PREPARED MEALS

Prepared Meals Delivered

This website will help you find the best prepared meals and meal delivery services based on food quality and value. I have personally purchased the meals I review here, and write reviews based on the customer experience. 

I take pictures of plated meals, and shoot videos for your convenience, in case you don't want to read. Trust me when I say not all meals are created equal. There are some very good services, and there are some that are just bad. To get started, click to any meal delivery company by using the menu to the left.

Some companies will also post coupons and coupon codes, which will provide you with immediate value, but that does not have any sway with my reviews. Please visit the Diet Meal Delivery section if you are looking for a weight loss meal plan.
-Chef Piquanti
Prepared Meal Delivered Video Review by Chef Piquanti

What Is A Prepared Meal?

We define a prepared meal as a complete meal, or complete meal components, that has been cooked and only requires reheating to serve. Reheating methods may include microwave, oven, or stop top, via a sous-vide cooking method. Sous-vide means to cook under vacuum in a pot of hot, but not boiling, water. 

Basically, we are looking to match time-starved consumers with companies that deliver precooked meals that satisfy their time limitations. Singles, senior citizens, caretakers, and families with newborn children are also very interested in this service. Reheating prepared food by microwave is our preferred method of choice.

Companies such as Home Bistro, offer individual meals, which include and entree, side.dish, and vegetable. The other companies, such as Magic Kitchen, focus on package and meal plan sales. Often you are buying one meal in a quantity that serves two to four people. The convenience of single serving complete meals will certainly help consumers create customized menus and get more variety from their order. 

Prepared Food

Prepared food will normally come frozen, but there are a few that can deliver fresh meals. This type of delivery service is normally available in large metropolitan areas and areas with dense populations. Most companies that offer a local fresh delivery service can have a national prepared frozen meal service with a different menu. Services such as Home Chef, Hello Fresh, and Blue Apron are all examples of companies that send you uncooked food for you to prepare.

Gourmet Meals

Most companies refer to the selections on their menu as gourmet meals. Technically, the word gourmet means fine food, made from high-quality or exotic ingredients, and with skilled preparation. Some meal delivery services, especially in the niche of weight loss meal plans, may overuse, or exaggerate the term for marketing purposes. Just like the gourmet meal you might have a fine dining establishment, nutritional values are not considered for the companies listed in this section. However, some companies listed in the meals prepared section, also have nutritional menus. Here is how Chef Piquanti defines a gourmet meal:
  • They Used High-Quality Ingredients. For example, we would not consider a mass-produced chicken patty a gourmet meal component. Nor, would I consider select graded beef, or any protein that was not high quality. A prime New York Strip steak is an example gourmet food component.
  • An Ingredient Could Be Exotic. An exotic food item is something that is generally not native to the local area. We suggest that this type of food is not something the amateur chef would not regularly cook for themselves, but it is open to interpretation. This could be anything from a rack of lamb to a gooey duck, but it would not be instant mashed potatoes.
  • A High Level of Culinary Skill in the Preparation of the Meal. When Chef Piquanti goes out to restaurants, the dish he orders the most is Spaghetti Bolognese. There is a very exact and proper way to make a Bolognese Sauce. Bolognese is a complex sauce that involves a mix of cooking techniques, including sweating, sauté and braising. It is the expert preparation of this dish that qualifies it as gourmet. Other examples of dishes with culinary skill may include sushi, lasagna, and even making a proper chicken broth from scratch. These days, everyone calls a meat sauce Bolognese.
  • Gourmet Presentation. This may not be an official definition of a gourmet meal, but I am a huge believer that food presentation should also be considered. 

How Prepared Meals Are Delivered

Most national meal delivery service companies will ship their meals via FedEx or UPS. Frozen meals that are prepared are delivered on dry ice, which is a carbon dioxide frozen to a solid state. It is normal to find warnings in the packaging alerting you not to handle dry ice with your bare hands. The gas will evaporate shortly after it arrives at your home, and then it is safe to handle the bag the dry ice is in.

In order to maintain frozen temperatures, Styrofoam coolers are used to have your meals delivered. Meals will generally stay frozen even in the case of the dry ice evaporating. This should not be a concern as the technology and experience of the industry as nearly mastered the art of shipping frozen meals.

