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Plated Subscription Box Review – October 2015

Lindsey Morse
ByLindsey MorseJul 25, 2016 | 10 comments

Plated Subscription Box Review October 2015 - Box

Plated
3.7 overall rating
43 Ratings | 23 Reviews

Plated delivers a weekly box of pre-portioned fresh and seasonal ingredients, everything you need to cook their chef-designed recipes at home in your own kitchen. Each week, they offer a different menu, and you can select which dishes you’d like to make, how many plates of each dish you’d like to serve, and when you’d like to receive your delivery.

Three of the dishes offered on every menu are vegetarian. Plated also regularly rotates in vegan and dairy-free options. They’re committed to using sustainably sourced seafood, seasonal produce, and meat that’s free from antibiotics or added hormones.

Plated also makes it easy to pick recipes that best suit your culinary skill level and lifestyle. Each recipe is tagged with a difficulty level and clearly lists calorie content and prep time.

Plated Subscription Box Review October 2015 - Inside

Check out all of our reviews of Meal Delivery Services to see every meal kit subscription box option!

My Subscription Addiction pays for this subscription. (Check out the review process post to learn more about how we review boxes.)

Plated Subscription Box Review October 2015 - Contents

The Subscription Box: Plated

The Cost: Recipes begin at $12 per plate. 2 recipes (4 plates)= $48 per week (+ $6 shipping). 3 recipes (6 plates)= $72 per week (with free shipping). 4 recipes (8 total plates)= $96 per week (with free shipping).

The Products: All of the pre-portioned fresh and seasonal ingredients you need to make chef-designed recipes at home in your own kitchen.

Ships to: 95% of the US. (Currently, Plated does not ship to Hawaii and Alaska, and there are also a few cities in Texas, including San Antonio, Corpus Christi, Laredo, and Midland, where they don’t yet ship.)

Check out all of our Plated Reviews!

Plated Subscription Box Review October 2015 - Recipes

Each week, Plated offers a different menu with 7 dishes to choose from. I selected Beef Moussaka, Zucchini Pizza with Honey, and Basil Pasta with Tomato Sauce.

Plated Subscription Box Review October 2015 - Email

When my box shipped, I received an email letting me know that I would need to have the following “pantry items” on hand: olive oil, black pepper, kosher salt, and an egg. The email also clearly listed the difficulty level, cooking time, and calorie information of my selected dishes.

Plated Subscription Box Review October 2015 - Packed1

As always, the box was packed with extreme care. Ingredients were bundled by recipe, and each item was in its own container.

Plated Subscription Box Review October 2015 - Packed2

The meats were sealed and packed at the bottom of the box, safely away from the produce and surrounded by cool packs.

Recipe #1- Basil Radiator Pasta with Vine-Ripe Tomato Sauce and Fresh Mozzarella

Calories Per Serving: 700

Cook Time: 30-40 minutes

Difficulty: Easy

Plated Subscription Box Review October 2015 - PastaCard1

Plated Subscription Box Review October 2015 - PastaCard2

Pasta is one of my favorite comfort foods, and I’ve been extremely impressed with some of the creative (and tasty!) pastas that I’ve tried from Plated. So much so that I find it difficult not to pick them whenever they turn up on the menu! This particular dish utilizes basil radiator pasta.

Plated Subscription Box Review October 2015 - RadiatorPasta

To begin, I cleaned and prepared my ingredients and boiled some water.

Plated Subscription Box Review October 2015 - PastaIngredients

I then sautéed tomatoes in olive oil with garlic and crushed red pepper. When the tomatoes began to break down, I added seasoning, white wine, tomato puree, and some basil and simmered the sauce to let the flavors meld.

Plated Subscription Box Review October 2015 - PastaSauce

While the sauce cooked, I boiled the pasta and, in a separate pan, toasted breadcrumbs in olive oil.

When the pasta was done, I added it to the pan with sauce and stirred through some fresh mozzarella and ½ of the breadcrumbs.

I plated the pasta and topped it with fresh basil and the remaining breadcrumbs.

Plated Subscription Box Review October 2015 - PastaPlated

This dish was really tasty! The sauce was simple, but I liked the freshness of the tomatoes and the heat from the crushed red pepper. I’ve never added breadcrumbs to pasta before, but I enjoyed the textural diversity. I’ll keep this trick in mind when I make pasta in the future.

Meal #2- Zucchini-Heirloom Tomato Pizza with Ricotta and Spiced Honey

Calories per Serving: 530

Cook Time: 35-45

Difficulty: Easy

Plated Subscription Box Review October 2015 - PizzaCard

Never would I think to combine pizza and honey! Once I read the description of this dish, though, I knew I had to try it.

Before I started cooking, I cleaned and prepared my veggies and herbs.

Plated Subscription Box Review October 2015 - PizzaIngredients

I rolled out the included pizza dough into a large oval and brushed it with olive oil. I arranged the zucchini and tomato evenly over the top, drizzled the veggies with a bit more olive oil, and seasoned them with oregano, salt, and pepper. To finish, I topped the pie with mozzarella and ricotta salata.

Plated Subscription Box Review October 2015 - PizzaRaw

The pizza baked at 450 for about 18 minutes, until the crust browned and the cheese started to bubble.

