Meal Kit deliveries are a fun way to try out new recipes and prepare food for 2-4 people. This month we decided to try out GoodFood. In this GoodFood review, you’ll learn about how meal kit delivery works, what I paid for 2 weeks of GoodFood, how we would rate each meal and whether it’s worth trying.
Overview
- How Does Meal Kit Delivery Work?
- GoodFood Pricing & What I Paid
- 2 Weeks of GoodFood Review (7 Meals in total)
- Week 1:
- Week 2:
- GoodFood Review: Overall Thoughts
- Is GoodFood Worth it?
How Does Meal Kit Delivery Work?
Meal kit delivery services are portioned meal and ingredients that you can order ahead of time to make for dinner the following week. They are subscription based services where you pay each week for a box. You can skip a week or cancel your subscription at any time. Some popular meal kit services in Canada are Hello Fresh, GoodFood, Fresh Food Farm and Chef’s Plate.
- Select a Pricing Plan -2-4 recipes and the number of servings you’d like for each recipe, servings being the number of people you’re cooking for.
- Select Your Recipes -There are usually a variety of cuisines you can choose from depending on what you feel like (I like choosing recipes or ingredients that I don’t typically use!)
- Choose a Delivery Date & Time and wait for your box to arrive!
Here’s what my order looked like:
For GoodFood, you can choose to modify your selection or skip the week free of charge anytime before midnight EST on Wednesday. I would suggest making a note on your calendar.
Also if you are worried about trying out a meal kit delivery while in self-isolation, just make sure to disinfect the box and bags. Contact the delivery service if you have any concerns.
GoodFood Pricing
Regular price for GoodFood works out to be $65 a week for three meals that serve two people (around $22 per meal).
- Price per person per meal: As low as $6.70 per meal (with a coupon)
- Plan Options: Easy Prep, Classic, Family Basket
- Special Options: Low carbs or Vegetarian
- Our Favourite recipe: Chicken Mezze Platter with Baba Ghanoush over Traditional Tabbouleh
We chose the Classic Basket where we would cut our own vegetables. The Easy Prep basket has minimal prep work (vegetables may come pre-cut) and the Family basket comes with 4 servings.
What I Paid
Week 1: I paid $21.30 CAD for 4 recipes (2 servings each). I used a coupon code I found on Reddit (“WC5TLSV“) to get my first basket for FREE ($87 OFF, not affiliated at all but you’re welcome!). This coupon only applies if you select 3 recipes. I paid extra for selecting an additional recipe, only because I didn’t know.
Also note that there are different recipe types. “L’Artisan” and “Easy Prep” recipes are mixed in with the recipes in your plan. These cost more per serving. The site doesn’t clearly state this.
Week 2: I paid $17.33 CAD for 3 recipes (2 servings each). Spoilers: the first box did not arrive so I got full credit from the first box and an additional 20% off which made it worth it to get another box.
2 Weeks of GoodFood Review
This is my honest review of GoodFood Canada on the Classic Basket for 2 people. Week 1 we ordered 4 recipes (4 dinners) and week 2 we went with 3 recipes (3 dinners). Most meals were enough for one smaller meal (Elaine-sized portion) and one larger meal (Austin-sized portion). We had leftover salad on Week 1 Day 2 and 1 small lunch portion for me from Week 2 Day 3.
Rating each recipe based on the Actual Prep Time, Size, Taste and how we would each Rate the meal.
Week 0
(GoodFood Did Not Deliver)
Monday morning (Feb 25), I got an email from GoodFood with “Your GoodFood is on its way!”. A few hours later, a representative reached out to me with the possibility of a delivery problem. I was told to let her know if my order arrived by 8PM that evening. It didn’t. My order was lost in transit :(.
I half predicted this from reviews I had read online about GoodFood when I was looking into meal kit deliveries. There were other cases where people just did not get their boxes delivered.
Fortunately, GoodFood responded quickly. They apologized and applied a full credit for the amount of the first box then gave me an additional 20% for a future GoodFood Delivery.