In the event your dry ice did evaporate, your food should still be frozen to the touch. If you have any questions regarding the quality of how your meals arrived, you should immediately contact the customer service department of the company you purchased your meals from. Generally speaking, meals that may have thawed should not be refrozen.

Shipping Rates

Shipping rates will vary from company to company, but are generally closely priced. You can expect shipping fees to start around $15, and increase with the size of your order.
  • As your order prepared foods increases, more dry ice, larger coolers, and even multiple coolers may be needed to fulfill your order.
  • Consumers will get the value from their shipping dollar with larger orders instead of more frequent smaller orders.
  • FedEx and UPS do not normally require you to be home to sign for your delivery. 
Sample Shipping Box
100% Satisfaction Guarantee

Most meal delivery providers offer some form of guarantee on the quality of their food products and the condition in which your meals will arrive. It is important for you to verify the terms and conditions of the guarantee offered by each company because some companies, like Mom's Meals, make their guarantee sound amazing, but it covers nothing.
  • Some companies may refund your money.
  • Some may replace parts of your order.
  • Some may give you the option of what is best for you.
Lots of people are praising the efficiency of prepared foods. Yet others aren’t; it’s probable that they’re choosing the incorrect meal delivery services. This indicates you’ll have to locate reliable meal delivery reviews so you can get yourself great 1st impressions. You could be overwhelmed by the sheer choice of various reviews of different services. You can make your own decision on meals by seeing if any service has the upcoming attributes that make said services excellent.

You’ve got to determine if the meal service is able to bring meals to your front door. Great meal delivery services ought to have efficiency in mind since the concept is getting the precooked meals to you fast so that you’re able to heat them up efficiently without the requirement to shop outside for any ingredients. Evaluate the shipping details of the website in order to see to it that the service brings food to your region.

You must discover which chef meals are being offered and what said meals are constituted of. People pick meals that are prepared since they’re made by experts who know about making nutritious meals that are good for even the harshest of diets. These meals must also be good enough so that people can surrender those fast food diets. You might have greater success in locating a prepped food delivery service if it is meant for kids.

If they’re good for kids, they ought to be great for older folks, too. Variety’s really vital, too, since you should not be consuming the same foods every couple of days! When you discover that all of said foods possesses the correct nourishment, all in the home ought to be pleased with this service. This is also vital if you’ve got special requirements because some of the superior services might let you pick diabetic- or vegetarian-friendly foods.

Great services that provide prepped meals ought to be capable of delivering the meals to your residence in 1 or 2 days. It ought to take you just up to 10 minutes to make those meals. It’s even sweeter if the service permits you to select the shipping service you want. Quicker deliveries in the same day are costlier than deliveries that take two days, yet are still dependable. You could always plan in advance in order to deal with other stuff while awaiting the meals that you know will already be ready for you.

The best prepared food ought not to be the most expensive. You should have the privilege of buying some spectacular gourmet meals for less than 14 bucks. It’s probable that you’ll encounter services that’ll charge a bit more; thus, you can continue your search to find the perfect service. However, prior to choosing the more affordable meal delivery services, juxtapose the choices of both services since the additional cash you’ll pay might go to greater-tasting meals or a more dependable delivery service.

Due to all of the above good attributes, you could treat yourself to a nicely prepped meal that will lower your stress levels. You could prep and consume said meals without guilt since the pros behind said meals picked the quality ingredients to guarantee that your diet is well-balanced. After you begin to consume these prepped meals and foods on an ongoing schedule, you can finally stop those junk food routines that are causing you to be overweight and unhealthy.

If you run into many different meal delivery services that are making these advertisements, you can then go ahead so that you can research the reviews for the specific service that you have in mind. The safest decision that you can make for your own needs is to select the service that comes with the most positive reviews so that you can see for yourself just what all of the so-called buzz is really all about.

Picking out the greatest meal delivery service early on could just be extraordinarily helpful since you can then spend your time moving right on to determining other items of importance in this process. Examples of these other items that are also important in this process are plotting out your exercise routines for the sake of making sure said prepped meals are even that much more successful. We invite you to visit the consumer reviews for any company you may be interested in, and come back to share your experience with our other readers. 
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