DropChef - Delicious or Half-Baked?

If you’ve spent as much time on YouTube as I have, that is to say far too much, you’ve likely come across ads or placements for the likes of HelloFresh or DropChef. I certainly have, more than once. These meal kit delivery services are seemingly everywhere since the start of the pandemic. But, given the millions they seem to invest in marketing, are they actually worth the considerable price they’re asking? Well, as I’ll likely be mostly housebound for another couple of weeks, I decided to find out, particularly with regards to DropChef, as HelloFresh is not available here in Ireland.

Now, I generally consider myself to be a somewhat decent cook, and I certainly have the waistline to prove it, or is that an event horizon? However, I’ve recently found myself to be in a recipe rut, always cooking the same five to seven recipes, simply because they’re fast. What’s more, they’re not always the healthiest recipes either, to put it mildly. So, I signed up for DropChef, with their regular plan and three meals a week.

Yeah, that’s all fine and dandy, whatever… But what the hell is DropChef. At its heart, it’s a meal kit subscription service. The principle is simple. You go to the DropChef website or mobile app, select the dishes you want from a menu that changes weekly and once a week, a box gets shipped to you that contains all the ingredients needed for the dishes you selected, perfectly portioned for the number of people you’re looking to feed. The advantages are obvious. There’s less food waste since you only get what you actually need. The changing menu ensures you get a varied diet, whilst the composition of the dishes will ensure that the resulting meal is quite a bit healthier than what I’d normally cook. And finally, the pre-portioned ingredients reduce the risk of overcooking considerably.

So, with all those preliminaries out of the way, how did I get on?

Personal Experience

I signed up almost exactly a week ago at the time of writing. Being a dyed-in-the-wool omnivore, I opted for the classic plan, rather than going for the purely vegetarian one, and opted for three meals a week, giving me some time to cook my own recipes. Despite signing up that late, my first parcel arrived on time on the following Tuesday. The Package was soaked, as was the delivery driver, but I don’t think that DropChef can be blamed for the torrential downpours we’ve been getting here in Ireland over the last week or so. The content was still dry though, with all ingredients well packaged. Perishable ingredients such as the cod or chicken I’d need for two out of my three dishes were packaged in a separate refrigerated pouch with a cooling pack. DropChef claims that this cooling pack can keep the ingredients cool for up to 24 hours, though I’m not keen on testing that, if I’m honest. 

Well, you can't accuse DropChef of skimping on packaging!

What's in the box? Quite a lot, actually. It's easy to tell apart which package is part of which recipe, thanks to the colour coding.

For my first week, I opted for Crispy Chili Cod with Stir-Fry Noodles & Pak Choi, Lemon Chicken with Pesto Potato Salad and a Sticky Mushroom Donburi Bowl with Eggs. None of these meals would have made it onto my menu if it wasn’t for DropChef. All the recipes were colour coded with white, yellow or blue stickers, making it easy to figure out what went with which meals, just in case you’re incapable of telling apart cod and chicken. The only things not colour-coded were the three packs of spring onions, since those were part of every dish, as well as a small cup of a vegan coconut yogurt desert. Unfortunately, this had sprung a leak causing the inside of the refrigeration pack to have some of the content spread out over the ingredients. Nothing that a few sheets of kitchen roll couldn’t fix, and there was still enough of the dessert in the cup to make for a nice end to my first meal ;)

The recipes are easy to follow. A few more pictures or illustrations would have been nice though.

Crispy Chili Cod with Stir-Fried Noodles & Pak Choi

Before...