Week 1
We gave GoodFood another attempt a few weeks later (on March 23) and it arrived! We got a notification that the box arrived around 2PM. This was earlier than the 8PM delivery time.
The first thing I noticed was that there was an excessive amount of packaging. Every recipe was in a plastic bag and there was a plastic container for each sauce. I preferred the brown paper bags that Hello Fresh used. I felt bad about the packaging… and the clear plastic also made it harder to read the recipe label when I reached for them in the fridge.
Day 1 – Sweet & Spicy Pork Ramen Noodles with Baby Greens & Sweet Peppers
Actual Prep Time: 25 minutes – The noodles were fresh so it only took about 2-3 minutes to cook. Cooking the pork took more time.
Size: Just right for 2 people.
Taste: The fresh noodles was the star of the dish, everything else was okay. We agreed that nothing really stood out besides the noodles. It wasn’t particularly spicy either.
Rate The Meal: 7.5/10
Day 2 – Crispy Chicken Thighs with Sesame Kohlrabi Slaw over Ginger Rice
Actual Prep Time: 35 minutes – The chicken thighs had a lot of fat which took time to cut off.. There was also Kohlrabi, a German turnip, that took way too much effort to chop.
Size: Just right for 2 people, there was some salad leftover and I ate it the next day.
Taste: All of the vegetables were very hard which made it difficult to peel and cut (especially the large Kohlrabi turnip). The meat was really tender and we enjoyed the flavour of the Savoury Seoul spice blend. There was a spicy mayo sauce for the slaw that I didn’t use (says a mayo hater) so the vegetables were terribly bland for me.
Rate The Meal: 8/10 (based on the meat), 6/10* for the dish as a whole
Day 3 – Halloumi & Honey-Za’atar Roasted Carrot Bowls with Pearl Couscous, Hummus & Ajvar Vinaigrette
Actual Prep Time: 25 minutes – Roasted vegetables take about 20 minutes to cook. I’ve noticed that our oven setting a hotter and vegetables seem to burn a lot faster so took the carrots out in 17 minutes… though it’s still burnt.
Size: Just right for 2 people.
Taste: We actually enjoyed this dish a lot -more than we initially thought. The Halloumi cheese was flavourful, a tad saltier than I’d like but nonetheless delicious. It was the “meat of the dish”. The sides were healthy, especially the kale (I added a drizzle of freshly squeezed lemon) and I chopped up a few more carrots to roast (since they shrink a lot). There was hummus and a sauce which I only enjoyed on my last bite because I forgot to add sauces!
Rate The Meal: 8.5/10
Day 4 – Orange & Turmeric Glazed Salmon with Spiced Bulgur, Cucumber & Mint
Actual Prep Time: 30 minutes – Extra time spent on deciphering the instructions. One part of the recipe says “cut away the peel and pith. Over a bowl, cut between the membranes to separate the orange segments; keep the juice” – I’m still not sure what this means.
Size: Just right for 2 people.
Taste: I didn’t like the snow pea and mint combination in the salad. The cranberry molasses was interesting but I’d prefer if it was savoury. My boyfriend says he doesn’t remember eating this dish only that it might have made his stomach hurt afterwards.
Rate The Meal – 6.5/10
Week 2
Day 1 – Chicken Mezze Platter with Baba Ghanoush over Traditional Tabbouleh
Actual Prep Time: 25 minutes – The chicken thighs didn’t have as much fat this time so it was quick to season and pop in the oven.
Size: Just right for 2 people, we have some of the baba ghanoush sauce leftover.
Taste: This was by far our favourite meal from GoodFood – none of the other meals quite stood out like this one. The flavouring of the meat was delicious, it went very well with the pita and Tabbouleh. It’s a recipe that we would like to make again!
