Dinnerly — Restaurant in New York

When one of my kids developed a dairy intolerance, I struggled to adjust my cooking style in a satisfying way. We love cheese! But cheese substitutes didn't translate well into my standby recipes. My cooking went from well-received to dreaded. I needed a whole new approach to family dinner, and I was at a loss to invent it myself. Enter Dinnerly.

Searching by non-dairy and vegan options in their search bar returns apparently limited recipe options. But. I found we could substitute plant butter and plant-based milk in WAY more recipes than the search bar suggests. (Though plant butter has tons more salt than regular butter, so beware, salt amounts might need adjusting, esp in pastries.) I found it surprising how much this improved my kitchen repertoire. Suddenly dinner was good again.

We love the variety of global flavor profiles available. I can test out new foods without buying expensive new spices. Only a few recipes weren't hits, and I mostly figured out what to avoid within the discounted window ($140 off our first five boxes made it easy to shrug and pivot if a sauce or spice combo wasn't as good as we hoped). Finding six weekly recipes that work for our family's needs is easy and often fun.

I've learned new ways to cook favorite types of food. For example, I now have a meatloaf recipe that's ready in about 30 minutes (!), Chinese dumplings and stuffed breakfast rolls use pizza dough as a base, and there are super fast shortcuts for foods that used to take two hours. Recipes often have lovely homemade touches like fresh-zested citrus, diced garlic cloves, and scallions, which sound minor on paper but in practice elevate scents and flavors in punchy ways. It's a bit like having a cooking class and a food truck in my kitchen.

Skipping weeks is easy. Portions are accurate. I like to order extra portions for fast, interesting next-day lunches. This makes per-portion pricing more budget-friendly and saves lunch prep time during the week. Sometimes we invite friends or neighbors to choose recipes to share. There are seasonal and holiday desserts that make gatherings fun.

I love that recipe cards are included. They're large, easy to read, and hard to lose in my hectic family kitchen. The variety on offer means there's always something new to try, even many months into the subscription. Also, most of these foods are beautiful. We eat with our eyes first, and meals turn out very true to the photos.

We've learned to adjust a few minor things, like we think their pre-chopped chicken tastes better rinsed instead of patted dry. For the most part, ingredient quality is good. Produce is super fresh. On the rare occasion an ingredient was sub-par (looking at you, funky walnuts), they credited it back to me. Their romaine, citrus, and green beans keep better than what we get at the local grocery store. Many recipes lend themselves to cooking ahead on weekends for easier weeknights.

Dinnerly is a great busy person's hack for endless variety, fast meal planning, and fewer grocery runs. It's made our involuntarily dairy-free lifestyle enjoyable.

Tldr, if you're on the fence, go for it. This is a pretty affordable way to try new foods and might just elevate your cooking in...

I have been using Dinnerly for YEARS with no issues, or very mild ones up to this point anyway. However, last week my box arrived 4 days late. All of the ice packs were melted, the food had moisture inside the packaging, it was all warm, and I discovered that it was all rotten after opening one up.

I contacted support, but never got a reply. I opened a 2nd ticket for it, selecting that it was a delivery issue. Well, AI handled that problem, because the tracking never updated, so it automatically credited me the cost of the box. Well, I’m not thrilled that there was no human support at all, but glad there was a resolution.

Now, bring us to this week. My box arrived late again, but just by 1 day, roughly 30-34 hours late! Not only was it late again, but I ordered 6 of my favorite meal, and there was only 1 in there. Yes, I was missing 5 entire meals! I’ve opened 4 support tickets, well as emailed them regarding the issue. So far, it’s been over 24 hours, the only thing I’ve received are the automated emails, no humans are aware of my issue, to my knowledge. AI did not refund me this time, I’d imagine for 1 of 2 reasons, but possibly both! 🤷🏻‍♂️

Reason 1: 34 hours isn’t late enough for them to consider it to be late, according to their automated system. 🤔 🤷🏻‍♂️ I have no idea, just a thought. 💭 Reason 2: The fact that I just got a full refund, maybe it triggered further review of it, to be sure I’m not trying to take advantage of them. Well, after several years of using their services, I’m beyond disappointed with how they’re handling this. It’s been over 24 hours since I put in 4 tickets, yet they have NOT reached out.

Also, due to my last box being all wrong, I took pics & a vid of me getting into the box & going through it all. I wanted to cover my bases & I uploaded every pic & sent it in to them! The pics even included some damaged packaging too! I would’ve sent the video too, but there was no option for that. I have it still, in case there’s a way for me to send it to them! Oh yeah, there were random lemons & seasoning packets in there too, of which, none had anything to do with what I had ordered!

They seriously need to get better QC & customer support asap! They’ve left a loyal customer of several years (me) shopping around for a different service to use instead. This is beyond frustrating. I was checking my email to see if they got back to me, to which they did not get back to me about my issue, but they did send me an email about leaving a review, so it was a perfect little reminder to leave a negative review that’s honest & what I’m having to deal with right now, regarding Dinnerly! DO NOT...

It’s OK, but I definitely not the meal prep order service for me. It is obvious whoever is creating the vegetarian options is not a vegetarian, or very new to the game.

Not so vegetarian friendly.

Many of the recipes consist of processed fake meats, 2 of 3 meals this week the main ingredient is Daring chickn. This is made wtih soy. It would be much better if the meals were wholesome and clean. Often the recipe says “30” minutes, but it really is 90 minutes to cook, and then cleaning pots/pans too. Even if you select vegetarian meals, it auto adds meals with meat until you fix it. Some of the cheeses in their ravioli are not actually vegetarian and contain enzymes.

No tracking provided for orders, my box was late and left at the bottom of my apartment stairs where it could easily get stolen. The first box was on time and brought directly to my front door.

They cheap out on ingredients. They barely send enough for the recipe. Even if it rice or pasta, they will send hardly any when for something that is affordable - they ration to very small amounts. The rice was instant - not even brown rice or healthy.

The food quality could be much better for the cost. The meals are sometimes small, leaving you hungry!

The meal I cooked last night actually caused more inflammation in my body and GI irritation. I have had concerns about the food being fresh. The first order some of the items were nearly expired! The second order a rotten tomato was sent. I actually embarrassingly enough had diarrhea today from the meal I cooked last night. And it took a LONG time to cook the meal, not “30 minutes” like the recipe claimed. To me, the entire point I could at home is to avoid stomach irritation and eat healthy. This service has taken me back years in healing on my IBS and stomach ulcer journey in just a few meals and that is not good.

No labeling of “non-GMO” and they have also given Impossible meat which is bioengineered. This is not cool either.

They have recipes that they deem to be asian food. When the box was delivered, they used spaghetti noodles for the noodles in a satay recipe. This is not appetizing and just weird. Their recipes are low quality.

The food doesn’t...