We tried UCook, a ready to cook meal delivery service and loved it!

Getting dinner on the table during the week can be a challenging even at the best of times. Most people are busy, between families and careers and the endless demands of day to day life.

Enter UCook, a solid dinner solution that doesn’t involve takeout, cereal, or random grazing through the pantry. This ready to cook meal delivery service sends you a box of pre-portioned meal ingredients and easy recipes that even the pickiest of eaters will love.

After reading about the concept online, I decided to try UCook and this is how it went.

The box-kit contained all the ingredients needed to cook three meals, each feeding 1 or 2 people, complete with recipes with step-by-step photos. UCook also offers family plans to feed 4 people, as well as a choice between the rustic, low-carb or vegetarian menu. The three menus changes weekly and delivery happens on a Monday.

I picked the rustic menu and my week’s dishes included Cheesy Chicken Tortillas, Pasta al Fresco and Gourmet “Boom” Bangers.

menus_ucook

My meals came neatly packaged in a cardboard box lined with ice packs to keep the contents fresh for a couple of hours. The bangers and chicken in my pack were vacuum sealed with expiry dates. This was quite convenient and meant I had an extra day or two to use them, which helped as last minute plans came up.

Each recipe was well explained and every single ingredient except for olive oil, balsamic vinegar, sugar and tinfoil, salt, and pepper, was included. Tiny container of creme fraiche Dijon mustard? Check. A small bag with the various spices? You bet. The only thing missing was a bottle of wine!

Because UCook includes literally everything needed, making dinner is almost as easy as ordering it in. You also don’t have to sit with the guilt of throwing ingredients away that have past their sell-by date. I liked being able to preview the menu online, to make sure I’d actually want to cook the dishes on it, and to know what I was going to cook for dinner a few days later.

The recipes were creative and the dishes were easy to assemble and tasty.

sausages_ucook

Cooking with UCOOK costs less than buying groceries at the supermarket.

Dinner for one: R234 for 3 meals a week

Dinner for two: R438 for 3 meals a week

Dinner for four: R612 for 3 meals a week