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Pantry Boy Subscription Box Review – May 2017

Haley Faye
ByHaley FayeSep 22, 2017 | 9 comments

Check out my review of Pantry Boy for May 2017!

Pantry Boy
5 overall rating
1 Ratings | 0 Reviews

Pantry Boy is a meal subscription that focuses on slow cookers to make home cooking simple and easy. Everything comes portioned, chopped, and prepped and ready to be thrown into your crock pot.

Check out my review of Pantry Boy for May 2017!

Pantry Boy offers weekly subscriptions, though it’s easy to log in and skip a week. For each delivery, you can be surprised by what they back from their menu or you can choose your three meals.

You can view their menu on their website here to get an idea of what they offer.

This box was sent to us at no cost for review. (Check out the review process post to learn more about how we review boxes.)

Check out my review of Pantry Boy for May 2017!

The Subscription: Pantry Boy

The Cost: Price varies on the options you choose. You can purchase 2-person boxes or 4-person boxes for carnivores, vegetarians, and omnivores. Check out this chart for pricing information:

The Product: Pantry Boy sends you everything you need for 3 home-cooked meals to be made in your slow cooker. Everything is portioned, prepped, chopped, and ready to be put together.

Ships to: Right now, Pantry Boy ships to the following areas:

Check out my review of Pantry Boy for May 2017!

Check out my review of Pantry Boy for May 2017!

My first meal was penne with meatballs"–an easy classic that everyone likes. The front of the recipe card shows a photo, overview, and ingredients.

Check out my review of Pantry Boy for May 2017!

The back of the recipe card has the instructions. One thing I really love is that they include instructions for fast cooking, too, even though it’s a slow cooker subscription. So helpful if you planned a meal for dinner and forgot to prep the slow cooker (that happens to other people too, right?).

Check out my review of Pantry Boy for May 2017!

Here’s all of the ingredients for the recipe, except for the half and half, which they mark as a “pantry must have” on the recipe card (meaning they expect you to have that on hand).

Check out my review of Pantry Boy for May 2017!

The first part of the instructions says to add the meatballs to your slow cooker. However, the seasoned ground beef came in a big lump, so I had to form the meatballs. No big deal, since that’s super easy, but they should have stated “form the beef into meatballs” on the recipe card. A minor gripe, really.

Check out my review of Pantry Boy for May 2017!

The meatballs, seasoning, some vegetable oil, and a bunch of diced onions were the only part of this recipe that went in the slow cooker. The sauce, pasta, and salad were made up separately.

Check out my review of Pantry Boy for May 2017!

The sauce was simple–half and half, parmesan, and a little seasoning! Inspired me to just make my own cream sauces now.

Check out my review of Pantry Boy for May 2017!

Here’s my finished meal! I ended up adding croutons to top off the Caesar salad. This meal ended up very tasty, but I have one big note about it: It really should be a fast-cooked recipe. First of all, I cooked the meatballs on the shortest time and high heat according to the recipe, and I ended up turning it to warm early because the meatballs looked overdone. Maybe my meatballs were too small, but since they skipped the part about forming the actual meatballs in the instructions, I wasn’t given a guide of how big to make them.

In reality, I wish I had followed the fast-cook instructions. Since I had the three other components to put together (salad, noodles, sauce), it didn’t seem like the slow cooker was really saving me any time. I could have spent 5 extra minutes at the beginning and sautéed the onions, seared the meatballs, then let them bake through while I boiled the noodles, made the sauce, and tossed the salad.

Overall, this dish was easy to make and tasty, though.

Check out my review of Pantry Boy for May 2017!

The next item was pesto chicken!

Check out my review of Pantry Boy for May 2017!

I have a note about this recipe, as well: Overall, it’s quite simple, but the instructions say to finish it off with some rice to serve and eat. Rice isn’t on the ingredients, nor even listed as a pantry must-have. Something to keep in mind–I’ll address this again later.

Check out my review of Pantry Boy for May 2017!

This dish was really simple–you literally just placed the vegetables and chicken in the slow cooker and let it cook!

Check out my review of Pantry Boy for May 2017!

Check out my review of Pantry Boy for May 2017!

So, back to the rice. The instructions say to “serve with some rice” and enjoy. But since they didn’t even have it listed as a pantry must-have ingredient, I didn’t pick up any in preparation for the meal. I did make some noodles to go with, but as it stands with just the ingredients Pantry Boy sent, it could have used a little something extra–even a salad or something.

There are potatoes in the vegetable mix, so it technically has a carb, and maybe I’m just being picky. The flavors for this dish were just okay. Not what I was expecting for a “pesto chicken” meal–the flavor of pesto wasn’t very distinct. It was well-seasoned, though, but everything sort of tasted the same since you cooked it all together. I was wishing for a little variation or something to break it up (hence, rice or noodles). Also, the eggplant in the veggie mix got super mushy in the slow-cooker.

