Dinnerly: Meal Kit Reviews

by Kataclysmic

Being a new user i was incredibly excited for this box to arrive and was generally impressed with the first one although the packaging is very wasteful and the directions for cooking are clustered together in a less than simple way with far too many steps crammed in at a time to try and make it appear shorter.

Then my second box just never arrived. I contacted support and they essentially said “there was a problem” with no explanation or even empathy as i’m left without anything to cook for the week. They claimed they were issuing me a refund, but instead they kept my money and applied it as a “credit” to my account for future orders without asking me or telling me even though i had expressly said i wasn’t sure i was going to stay a member after this being my second experience.

Had their customer support agent been at all a decent human with any emotions this could have gone differently but I had to contact them a second time to demand my money back to which they said they’d have to also cancel my future box if i did that. There are too many good dinner services to use to get this kind of service for $65 every week.

by Msarmient1

Tried out this app because it was cheaper than Hello Fresh. Big mistake. I paid for one week of meals and then went to download Dinnerly . Saw all the bad reviews and canceled my subscription. The cancellation wasn’t in time to stop any orders at all (even though I canceled the same day), so I was supposed to get the first week of meals still. Supposed to. Well first I got a random email from the CEO saying that COVID is affecting their deliveries. COVID has been around for a year now, but okay. Then I got another email stating that due to bad weather in the country they were canceling my order and I’d get a refund that would be applied to future meals. Except that I had already canceled my subscription. I emailed and asked them to refund me. No reply. I foresee a huge headache in getting my $43 for nonexistent meals back and I regret ever signing up for this business that honestly feels like a start up that someone began in their garage or something and never improved upon. Try Hello Fresh...or any other meal delivery company. The price isn’t worth it, especially if you’re like me and you end up with literally nothing for your money.

by Katydiditt

I was excited to finally find one of these delivery dinner options that wasn't outrageously priced. However there is a reason they are super cheap. I got my first box on a Tuesday everything seemed fine but the portions were small, I did the 2 servings because it’s just me and two children. There is NO way it would feed us (and my youngest only eats two bites). So I upgraded to the 4 servings for my second box. I requested it be delivered on Wednesday due to my schedule. It never came. Got an email saying it was running a day late should be here within 24 hours. Never got it. I’ve emailed and reached out numerous times, haven’t heard back. Now it’s the next Tuesday I got my food for this week and it’s a disaster. The box was smashed like someone sat on it. The gel from the ice packs is all over everything, including the vegetables. One of the packets of sour cream was open and got over all the everything as well. I had already deactivated my subscription before this box came. I’m very disappointed.

by Krb95

I was so excited to get this dinner box and couldn’t wait. It finally came today and I was a bit nervous when the box looked like it had seen better days. The food was cold but unfortunately they had thrown ice packs on top of produce which ruined it. Everything comes tossed in the box and you have to figure out what meal it is for. It bothers me that they tossed raw meat in with produce. The portion sizes seem small, the steak says one serving is the whole package yet they expect you to divide it between two adults when it is the main course. This for sure was NOT worth the money I paid. I could have easily went to the grocery store and picked out higher quality products for around the same price. I canceled my subscription and will not be getting another one from this brand ever again. I highly recommend looking elsewhere if you want to do a meal subscription box. This was very sloppy and disappointing. I am not thrilled.

by CattledogHaus

The boxes that you’re “currently cooking” and are upcoming only ever show three recipes even if you buy more. This is a design flaw because it makes it hard to cook the extra recipes and actually discourages me from buying more than three since I know it will be hard to remember which boxes have an extra (hidden) recipe.
If you go to the recipes tab, everything is set up in windows in columns with no horizontal timeline or organization. It’s very hard to know which recipe was in which box and whether or not you’ve cooked it. Upcoming recipes show there before they’ve arrived at my door.
I would strongly suggest showing all recipes in a box in the boxes tab. And, most importantly, the recipes in the recipe tab should be one to a line in chronological order. You should have a feature that allows you to check off recipes you’ve already cooked. The favorites feature is nice, but hardly helpful when nothing is organized.

