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!
Plated sends each meal mostly packaged together in a plastic bag, except for meat, and any larger produce that may not fit. Each individually wrapped item is marked with the meal it belongs to so you can organize them in your refrigerator upon unpacking.
Chicken Paillard with Tomato-Corn Quinoa and Basil Oil
Calories per Serving: 860
Total Prep and Cook Time (listed): 45-55 minutes
Actual Time: 50 minutes
I subscribe to three meal kits monthly, plus will normally do at least one extra that isn't reoccurring. I manually skip three weeks in between each subscription, so sometimes I can get tripped up. I had accidentally skipped a Plated week that I shouldn't have and realized it about three days before it should have been delivered. A slight panic set in before I used their customer service chat to remedy the situation. The person I chatted with swiftly went into my account and made sure my meals were sent out on time. Phew! Glad to know that they made themselves available to me and fixed my mistake ASAP!
That being said, I didn't think about choosing my meals this week and was happy to receive anything. I love basil, quinoa, and chicken so this meal looked especially good to me!
I flew solo on this meal and made it after work one night.
The first part of the meal I prepared was the basil oil. It was super simple, just mix olive oil, chopped basil, lemon juice, and salt and pepper together.
Recipes don't normally call for me to smash up some meat, but this one was different. I put the chicken breasts between two pieces of plastic wrap and used a cast iron pan to pound to a 1/4" thickness.
The chicken then went into a large pan to cook 4 minutes per side on medium-high heat.
I had already prepped all of the vegetables, so the onions were sliced and ready to sauté in a separate pan. I really do enjoy the smell of cooked onions.
After the onions cooked for about five minutes, I added the garlic and halved cherry tomatoes. The delicious smell became greater still.
After the chicken was done, I moved it to the side and added the corn and almond slivers to the large pan it was in.
After the corn and almonds sauteed a bit, I added the wine and cooked until most of it evaporated.
Surprise! I had quinoa cooking this WHOLE TIME! It finished by now and didn't burn! Yay!
Now comes my favorite part- throwing everything together in that large pan! So glad I chose the right one because there was a lot to fit!
After everything partied together a bit, I squeezed the rest of the lemon in and added the spinach to wilt slightly.
Voila! By this time, it was dark outside so please excuse the indoor lighting. The quinoa mixture went onto the plate first, followed by the chicken breast, and then was finished with the basil oil.
I LOVED this meal! The chicken was cooked to perfection and stay super succulent. The onions were cooked to a reasonable potency to deal with. Everything came together in a beautiful marriage. I don't normally eat leftovers because I am a princess, but I ended taking this to work the next day to eat for lunch as well! It held up.
Brown Sugar-Chili Chicken Thighs with Roasted Potato Salad
Calories per Serving: 700
Total Prep and Cook Time (listed): 40-50 minutes
Actual Time: 50 minutes
You've heard me yammer on about how I don't normally prepare meat with bone-in, but this showed up and I just went along with it. Anything that involves dill will get my vote.
After choppin' everything up, I coated the veggies with salt, pepper, and oil before placing it on a baking sheet.
I then salt n' peppered the chicken thighs on both sides.
They then went skin-side down in a hot pan and slathered in half of the brown sugar-chili rub I had mixed together. After being seared for six minutes, they were flipped and put into the oven along with the sheet full of vegetables (about 18 minutes).
While everybody else was in the oven, I made the dressing for the potato salad. DILL THE PLANET!
Here are the thighs that I pulled out of the oven. So golden and crispy!
Mmmm, roasted potatoes...
The potatoes, corn, and peppers were added to the dressing bowl to coat and finish the potato salad.
And that's it! My complete meal. The meal kit came with four thighs (two per person) but they were on the small side. Honestly, it was enough for me, but it seemed like it wouldn't be at first.
I don't normally get down with potato salad but holy cow, I loved this! I straight up swear to you that I will make this for my next picnic! It really makes all the difference to make it yourself. It wasn't too coasted in the creamy dressing and rivals my previously favorite potato salad made by my friend Justin (which just happened to be vegan). I'm not super into thigh meat, but the skin on these babies was out of control tasty.
Verdict: Plated still reigns supreme for me as far as meal kits go. At about $12.00 per serving, it is at the top of the price point and is more expensive than meal kits like Home Chef, Hello Fresh, and Blue Apron; (all just under $10 per serving), but consistently delivers excellent meals that I love. It's also on par with another fave, Green Chef, which is organic and runs $11.99 per serving. I was also happy with the customer service that I received as well. I'm glad that they made it simple to contact them via chat.
Do you subscribe to Plated? What did you have this week?
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