Plated is a weekly dinner kit subscription box with high-quality ingredients and chef-created recipes. Each week you’ll choose from a variety of quick gourmet meals that range from meats, chicken, seafood, and purely vegetarian options. You can choose any lineup of recipes from the available options and skip any week you don’t want.
Plated ships fresh ingredients and complete instructions right to your door. The food arrives protected within insulating padding made of recycled thread material.
Boxes are always packed with the meat on the bottom with a several big ice packs – the rest of the food is set on top on a cardboard barrier. Putting all of the ice in the lower compartment prevents frost damage to the more delicate veggies.
Plated sends a weekly email – it doesn’t tell you much about your meals, other than what you need from home. They now offer three-serving meals! This is a great option for small families, pooled cooking among roommates, or just for guaranteeing leftovers for a tasty and easy lunch!
DEAL: Currently you can get 2 free plates when you buy 4 when you sign up with this link (no coupon code required).
On-card information is streamlined and includes only prep-time, number of servings and calorie count. Most of Plated’s meals serve two people. Unless stated otherwise, our pics of finished dishes show a single serving.
Plated’s recipes rely on mise en place, prepping everything before cooking. This works well, but we always read ahead – you can save time and cutting board space by shifting some steps around, like prepping garnish later while something bakes, instead of at the beginning. The recipes are easy to follow, with ingredients printed in bold and tips to avoid common pitfalls.
All the food comes bagged up and separated (mostly) into the recipes – meat and some large or delicate items are bagged separately. The recipe cards tell you anything you need from home – usually just cookware, salt and pepper, and some olive oil – occasionally you’ll need an egg.
Indian Butter Chicken With Sautéed Spinach And Toasted Naan. 35-45 minutes, medium, 810 calories per serving.
Wonderful dish! This version of butter chicken was on par with what you would get at good Indian restaurant in the U.S. The use of curry powder and fresh aromatics gave the dish the taste and texture of restaurant fare. The preparation was also very easy – it only rated a medium because the chicken gets marinated and broiled separately from the rest of the sauce. My only complaint would be that the sauce was a bit too tomato and could’ve benefitted from a splash more cream. The spinach was a nice side, and it always goes very well with Indian – it had a palak flavor without the full effort of cooking it down or blending it. The naan provided with the dish was excellent, too, with a very buttery flavor.
Pan-Roasted Chicken With Caramelized Apples And Horseradish Mashed Potatoes. 35-45 minutes, medium, 790 calories per serving.
This dish was also superb. The chicken cooked perfectly — it was juicy and tender, with an ideal texture. The skin was pretty thick, and, though it crisped, it wasn’t overly tempting. It did, however, allow the chicken to cook exceptionally well. The sides were very comforting and bursting with flavor. The apple and onion medley was seasoned with sage and balsamic, making for a warm complement that paired as well with the chicken as warm apples do with pork. The potatoes were spiked with horseradish, giving them a great flavor.
Chop Steak With Crispy Brussels Sprout Home Fries And Herb Compound Butter. 25 – 35 minutes, medium, 870 calories per serving.
Tarragon isn’t an herb we use too much, but its intense flavor (like spicy thyme) proved a great pairing for butter and Brussels sprouts. This dish looked a bit like a jumble, but the flavors balanced out very well, the sweet butter and creamy potatoes complementing the slight bitter nuttiness of the fried sprouts. The hamburger was good, but it was tough to cook through on the stovetop without flattening it like a hamburger. As a result, the inside had a very rare texture, though it had the color of medium well. The compound butter was very flavorful, but it wasn’t even necessary, as the burger retained plenty of moisture. The picture above shows the whole 2-serving recipe on a platter.
Plated offers some of our favorite meals, and we love to get dishes we know we love along with some new-to-us meals. This week was definitely on target, with some great belly-warming dishes. I liked their take on butter chicken, and it satisfied my Indian food jones for the week. Their roasted chicken and chop steak dishes were similarly on-point, delivering just what I needed in a rainy-day dish.
What meals are you getting this week from Plated?
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