initial direction also confused me because my oven has the broiler at the bottom, and it says to move it to the "upper rack". My friends basically then shamed me for having an old oven and explained that most newer ones have the broiler up top now. Now I know.

It wasn't until much later that I woke up in a cold sweat, realizing I completely forgot to add the spinach. Sigh. Here we have it plated, with the chicken, onions, and fingerling potatoes.

Even without the spinach, this meal was a hit with my friends. I normally don't eat chicken with the bone in, so it was a treat to prepare something a different way.

Griddled Onion Turkey Burgers

Calories per Serving:

Total Time According to Dinnerly: 30 minutes

Actual Time: 25 minutes

The tip they have on this recipe is to make a garlic mayo for fry-dipping.

Let's ignore the fact that I didn't include the onion in this pic, ok?  Let's also pretend I didn't use the only two red onions included in the box for the chicken recipe. I think that's why I'd rather the recipe say "slice one red onion" as opposed to "11 ounces of onion". I'm a mess. I just ran out and grabbed a red onion at my local bodega, so no harm done.

Ok, so I sliced the sweet potatoes into wedges, tossed with olive oil, salt, and pepper, and popped them in the oven.

While they were baking, I added some finely chopped onion to the ground turkey with salt and pepper. The recipe called for me to grate the onion, but that didn't really work our for me, so I finely chopped about 1/4 of the one red onion (the rest was sliced and kept in rings). This is also when I realized that raw ground turkey isn't very appetizing. I then molded them into patties and set them aside.

The onion rings then went into the pan with olive oil.

Next, I put the turkey burgers in the pan, plopping them right on top of the two largest onion rings to imbed them.

After they cooked for three minutes on each side, I added the cheese. The cheese that it came with was in the form of sticks, so I opted to cut them in half length wise and crosswise to fit the burger better.

Here are the fries once they came out of the oven.

The last step was to toast the buns in the pan. Good tip!

Here's the burger, fully assembled with the fries. Instead of making garlic mayo, I ended up doing Srirachi mayo. Tastsy!

This was the first time I've made turkey burgers and I think it went well! I'm also not normally a fan of sweet potato, but these fries were hecka dope. The burger had a lot of onion (some which I pulled off after the photo and before eating), but it added a TON of flavor. I gobbled this down super fast.

Verdict: Dinnerly is by far the cheapest meal kit I've heard of at $5.00 per person, per meal, as most of the others start at $9.99 per person, (like Blue Apron). The meals I received weren't cutting edge with tons of ingredients, but they were still super tasty and made everyone happy. You don't have the option to switch recipes with this subscription, but I have a feeling they won't steer you wrong. The only downfall was my interpretation of some of the directions, but the more meal kits I try, the more I learn. 

What do you think of Dinnerly?