Gobble is the easiest meal kit I’ve tried — I can get dinner on the table in just 15 minutes, and it tastes great too

Gobble

Meal kits promise to get dinner on the table in about 45 minutes. But after a long day, this can still feel like too much time.
Gobble offers delicious meals that take just 15 minutes to prepare. Ingredients a preprepared so you don’t have to do the chopping and mixing.
These recipes taste as good as their competitors’ meals. I made dishes that ranged from a great spaghetti with vegetables to a poke bowl.

I’ve been an avid meal kit user for the past two years. If you’ve never tried a meal kit like Hello Fresh or Blue Apron, here’s what you’re in for: You get two to four meals a week delivered to you, so you don’t have to go grocery shopping. You just need a couple of pots and pans and olive oil. The ingredients are preportioned with just the right amount of ingredients, whether it be broccoli or soy sauce.

With these meal delivery services, you get to choose your meals, which can usually accommodate any dietary restrictions. From opening the kits to getting them on a table, you’re only working for about 45 minutes at the most. And they’re relatively affordable as well.

So how could the new meal kit service Gobble make things any easier?

At around $12 per person per meal, Gobble is priced similarly to other meal delivery services and offers a discount to first-time users (your first six meals for $36). Gobble sends out the same kinds of meals as its competitors, but somehow crams all of the meal-making into as little as 15 minutes.

Any meal kit experience feels a bit like building with Lego. You put a few things together according to instructions, and hopefully it turns into a great dinner. Perhaps you pour a bunch of little packets into a bowl to make a sauce. You chop your vegetables. You boil your rice for 20 minutes. You saute your aromatics.

But all of those little steps take time and create room for error. Gobble manages to serve up a meal kit experience without those steps. It’s kind of like the Duplo of meal kits — there are fewer small blocks, but you can still build a nice structure. Instead of making your own sauce, Gobble sends you a premade sauce. Instead of cooking rice, Gobble sends you parboiled rice that takes a minute to microwave. Instead of chopping your broccoli, Gobble sends you a bag of prechopped broccoli.

Gobble’s taste is on par with the likes of Blue Apron and Sun Basket. I made dishes that ranged from a great spaghetti with vegetables to a poke bowl. It also caters to those who are vegetarian, vegan, and gluten free. There are other meal kits that perhaps cater more specifically (I’ve seen entire boxes that can be paleo or kosher from other companies), but with Gobble, everything is packaged separately so if you are allergic to nuts, you won’t have to worry about cross-contamination.

Gobble

I feel satisfied after I make a meal and don’t usually feel the need for a snack or something afterward — though they sent me free cookies with my first box. They tasted great and didn’t take long to prepare.

Bottom line

Gobble is a great option for working parents or professionals who don’t have time or energy to run to the grocery store and prepare a full meal. Maybe waiting for your oil to become fragrant with the scent of garlic simply takes too much time, but quickly microwaving a frozen dinner (often laden with hidden sodium and fats) doesn’t give you the satisfaction of making dinner. Cooking can be an outlet to unwind after a busy day. I know I feel better doing something with my hands rather than staring at a screen while I wait for delivery. With Gobble, you still get to prepare a healthy meal for yourself or your family — you’re just not waiting for rice to boil. Dinner’s on the table in less than the time it would take to order out for delivery.

Bottom line

Try Gobble and get 6 meals for $36