by Cheatah Mame

I wanted to like this so bad. I ordered a box for my family and one for my mom and dad. Dinnerly is fine. I didn’t have any problems with it. The service was not so great. First of all, my delivery was a day late. Now, that may not be much, but for a poor quality box, it is. They get their produce from the same company ALDI does (the little market). It will go bad very fast and they were already browning. So I get my box the next day and the meat and cold pack is punctured. There was gel and blood on everything. I was also missing two ingredients. I did a chat to let them know. I took a few pictures just in case. They contacted me via email 4 hours later. They said they wanted pictures of the box. Im glad that I had taken a few before I washed what I would keep and threw away what I wouldn’t. Who would leave that sitting around waiting for them to respond? I have no vegetables for my meals. I haven’t heard anything back since I sent the pictures.
On another note, the serving size is very small. The vegetable portions are small. The meat is small. The lettuce is small. They sent one small heart of romaine for a salad dinner for 2 along with 1 soft Roma tomato, 5 olives, and the smallest package of feta cheese I’ve ever seen. It was enough for one small salad plate. I could have bought full size groceries for 6 for the same price I paid for the “two serving meal”, $8.83 (I priced it in Walmart’s app).

by Ameliabloop

So many things wrong with this subscription. First, Dinnerly RARELY works. Every time i open Dinnerly it stays on the logo screen trying to load content but never actually opens. Thankfully they’re pretty good about sending emails otherwise i would have no control over the subscription (choosing recipes, skipping orders, changing delivery dates, etc.) When the box comes, none of the ingredients are labeled as to what goes with which recipes, which can be confusing. The recipes are super white-washed and boring. I ended up saying screw the recipes and just cooking how i wanted with whatever ingredients they sent me. Really just ended up being a grocery delivery service for me-but not a reliable one. Sometimes there were missing ingredients, sometimes i was sent expired ingredients, i once received what seemed to be the wrong box entirely. Do not recommend. I’m switching to Daily Harvest.

by FrustratedReader063006

It’s a decent inexpensive meal kit, but a frustrating app. Please put the sub-steps in bullet points, so that we can see them better. It’s really easy to get lost in the paragraph of tiny text that’s wedged in between the completely useless giant number graphics.

Scrolling to see a recipe on a phone while trying to cook can get frustrating, but the phone app is still better than the iPad app. Please make tablet versions so that the text is larger and the number graphics stay at a reasonable size. It’s ridiculous that the number graphics will take up almost the whole screen and then the paragraph of instructions beneath is still tiny font size.

It would be sooo nice to be able to just prop a tablet somewhere and be able to read it at a glance while cooking!

by Buzzkillbetch

I was very excited to see that this app had an app with the recipes available. The layout is not great or user friendly, the recipes are very very limited detail - sometimes I have to get out of the recipe and go back to the photo of the meal to see if I can understand the directions better which is annoying. The recipe should have photos in it or more detail and you shouldn’t have to go back out of the recipe to see what it looks like. I love the idea of Dinnerly but it needs major updates. I also hate that there’s constantly a red notification on the bottom to refer friends. I have referred many people to this app, I don’t need a notification to remind me. It took me a few weeks to realize that there was an entire separate “recipe section” vs clicking on the photo of the meals to get to the recipes from the first screen. Needs updates to make more user friendly.

by Star1031

The meal kit is wonderful, the meals are wonderful and perfectly portioned. The shipping…..omg I’ve never had this many issues. Twice my box has just straight up disappeared claiming it out for delivery but never showed up. Once it was because it was delivered to the wrong address which is fine, things happen I get that.
The second time it was to be delivered on Wednesday, showed as delayed with delivery date on Friday….check again Friday night and it says delivered on Wednesday at 7pm but I received nothing and the estimated delivery date is still showing as Friday. So disappointed that this didn’t work out but I’m not going to pay for items that never make it to me and this late I have zero idea of the box is even edible. The freezer packs arent mean for long term packaging and storing.

by Theleewit712

The best part of Dinnerly is that when you are on the recipe screen it won't let the screen time out. So if you need to check what the consistency of the dough should feel like while mixing the dough by hand like it suggests you don't have to stop and wipe/wash your hands or touch your screen with biscuit hands. You can just walk over and look at the phone. Yes, you can manually set your phone to do this for other recipes but how often do we forget to set it back to our normal settings and it drains the battery for a week before we remember to change it.

