Looking for your next meal kit delivery service? Time to check out Plated!
I tried Plated for four weeks. Read my review below to decide whether Plated is the meal kit delivery service for you.
Plans & Cost
Plated’s meal plans are straightforward and easy to understand. First, you decide how many servings you want per meal (2, 3, or 4). Next, you decide how many meals (recipes) you want per week (2, 3, or 4).
The meal plans with 3 or 4 servings per meal are $9.95 per meal. The meal plan with 2 servings per meal is $11.95 per meal.
This is what that means in real numbers: If you get the meal plan with 2 servings per meal and 3 meals/recipes per week, your weekly cost would be $71.70 (2 x 3 x $11.95). This is the option I selected.
BONUS: You can get 25% off your first month with Plated using my discount link.
Selection Options
Each week, you have the option to choose from 20 recipes. Let me pause there. That’s 20 – TWENTY! – options. Some other meal delivery services only offer six options! The sheer number of options was a huge plus for Plated.
I loved the huge variety of meals. My only problem was deciding what to pick.
Packaging
Overall, Plated had much less packaging compared to some other meal kit services. It’s a long walk to my building’s recycling and garbage bins. I prefer to take this walk as few times as possible, so I highly value reduced packaging!
The meals were individually packaged (which I loved!), but there wasn’t too much extra wrapping of individual ingredients within the package. Plus, the box was smaller than some other meal kit services. This all helped to reduce the volume of packaging.
One minus was that padded bags were used for insulation. Although these bags might be recyclable, many cities don’t accept these types of materials in general recycling because it’ll jam up the recycling machines. That means a special trip to the recycling center or the bags get tossed into the regular trash.
Difficulty to Prepare
Cooks at all skill levels should find these meals pretty easy to prepare. I’m by no means a skilled cook but had no problem cooking the meals.
Using the estimated completion time on the recipe card as a guide, it usually took me the full time (and sometimes more) to complete the meal. Part of this was due to the volume of chopping, mincing, slicing, etc. of fruits and veggies. I had music or a podcast playing in the background to help pass the time.
There were some important instructions on the sidebar of the recipe card. For some meal kit services, I’ve missed those sidebar instructions. But Plated did a good job of referring to those sidebar notes in the main section of the recipe card. This was one of the few meal kit services where I didn’t miss any important steps!
Taste
I absolutely loved 5 out of the 12 recipes I tried with Plated. That’s a huge percentage compared to some other meal kit services I’ve tried. Plated even posts all of its recipes online, so I can recreate my favorite recipes, even when it’s not offered that week for delivery.
Because of the huge variety of options (did I mention there were 20?!), there was a wide range of flavors. In one week, I had Cuban, Greek, and Italian all through Plated.
Of the 12 meals I tried, I loved 5 of the meals, liked 6 of the meals, and didn’t care for 1 (primarily because it didn’t reheat very well and I depend on leftovers for lunch).
Portion Size
Plated’s portion sizes were generous. I could have easily turned my 2 portion sizes into 3 or even 4 for most of the meals. (But I didn’t…it was just too good to stop myself from completing the meal!)
The bigger portion sizes do mean more calories, so be mindful of that when you’re in the process of inhaling your meal like I did!
Delivery
For my area, I had the option to get my delivery on any day of the week. That was a pleasant surprise compared to some other delivery services, where I sometimes had the option for only one or two delivery days a week.
With the option to have delivery any day of the week, it was easy to fit Plated meals into my schedule. I didn’t have to worry about not being home for delivery or getting the meals on a day of the week that made it difficult to cook the meals timely.
For the four weeks that I tried Plated, the deliveries arrived before 6PM. This was key for me. A number of other meal kit services made deliveries after 8PM. Because those services delivered so late, I couldn’t cook a recipe on the same day as delivery day. That wasn’t the case with Plated. Because the deliveries arrived before 6PM, I was able to cook the same day as delivery.
Although I tried Plated for four weeks, I actually ordered Plated for five weeks. Unfortunately, the delivery never arrived for one of the weeks. Plated credited me for the meal, but I would have preferred to have received the meals for that week.
Customer Service
I didn’t receive my delivery for one of the weeks that I tried Plated. A missed delivery isn’t that unusual in my experience with other meal kit delivery services. However, other services have reached out to me before the missed delivery to let me know that there was going to be a problem. I didn’t hear from Plated until the next day.
But when Plated did reach out to me, they told me they had already credited my account, which I appreciated. With some other meal kit services, I had to request the credit before it was provided.
Other than the missed delivery, I didn’t have any other reason to be in touch with Plated‘s customer service. The other meals were delivered timely, all the ingredients were provided, the ingredients were fresh, and the meals were delicious.
Overall Notes
Plated is one of my favorite meal kit services I’ve tried so far. I recommend Plated to anyone who loves a lot of variety, good portion sizes, and super tasty meals!
If you’re ready to try Plated, be sure to use my discount link to get 25% off your first month of deliveries.
Happy dining!