Rate The Meal: 9/10
Day 2 – Trofie Pasta with Sun-Dried Tomato Pesto Grana Padano-Walnut Crumble & Roasted Broccoli
Actual Prep Time: 25 minutes – Compared to fresh pasta, the Trofie pasta took a little longer to cook than expected 6-8 minutes. We also added ground beef to this recipe with some of the seasoning (originally vegetarian).
Size: Just right for 2 people.
Taste: We enjoy this meal with a glass of red wine. The texture of the Trofie pasta was unique – a twisted, spiral-shaped pasta from Northern Italy. The pasta was pretty good but “didn’t blow us away”. We enjoyed it but it’s quite similar to other pastas that we could make at home. I did like the walnut crumble, which added a nice touch to the pasta.
Rate The Meal: 8/10
Day 3 – Soba Chicken Noodle Bowl with Lettuce, Cabbage & Carrots in Sesame-Hoisin Sauce
Actual Prep Time: 25 minutes – this recipe was very quick. The longest part was cooking the chicken for 6-8 minutes per side.
Size: To my surprise, there was enough for a small lunch-sized portion for me to eat the next day.
Taste: The sauce (made with hoisin sauce, tahini, ponzu, sesame seeds and water) was too sour even though I put half of the ponzu, a citrus based sauce. The flavour of Tokyo street food spice blend on the chicken was delicious. There wasn’t anything that stood out about the salad but it was plentiful.
Rate The Meal: 7/10
GoodFood Review: Overall Thoughts
Meal Selection:
- “L’Artisan” and “Easy Prep” shown on same page as your current plan selection, if you add one of these recipes you’ll be paying more but there’s no indication that you are.
- Difficult to “See all recipes”, GoodFood likes to emphasize the Add-on items on the main recipe page.
- The recipes didn’t look that appealing, we were sometimes indifferent about the recipes.
Delivery & Packaging:
- First box did not arrive, which was slightly inconvenient. Though support was a great help!
- There were so many plastic bags and containers.
- Some sauce containers had no label.
- Often used spice blends or sauces that I would normally not have easy access to. For example, Savoury Seoul spice blend, Tokyo street food spice blend, Egyptian Spice Blend, Ponzu etc. I like recipes that I can recreate.
Preparation & Taste:
- Very simple meals (meat, salad, carb, sauce), beginner-friendly.
- The instructions look simple with only 6 steps but they were very difficult to understand which added to the prep time. I had to re-read the instructions many times. For example, ‘use 1/2 of the seasoning, then the other 1/2 of the seasoning, then AGAIN use the remaining seasoning‘ (by then, I had no seasoning left).
- Not necessarily the healthiest options – some mayo based sauces and high sodium hummus brands (that I avoid).
- Portions were usually “just enough” for 2 people, this may not be the case if both people eat larger portions.
- Most recipes tasted “okay” but only 1 of the 7 meals really stood out to us as a dish we enjoyed and would make again.
- Odd selection of salads, I often thought “I like the meat but I would have paired this with a different salad”.
Is GoodFood Worth It?
Although GoodFood claims to be a Meal Prep Kit and Recipe Delivery service, you are technically preparing food each night and that takes a lot of time. Compared to Hello Fresh ($11.66 a meal), Good Food is slightly more economical at ~$11 a meal but not by much.
It is an option to consider for people who dislike meal planning. You get to select meals without much thought and have ingredients shipped to you. Overall, I think that GoodFood is worth trying with a new customer coupon but in the long run, I prefer to make recipes in bulk and spend less time cooking.
Takeaway
- Regular price ($22 meal for two people) is not exactly worth it to me -considering that you need to cook every night and it doesn’t save you time. Though I do think it’s worth a try if you are new to the service.
- Slightly more economical than other meal kit options.
- Helps with meal planning.
- Fun way to try out new recipes that you might like!
Hope you got something from my honest GoodFood review. Stay tuned for an in-depth review on 2 Weeks of Hello Fresh prior to GoodFood and my thoughts on ordering Hello Fresh again after (this week).
PS – Here’s a Pinterest-friendly image if you want to save these meal kit recipes!