It's a fine app otherwise. Nothing bad, doesn't seem to crash for me or go haywire. Just average.

by JohnnyMnemonic69

I’ve enjoyed this service for about 6 months, averaging two boxes of three meals each per month.

I find the meals tasty, the kids have largely enjoyed them, and the ingredients come simply packaged, fresh, and are quality. Only once out of that 6 month was there a missing ingredient. I find the boxes generally come late in the day, so I plan on starting that box for dinner the next day. I think the price of the box is frankly very competitive with groceries, and 4 servings per meal is enough for males ages 11, 14, and adult, usually (but not always) leaving leftovers. If you order more than three meals per box, there is a discount, increasing value.

The service is easy to suspend week per week, although going from 4 servings to 2 servings is harder than it should be.

Knocked off star for bad UX:
No portrait views, which makes using a kitchen iPad hard.
The 4th+ recipe is hard to find in the view for the week
Step counter is much more prominent than the recipe itself
Ingredient list (and final meal image) is separate page than recipe, so I find myself going back and forth for reference
Ingredient quantities are intermittently listed in recipe

Tl;dr the service is good, but the UX needs work. I expect it to get better in time, although it hasn’t shown any changes in 6 months, even ones that should be easy to implement like portrait view.

by Buggyjet18

I love this app’s service and the meals they offer. Every meal has been very tasty and nothing has ever arrived spoiled. Dinnerly is fine on the phone, but like another user said, it would be helpful to have all the sub steps in bullet point format for easier reading. The current paragraph format is a little annoying and I find myself rereading the same paragraph over and over so I can get to the sub steps in the middle. I started using my iPad instead because it is larger, but Dinnerly doesn’t rotate even on the iPad, so I can’t use my stand. Something small, but I was excited to be hands free while cooking so I don’t have to pick it up. Please enable Dinnerly to rotate!

by DuskyJewel

As a big fan of this app, and someone who discovered Dinnerly before the announcement, I am genuinely enjoying and loving Dinnerly. Finding recipes and making changes to boxes is simple. Now that generally offers eight options each month, it is easy and fun to scroll through the titles and photos of each meal. From there I can quickly check each recipe for specifics and decide if I do indeed want to swap out meals. Organic beef and chicken and pork is another great benefit. The quality of the ingredients, in general, is high.

The ability to quickly see what will be needed and used for each recipe is appreciated. Dinnerly makes it convenient and loved service even more so. Make no mistake, this app meals are nothing super fancy. However, that means can re-purposed ingredients if I choose and nothing goes to waste. I may be this meal box’s greatest fan! And the fact that Marley Spoon also does Martha Stewart’s boxes makes me feel like I am her distant, distant, distant, very distant poorer cousin who eats well LOL!

by Friendship Warrior

I’m on my 4th week of this app and I don’t know if I ever want to stop. We got it to avoid going grocery shopping during the quarantine and it’s been perfect for us.

Pros:
-The meals are delicious and fun to cook
-Instructions easy to follow
-One portion is perfect for a hungry adult
-My delivery has been on time every time.
-App makes it easy to change recipes/portions

Cons:
-Portions are exact size and don’t offer much for sharing
-You’ll need to provide some ingredients (flour, eggs, oil, salt & pepper). We have the stuff on hand anyways, so not a big issue.
-Requires a variety of cooking utensils (pots, pans, skillets, bowls, etc..) not a problem for us since we own plenty of that stuff.
- App requires 30 seconds of your life to get use to it and figure out how to navigate and find information you’re looking for.

