Saffron Fix October 2016 Subscription Box Review + Coupon

Saffron Fix is a meal and dinner kit subscription service that will satisfy your Indian food craving each month. The subscription costs $48 per month for 2 meals or $60 for 3, and you can choose vegetarian or non-veg, and you’ll receive fresh pre-chopped ingredients and hard-to-find spices to prepare a delicious home-cooked Indian meal. Every month they’ll send you an email for meal selection.
Note that this box delivers only to New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Virginia, Washington DC, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Delaware at the present time. The limited geography ensures limited time in transit, which means fresher ingredients. Hopefully, they will add additional locations from which they ship, so everyone can enjoy it as much as we do!

Everything arrived packed in a reflective, insulating bubble wrap. It comes surrounded with ice and stays nice and cool.

Each recipe was packed separately, and neatly, in its own bag, with everything needed for each recipe together, including the meat – but it is packed in heavy duty vacuum bags with much better integrity than typical butcher bags. I expect the packing will continue to evolve over time, as that of every meal service has, but the current setup seems to work very well.

The recipe cards note the cooking time, calories, and number of servings, and it separately lists those ingredients included in the kit and those items you need to supply (e.g. salt, butter, saucepan, etc). Because the dishes prepared are likely to be relatively unfamiliar to the cook (if you eat gourmet Indian food all the time, I am very jealous), the color photograph is really handy for getting a sense of the desired appearance and consistency of the prepared dish. Also useful is a short description of the dish, including notes on any unusual ingredients or techniques, as well as a guide to adjusting the heat level of the dish.

The back of the card has the actual recipe guidance, complete with pictures.  The instructions are very clear, concise, and easy to follow – I think the sentence construction is more natural than that sometimes employed in other subscription boxes, and I appreciate the relative brevity.

A new element this month was the packaging of the naan and rice for two recipes together to be portioned when used. Unless noted, the following pictures of completed dishes show one of two servings.

Kerala Fish Moilee. 30 minutes, 400 calories per serving.

This dish was a fun change of pace, and it shows the vast regional diversity in Indian cuisine. Like vindaloo, this dish was invented as an accommodation to Europeans desiring slightly tamer spices. It still packed a little heat from the chili, but the coconut cream tempers it. It is served on a pile of cool rice sticks, which have a bit of a cellophane noodle texture. Lots of great flavor from a heavy dose of mustard seed and turmeric.

Chicken Tikka Masala. 30 minutes, 400 calories per serving.

Perhaps the most popular Indian dish served outside India, this classic uses a tomato sauce to form a base for the spices. The chicken is broiled to give it a slight char, so it stands out a bit more than the usual braised meat. Creamy and spicy, this dish has big flavor, and the tomato base makes it ideal for introducing Indian spices to Westerners in a more familiar medium than a true curry.

Chicken Korma. 30 minutes, 450 calories per serving.

One of my all-time favorites, Chicken Korma takes traditional garam masala and adds sweet raisins, creamy cashew paste, and fried onions to create a powerful flavor combo that goes beyond cumin, coriander, and turmeric.  A splash of rose water and saffron add a bright, floral dimension to the deep flavors of the dish.

Mango Lassie. They threw in some nice cardamom spiced mango lassie this month! I think this is going to be a regular thing. It was great and made two big servings, plus some extra.

We continue to be super-psyched about getting a block of Indian nights every month! The packing of the items is very nice, and I love the quality of the ingredients and recipes. This trio of dishes would’ve been a real treat for anyone who is a fan of Indian food – each started with a common base of aromatics, but the subtle distinction in seasoning produced very distinct and lovely flavor profiles. Each meal provides a very hearty portion for two, with each meal typically including both rice and naan, though this month one selection had noodles instead.

It’s worth pointing out very specifically that this box currently only ships once per month. We cooked our meals over 3 days but you could sign up for 2 and cook them all together. This box was really delicious and we hope you’re in their shipping zone! Taking the chopping out of the meal preparation really cuts down the prep time, but it also cuts down the fridge life and means you want to be prompt in making your food. We wish more subscriptions would provide pre-prepared ingredients because these meals were so easy to pull off!

Visit Saffron Fix to subscribe or find out more! Get $10 off any product, service, or even gift cards, on our website. Use coupon code TAKETEN.