Subscription Box Review - Mindful Chef

 

This is another recipe subscription box popular at the moment. It focuses more on healthy foods and the recipes don't include any refined carbs. The recipes are all nutritionist approved and each recipe has details of calories, fat, sugar etc if you're into monitoring that kind of thing.

I ordered a box containing 2 meals for 2 people just to try it out. There was a January £10 off offer for your first 2 boxes so it cost £19. There were plenty of recipes to choose from including vegan, gluten free and meat/fish options.

My box arrived in a 1 hour delivery slot which I'd been texted earlier that day. It was well packed with each recipes ingredients in separate brown paper bags.

You also get a magazine which has all the recipes inside. Each bag has a number on it that matches the recipes in the magazine. 

The first recipe we made was Pork with Colcannon & Mustard Sauce. I started the preparation as laid out in the instructions, chopping and mixing things ready to start cooking. It is easier that all the ingredients are pre-weighed/measured for the amount you need but there was still a lot of prep. It wasn't the easiest of recipes which surprised me as one of the ads I'd seen for Mindful Chef said it was ideal for the novice cook. I don't agree as at one point there were 3 pans on the go and there must be much simpler ways to make a similar dish.

I feel like I'm a person who's followed a lot of recipes and I found the instructions difficult to make sense of sometimes. I had to constantly read and re-read sections to make sure I was doing it correctly.

The finished meal was delicious and we both enjoyed it although it did take longer to make than our usual evening meals. It was filling and seemed a good portion of food with plenty of veg.

Next, we made Asian Pork Meatballs, Kale & Brown Rice.

This recipe was equally complicated but it did seem worth the effort as the finished meal was delicious. The meatballs were tasty and moist inside. The vegetables were also flavoursome and the brown rice added some texture to the whole meal. This was our favourite of the two meals and I thought it was well put together.

Overall, I'd recommend this subscription service to anyone wanting to eat healthier without having to organise it themselves. The food provided was all of good quality and well portioned out. The pork steaks were particularly nice. I feel that is one of the plus-sides of this service. 

An advert on Facebook for Mindful Chef suggest that the meals are cheaper than buying food in the supermarket which is just nonsense (unless you shop at M&S perhaps). They should market it for what it is, a service for people without the time to meal-plan or shop but who have plenty of money to spend on meals. 

I enjoyed trying it out but will stick to planning my own meals with food from the supermarket.