Skip to main content

Cooking Made Easy: 3 Delicious Meal Delivery Services

The meal kit trend is a good one: pre-portioned food, complete with a recipe delivered to your door. No grocery shopping, no wondering what to eat, no left over ingredients you’ll never use again and you learn some great new skills. But there are so many companies it’s tough to know where to start. Here are three unique meal delivery services.

Salted Eats

The hook: It’s recipes are created by major chefs in the LA-area, so it’s LA-only currently.

Recommended Videos

How it works: The service offers a meat and vegetarian option and as with others, the ingredients come pre-portioned. They make every effort to use only local and organic meats and veggies, all of which arrive in an insulated bag, so no need to be home when it arrives. Plus, they promise the items will stay fresh in your fridge for up to five days, so also no pressure to cook it the night it arrives. They don’t make substitutions for food allergies or taste preferences–definitely read the menus carefully before ordering.

Instructions come in the form of a video on Salted Eat’s website where chef will prepare the meal step-by-step. While the menus are full of delicious, sophisticated options, they promise even the most novice cook can complete them in around half an hour.

Unlike many others, Salted Eats does not require a subscription. Currently, they provide the meal kit once a month, the second Thursday of the month, so you just sign up whenever you feel like it.

How many does it feed? Just you! Unless you want more. The kit is good for one portion. Most meal kit services start at two servings, so the idea that you can just cook for yourself is pretty rad. You can order additional servings if you’re having friends or family over– it might be the most foolproof way to cook for a dinner party.

A taste of the menu:

Meat: from Chef Corina Weibel of Canelé

Flattened “Brick” Chicken with Peppers and North African Chermoula Sauce

Vegetarian: from Chef Christy Vega of Casa Vega

Vegan Sweet Potato Tacos with Fresh Tomatoes

One Potato

The hook: Healthy, organic meals for picky eaters. And it always comes with their own slice-and-bake cookie dough. Frankly, that’s reason enough.

How it works: Technically, this service is geared towards families, offering the option of child-sized portions, but procreation is not a requirement. You tell One Potato how many people you’ll be feeding and you food preferences and you’ll receive emails with pictures and recipes hand-picked for your tastes. You can make the dishes in 30 minutes or less, which is probably true given they do so much of the prep work for you.

All the ingredients arrive pre-portioned and chopped! Some detractors of the meal kit services complain about all the waste produced by the packaging: One Potato has thought of that. All of their packaging is recyclable or made to biodegrade.

It is a subscription service, but you’re able to cancel anytime or skip weeks whenever needed so long as you’re in the 6 day-before-delivery-window. It currently only delivers to California, Nevada, and Arizona but is expanding.

A taste of the menu:

Omnivore box: Oven Fried Chicken with Smashed Peas, Cheesy Biscuits and Coleslaw

Vegetarian box: Crispy Tofu Rice Bowl

Terra’s Kitchen

The hook: Transparency and earth-friendly practices. They give you the details on every farm and meat supplier they use as well as using a revolutionary new packing option, the vessel!

How it works: No customization here: pick from their weekly menu options, but they give you a lot to choose from. You can pause and cancel your subscription at anytime. They do offer gluten-free, vegetarian, vegan, and Paleo options.

Their ingredients are all fresh, seasonal, and sourced from sustainable, ethical farms. You can read about their suppliers here. All of the ingredients are washed, pre-portioned, and prepped so you’re ready to start cooking the minute you get home. A recipe card with instructions is included for your chosen meal and includes suggested beer and wine pairings.

Terra’s Kitchen also makes people with allergies a prime focus. Their suppliers segregate allergens during storage and preparation. Anything that might leak onto other ingredients is given a secondary barrier to prevent any contact during delivery.

Everything arrives in what they call the vessel. It’s a locked refrigerated plastic storage unit that is delivered to your door. Once you’ve finished with it, peel off the sticker to reveal the return address label and put it back outside your door for pick up. That means zero waste is created.

They have 1-serving options they call Grab-n-Go which are about $3.99 and the 2-serving dinners are anywhere from $9.99-$17.99 per serving. Shipping is free, however they have a minimum price of $64.99 for delivery. It’s all over the place!

A taste of the menu:

Meat: One Skillet Bison Tacos (also happens to be gluten free)

Vegetarian: Creamy Black Bean Sliders

Elizabeth Dahl
Elizabeth Dahl is a southern girl in the heart of Los Angeles who lived far too long before learning what an incredible food…
Coffee shops, it’s time to add decaf nitro cold brew to the menu
A missing piece at every coffee shop
Nitro cold brew

Nitro cold brew remains one of my all-around favorite coffee drinks to order. It's truly never disappointed me. Every sip is smooth, creamy (without any actual cream), and has the perfectly velvety texture. When I'm out running errands or traveling, I love treating myself to nitro cold brew because I don't make it at home. Unlike an iced americano or a regular cold brew, which I make at home, making nitro cold brew requires the infusion of tiny nitrogen bubbles.

As much as I love nitro cold brew, I've identified one major problem. The caffeine in nitro cold brew hits hard -- especially if you slurp it down as fast as I do. This drink's smooth and velvety nature makes it so easy to drink quickly. The average nitro cold brew contains between 200 and 300 mg per serving, more than enough to make you feel jittery. Even as a caffeine addict, I find the caffeine in a nitro cold brew to be a bit too much (especially if I've already had another coffee that day). After experiencing the caffeine jitters from nitro cold brew one too many times, I've wondered: Why isn't decaf nitro cold brew a thing? I've searched dozens of coffee shop menus and have never found decaf nitro cold brew on a menu.

Read more
Is there really such a thing as the best merlot wine?
The objective answer is no, but the subjective answer is yes
Merlot being poured into a glass

Those of a certain age might remember Paul Giamatti’s character in the 2004 movie Sideways ("If anyone orders merlot, I’m leaving."), and the subsequent tanking of that particular varietal expression. Was that fair or accurate? No. Are there garbage merlots? You better believe it. But merlot is a fantastic grape, wonderful on its own and fabulous in a blend -- and this leads to the question: Is there such a thing as the best merlot wine?

If you asked me, I’d say it was a toss-up between two famous producers from Bordeaux’s "right bank" -- in other words, wines made primarily with merlot. My first response would be any wine produced by Château Pétrus, especially a Grand Cru. Pétrus, famous since the 19th century, is located in Bordeaux’s subregion of Pomerol. It makes stunningly good wines solely from merlot grapes grown in its blue clay terroir: a wine that’s lush, voluptuous, and silky -- with a hint of earthy truffle.

Read more
Don’t be afraid of using Scotch in cocktails – these bartenders show you how
Beatnick on the River

As today is National Cocktail Day, lots of us will be reaching for our home bars to try out something new. That could be working with a new spirit or an unusual liqueur -- or even digging in the garden for some fresh herbs to add to a mixing glass. But there's one spirit which plenty of people enjoy drinking but rarely mix with, and that's Scotch.

Scotch is most often enjoyed neat, and it used to be the case that even thinking about mixing with it was considering wasteful and unsophisticated. But that time has passed, and now plenty of bartenders and experts are interested in what this powerful, smokey whisky style can add to a cocktail.

Read more