The 6 Best Cook-Your-Own-Meal Delivery Services In Chicago
By Staff in Food on Jan 15, 2014 10:20PM
Sometimes you can either be too busy to cook at home (a risible excuse). You simply don't want to sully a load of pots and pans in order to have a good meal but you don't want to fork over any extra cash to dine out.
There are a slew of meal delivery services in Chicago vying for your consumer dollar. We've picked the six we would lay our money down to try.
Naan Flatbread pizza from Relished.
Home Chef
This company jumps head-first onto the locally sourced bandwagon to provide its customers with weekly meal subscription packages starting at $9.95 for a trial offer. Chef Michael Wallach and his team prepare a new menu and recipe cards each week so you can try your hands making the meals after you've eaten them. —Chuck Sudo
Visit Home Chef here.
Meez Meals
This company does all the prep work for you and delivers it to your door with simple instructions on how to put it all together and cook a delicious meal at home. They deliver a cooler to your doorstep each week filled with everything you need to make delicious dinners from scratch, including different recipes. —Chuck Sudo
Visit Meez Meals online or call them at 773-916-6339.
Tomato Mountain CSA
If you’re missing your weekly farmer’s market visits, signing up for a community supported agriculture (CSA) subscription may be just the patch to get you through these winter months. I signed up for my first CSA last fall, and Tomato Mountain won me over by not only making home-produce delivery incredibly easy, they also kept in touch through weekly emails with stories about the Wisconsin farm, explanations of growing cycles and recipes to teach me how to use the five pounds of beets and carrots I just received. And as the name promises, tomatoes are a big feature. When grocery stores are shipping in anemic-looking tomatoes from South America during the cold months, I’m making hearty meatballs and tomato sauce with tomatoes grown locally, picked and roasted during their prime, then canned to be stored and delivered during the off months.
Subscriptions are available for all four seasons, with discounts if you sign up for more than one season at a time. I’ve found that a solo share is more than enough to last two people for the week, but if you are a vegetarian or a larger household, small, medium and large shares are available. An egg share add on is available, along with a la carte purchases of extra produce, canned goods, whole chickens raised and processed on the farm, and even local goods like honey, maple syrup and flours. Tomato Mountain is currently accepting Winter subscriptions at a pro-rated discount of $100 for a small share, plus delivery. —Jennifer A. Freeman
Visit Tomato Mountain's website.
Slagel Farm CSA
If you are looking to add some variety to the meat portion of your meals, choosing a local option is always a great way to taste test different types of meat. And a monthly basket full of hand selected cuts from one of the most popular area farms around is a great way to do all of that and more. Slagel Farms offers a CSA program that is a great deal. We’re fudging a little bit here because the meat isn’t delivered directly to your door. Instead you have the option to pick it up from two Chicago and one suburban location, which is a much closer than visiting the farm. That said we think this deal is well worth the foot traffic.
Each month you’ll get a basket that includes five or six different items worth a total of $60. The assortment usually is a mix of beef, pork, lamb and chicken but occasionally will include rabbit, duck or goat. Products can be anything from whole chickens to hamburgers, steak or sausage. They deliver the baskets the second Wednesday evening of the month to whichever pick up location you specify. All you have to do is stop by and pick up your order on Thursday and take home your wonderful new variety of meat. Your kitchen will then be serving the same cuts as some of the most well known restaurants in town. The buyer list of Slagel Farms is a who’s who of the Chicago culinary world, including Antique Taco, Girl & The Goat, Elizabeth, Longman & Eagle, The Purple Pig, Parson’s, Bristol, Publican, Sable and many more. You can find out more information, pick up location and how to order on their website.—Lisa White
Visit Slagel Farm's's website.
Madison & Rayne
Former Spring chef Josh Jones left the stage and now works as a personal chef who does everything for you short of cooking the meals yourself. Like Meez Meals, Madison & Rayne sources and prepares the ingredients for the dishes so all you have to do is the cooking. Jones has up to 10 meals to choose from each week, including vegetarian options. —Chuck Sudo
Visit Madison & Rayne online or call 1.855.626.3701.
Johnny Casserole
Johnny Casserole is on a mission to bring some comfort cooking to those in Chicago that may want a break from their kitchen duties. They bill themselves as the “Midwest’s 1st Casserole Delivery Service” and unless we see proof otherwise, we’d have to agree. With offerings like a jambalaya casserole, their spin on tuna noodle and even some breakfast options, you’ve got plenty of comfort dishes to choose from. They have a North Center cafe if you want to enjoy your casserole dine-in or for pick-up, but the real draw for us is having a casserole delivered to your doorstep. You choose hot or cold and a casserole will be brought to your apartment, assuming you live within the delivery parameters. If you have an oven, why not let the sweet smells of baking casserole permeating your apartment? We say order a casserole cold (give a little advance notice), invite some friends over and then decide if you want to claim it as your own. —Lisa White
Visit Johnny Casserole at 4019 N. Damen or online.