While the pizza baked, I warmed up honey in a pot with a Thai red chile.

When the pizza was done, I removed it from the oven, topped it with fresh ricotta and basil, and drizzled the top with the spicy honey.

Plated Subscription Box Review October 2015 - PizzaPlated

This pizza was truly fantastic. I loved the fresh veggies and combination of cheeses, and the spicy honey on top was a revelation!

Meal #3- Beef and Eggplant Moussaka

Calories: 660

Cook Time: 40-50

Difficulty: Medium

Plated Subscription Box Review October 2015 - MoussakaCard

It’s rare to see Plated regularly repeat dishes, but I’ve seen Moussaka featured at least three times since I began subscribing, which made me think that I ought to try it!

I began by broiling slices of eggplant.

Plated Subscription Box Review October 2015 - MoussakaBroil

While they were in the oven, I prepped my other ingredients.

Plated Subscription Box Review October 2015 - MoussakaIngredients

I then made yogurt sauce by mixing yogurt, pecorino, and an egg with salt and pepper.

Next, I simmered onion and garlic until soft and then added ground beef, spices, salt, and pepper. When the beef browned, I added wine, tomato paste, and chopped parsley.

Plated Subscription Box Review October 2015 - MoussakaAssembled

I assembled the dish in a large saucepan by layering broiled eggplant, the ground beef mixture, and yogurt sauce. When everything was in the pan, I placed the dish under the broiler until the sauce browned. I finished the dish with a garnish of parsley and served it family-style.

Plated Subscription Box Review October 2015 - MoussakaPlated

I enjoyed this dish. It was tasty and comforting- perfect for a chilly fall evening!

Verdict: This box from Plated was a big hit for me. I enjoyed the pasta and the moussaka, and I thought the pizza was fantastic. As usual, the ingredients arrived fresh and in good condition, and the recipes were clear and easy to follow. The cost per dish is about what I’d spend if I went shopping for ingredients at Whole Foods, and, considering the recipes and convenience factor, I’m happy with the value Plated offers. If you enjoy cooking at home, I would definitely recommend giving Plated a try!

Do you subscribe to Plated? If so, which Plated meals did you choose?

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Lindsey Morse
Lindsey Morse

Lindsey is a professional baker, cold brew coffee addict, and rosé aficionado who loves writing about food and wine. When she’s not sharing her love of subscription boxes with the world, you’ll find her in the podcasting studio, perfecting her cake decorating techniques, or cursing her way through the New York Times daily crossword puzzle. 


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10 comments

Sherita

Wow, that pizza looks amazing! I think I will attempt that.

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Randi

First of all – I always love reading your reviews! They make me hungry every time!
And honey on pizza is so good – I highly recommend trying it to anyone who hasn’t. There’s a couple pizza places around where I live that have honey either already on their pizza or bottles on the table so you can add it.
One of the places has a great wheat crust that is really good dipped in honey. I drizzle a bit on my pizza too. The other place it already comes a few of the specialty pizzas they have.
I know it sounds kinda weird, but it is so good!

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Lindsey

Thanks so much, Randi!

I think it’s so interesting that your local pizza places have honey on the table as a condiment! I’d never heard of topping pizza with honey before this box, but I’m definitely hooked on it now. 🙂

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chris

Everything looks great, Lindsey!

Your review is making me hungry. 🙂

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heat7918

Hi Lindsey, I love your reviews! I like that you’re thorough and detailed, and you have much better culinary skills than I do…

Have you every tried Hello Fresh or Blue Apron? I’m trying to decide which of these 3 might be best for me. 🙂

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natalie

We’ve tried both Hello Fresh and Home Chef. Home Chef is by far better than Hello Fresh. Half of the time, Hello Fresh would either forget ingredients or forget a step on their instruction card. Home Chef has yet to do that, has a lot more menu selections, you can choose however many items you want, and they even have breakfast items, smoothies and fresh fruit. Their meals cost $9.95 per person with free shipping on orders over $40. So far, we have not been disappointed!

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Lindsey

Hi there!

I haven’t yet tried Hello Fresh or Blue Apron (mostly because I’m such a fan of Plated), but it looks like Liz reviewed Hello Fresh back in 2013. I’ve linked to one of those reviews (just click on my name to see it). You’ll find a couple of Blue Apron Reviews, too, if you search the site for “Blue Apron Review.”

Hopefully, that’ll give you an idea what you can expect from each box. 🙂

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Jessvii

I’ve been really curious about a comparison between Plated and Blue Apron. I have Blue Apron now and am pretty happy with it – for me (a total beginner at cooking), their recipes are a little bit hard, but they usually taste good, and the Blue Apron website is very user friendly. I wonder, is Plated better than Blue Apron?

I also had Hello Fresh up until August. I had to cancel Hello Fresh because they kept leaving out an ingredient and/or shipping spoiled produce (the unfreshness was ironic). Plus, Hello Fresh was a tad more expensive than Blue Apron. Also, at the time their website didn’t let you input your food allergies, so the default shipment could be something that we can’t eat (maybe they’ve changed this subsequently?). That being said, I found the Hello Fresh recipes slightly easier than the Blue Apron recipes (a plus in my book), and their Customer Service was pretty good.