Check out my review of Pantry Boy for May 2017!

The third meal I picked was a white bean medley (a vegetarian option).

Check out my review of Pantry Boy for May 2017!

Again, a very easy recipe! Just put the white bean mix and onions in the slow cooker and make up the basmati rice 15 minutes before serving.

Check out my review of Pantry Boy for May 2017!

Check out my review of Pantry Boy for May 2017!

The white beans were infused with parsley, tomato paste, and gochujang sauce–my house smelled great with this going in the slow cooker.

Check out my review of Pantry Boy for May 2017!

The rice was pre-seasoned with turmeric–you rinsed the rice before cooking until you no longer saw any yellow in the water and then cooked it normally. I topped it with the white beans and the kimchi vegetables and lime Pantry Boy included as a side.

The white beans and rice were good! A little tangy, and very filling. However, I have never had kimchi anything, and I have learned that it must really not be for me! And now I know.

The Verdict: All in all, I enjoyed my first Pantry Boy box, but it didn’t blow me out of the water, if I’m being honest. I love the concept they have! A slow cooker subscription? As a working mom with a toddler and a baby on the way, I am all about getting dinners to be as hassle-free and convenient as possible. The fact that everything is pre-portioned and prepped is really nice. I think they have some small things with their delivery that may need tweaked or refined, but as a whole this was a successful box for me. I didn’t fall head over heels for the meals themselves, but they were all eaten, and I’d love to try some more meals from them to get a better idea of the variety of different meals they send out.

What do you think about Pantry Boy?

Starting at $62.34
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Pantry Boy Every develops tasty and time-saving recipes made with seasonal ingredients and inspired by flavors from around the world. The recipes are prepared for slow cookers. Choose from a Canivore, Omnivore, or Vegetarian plan. • Farm fresh ingredients 100% chopped, prepped and portioned. • ... read more.
Haley Faye
Haley Faye
Haley Faye first discovered the wonderful world of subscription boxes in 2012 and began writing for MSA in 2014. Over the years, she has found many subscriptions to love. Now a mom of three, her favorite boxes are ones that dress her kids, help her get organized, feed her family, send her snacks, and offer educational fun for her children.

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9 comments

DL

I must be the only one who on first glance thought this was an odd sub was called Panty Boy, lol.

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tracy

also intrigued esp b/c we are doing major kitchen reno this summer/fall (8 weeks w/o a kitchen) and the slow cooker may be the saving grace.

looking forward to more reviews to solidify the decision.

As a hello fresh subscriber – this is more pricey but true that chopping is included, which saves time in prep and clean up!

Thanks for your review!

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magoosmom

First off, I didn’t realize you were expecting again–congratulations!! 🙂

Second, I like the idea of this and as someone else mentioned, the lazy part of me loves that most of it is prepped and ready to go (I am such a lazy cook). But I am with you–the meatball meal doesn’t seem slow cooker friendly and it seems like maybe there are some kinks to work out. The price point being on par with the other subs, I’d like to see them step it up a little. I know some of the services give you a heads up on what items you will need at home so you’re ready. That seems like it would have been helpful here.

Thanks for the review though! I’d love to see another review and keep an eye on this one–sounds like if they improve, it might be for me!

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Sharon in SE TX

This looks intriguing. I would try it if it were available in my area. Thanks for the review!

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Jana

Same here! I’d try at this price if it was available in Texas. Maybe even by the time it gets cold here… fall and winter are crock-pot season for me.

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Doneta

This seems like a terribly overpriced subscription, but in their defense, they did tell you to form the ground beef into 10-12 meatballs. It was the second thing on the recipe card, right after unpacking the ingredients.

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Jill

Just wanted to say that the pricing seems comparable to most of the other meal prep boxes out there (like Plated, SunBasket, etc.). It also seems like this one has a lot of the prep done for you, like vegetables already cut up, so that saves time. It didn’t look like it really needed the slow cooker though.

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John Patrick

I did have this box, but 2 out of 3 weeks I received the wrong meals ( meals I had skipped) The meals I did eat were good. I liked that everything was prepped. I ended up throwing out 3 meals that no one here would ever eat, so I dropped it . I can’t afford that kind of mistake. ( And it was their mistake both times – they apologized profusely – but I can’t afford 55 dollars worth of wasted meals. That would have bought a lot of meals at the grocers)

Haley Faye

Oh my gosh, you’re absolutely right. Whomp whomp. I can blame the pregnancy brain on that right? Thanks so much for pointing that out! I ended up with 16 meatballs, so maybe they could have been a little bigger, but I remember having a significant amount of time left on the slow cooker when I turned it off… Maybe the meatballs would have been less overdone but had I still let them go the whole time I still feel like they would have been. Anyways, I own up to that mishap. That wasn’t a big mix up either way, fortunately. Thanks for catching that!

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