I went for the cod first, which turned out to be one of the more complex meals in the package. A lot of things needed to be cut and prepared separately, fish had to be fried and to top it all off, I’d never worked with Pak Choi before. DropChef claims that their dishes can be made within 30 minutes or less, but between my unfamiliarity with some of the ingredients and the fact that I had to take photos for this review, I didn’t quite manage it. Having said all that, the recipe cards included in the package are pretty clear, though I would have preferred the illustrated cards that the likes of HelloFresh apparently use. Either way, once the prep work was done, the rest was basically just a question of timing, though I did lose track of the clove of garlic that was supposed to go into that dish. Thankfully, garlic is one of the staples I always have at home. Even with all that, the chili cod turned out to be seriously tasty and will likely make it into my permanent recipe collection.

... and after.

Succulent Lemon Chicken with Pesto Potato Salad

How it started...

This is the type of dish you want to be making when you’ve got a really frustrating day at work, since it involves inflicting copious amounts of blunt force trauma on a piece of chicken. It also turned out to be the easiest recipe to prepare, easily possible within twenty minutes if you do what I did and sneak out of a conference call to get all your pots, chopping boards and utensils ready beforehand. Don’t tell my boss I wrote this! The only nasty surprise here was that my frying pan turned out to be pretty much useless. But even with that, the meal was ready in seemingly no time. Having said that, this will likely not be my favourite recipe. The lemon component just didn’t really work for me. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t bad per se, and there certainly weren’t any survivors, but I can’t see this particular dish becoming part of my personal repertoire.

...how it's going!

Stick Mushroom Donburi Bowl

The starting situation.

I saved the vegetarian option for last. This one was admittedly a bit of a surprise as the package contained a lot more ingredients than were required for a single serving, particularly with regards to the radishes and carrot that were a key part of the recipe. Even with that, preparation was easy and straightforward, though I did not quite make it within the 30 minutes promised. One really surprising challenge here was that I wasn't able to fit all of the carrot ribbons or sliced radishes on the plate, let alone the spring onions. I guess I'm gonna need a bigger boat bowl! Now, despite this being the vegetarian option, I didn’t miss the meat at all. The mushrooms, fried and then caramelised in hoisin sauce, were an ideal replacement. I’m not sure whether this will become a permanent fixture, but it is certainly a quick and easy dish to whip up.

The end result!

Lessons Learned

One thing that I’ve definitely taken to heart even in that first week is the value of preparation. Even if you’re not taking photos for a blog, you’ll want to make sure that your dishwasher or sink is empty before you start cooking, as well as getting out all the pots, frying pans, chopping boards, knives and other utensils you’ll need before you start cooking. You’ll also want to get all your chopping and cutting, as well as any other preparations, done before you turn on the heat on your stove or hob. The last thing you want to do is rummaging through your kitchen cupboards whilst you have a pan with oil heating up on the hob, believe me. That’s an accident waiting to happen. 

Another, somewhat more surprising lesson is the value of good kitchen ware. Having a high-quality frying pan that heats up quickly, as well as sharp knives, makes life a whole lot easier, whether you’re cooking a DropChef meal or one of your own recipes. It’s also a lot safer. Whilst I’m pretty well sorted on the knife front, my first priority at the end of this first week was to go and get a new frying pan to replace the safety hazard I’d (barely) used up until that point. Just goes to show that if you buy cheap, you do indeed end up buying twice!

Conclusion

So, at the end of this first week, where do I stand? For starters, I never would have tried those recipes without some external prompt and so have one become a likely permanent fixture is already quite a success. What’s more, the fact that the ingredients are pre-portioned and measured effectively prevents oversizing of portions and over-eating, something that is a bit of an issue when you cook for yourself. The amount of food waste is also drastically reduced compared to doing my own shopping, so it’s all good on that front.

Make no mistake though, this is not a cheap service. I could have probably gotten the price per meal to something well below what DropChef is charging just by heading out to any of the local supermarkets and shopping there. So if you’re on a budget, I’m not sure DropChef will be the right option for you. For me personally though, being stuck working from home for probably quite some time to come, the convenience an variety that this service provides definitely makes it worth the expenditure in my opinion, and I’ll definitely keep using them, at least until the situation with my leg sorts itself out.