I haven’t had an issue with my deliveries so I’ve never had to contact customer service myself, so I can’t speak on that. But I love it and will continue to use this service.

by Sleep Is Not Necessary

We’ve been getting the this app box for 6 weeks and absolutely love it! No more planning meals, making a list or going to the grocery store a few times a week. We have found that we don’t usually eat the entire meal so we have the leftovers for lunch. So we are getting 2 meals for one quite often. The meals are really good and I look forward to making them. They are pretty easy and don’t ever take too long. We also love Dinnerly and flexibility to make changes. The set grocery expense is great and we aren’t throwing away leftovers or food that doesn’t get made before going bad. This is just great!!!

by Daniel Desario

On my third week of this app and really enjoying it so far! We do a family subscription for 2 of us so we can eat the leftovers for lunch the following day and it works great. Prices are excellent, best around, and the meals are less complex because of that, with very simple instructions (sometimes could be more clear...but always doable). Many follow a pattern of meat + potato + green veggie, but there’s plenty that are more unique if you want to try that. We had one missing ingredient so far but also one extra ingredient, so no complaints overall. Dinnerly specifically is great - it makes pausing orders and picking meals super easy.

by Lilliannnnnnnn👍👍

Definitely recommend!! I currently am subscribed to three other meal kit companies by far this app is my all time favorite. We love the different variety of recipe choices weekly, learning to cook up recipes never thought could pull through. this app makes it so easy and convenient. I was a little bit skeptical about the organization part of all the meals in the box without being individually separated like other meal kits but it really isn’t bad at all, I see it just the same as if I were to go grocery shopping unpacking everything from the grocery bags into the refrigerator. this app is a definite meal kit at our home weekly!! Thank you this app for making dinner made so easy, fun and convenient.

by Giunlai

Have been using this meal kit service for about 4 months. I like the fact that their ground beef is grass fed. We do a burger recipe almost every week since I have a teenage son. Their veggies have always been fresh. Had a couple of hiccups (late by a day once because of bad storms everywhere, and once a seasoning pckt was open and spilled everywhere), but no one is perfect. Overall we are happy with the service. Tried some new flavors and liked most while a couple I didn’t care for. The prices are reasonable, so I don’t feel too bad if I paid for something I didn’t like once. I choose to print my own recipes, but you could just use an iPad or phone to pull up the recipe as you cook it. It saves you a lot of money, so it is not a big deal to me.

by TheChard1979

I have been subscribed to this app for over 6 months and in that time the worst thing to happen with their service has been they were a day late once or twice. Oh and I just remembered a sour cream packet had burst once. Other than that all the food has been delivered in excellent, fresh, cold-storage condition. Even the meals I tend to think I won’t like end up being some of my favorites. Skipping weeks has always been very easy with Dinnerly and I have never skipped and received a box anyway. Customer service has always been very friendly and excellent. Sometimes I have to read the directions in the recipes a few times to grasp what they are trying to describe but that has always been a very minor issues if at all. this app is the first and only meal subscription service I have ever used and I am very satisfied with their meal selections, shipping, food condition upon arrival, customer service, and app interface.

by Wolf Pack UNR

Why would you create an app that only works in portarait mode? Impossible to use on an ipad propped up to be able to read the recipes. If your not going to send recipes cards to save costs, Dinnerly should be easy to use.

It also wastes a huge amount of space on the recipe page with blank generic cartoon pictures of the steps so your constantly scrolling up and down to read the steps. Remove them so everything is easy to see on one screen.

by MC V

I received my first box. I ordered 3 family meals for the week. The box did not contain the ingredients to complete even 1 of the recipes I selected. I called customer service who could only say they were sorry for the mix up at the warehouse. Am I going to receive the rest of my ingredients..no..... but it sounds like I have the ingredients to make another pork recipe...!?! So, I am expected to look up a recipe based on what they did provide..... which was enough for one meal for a family of four..... and not one of the meals I ordered. NO THANKS!!!!!! I had to select a star to post the review. They do not deserve it.

by Erinelcb

Great food and easy recipes! However, I find the recipe itself annoying to use. I wish the tabs for “what you’ll use” and nutrition information included the tabs for “what you’ll need” etc. It doesn’t make sense that you have to scroll back and forth top to bottom to see everything, especially once you’ve already expanded to see the remaining recipe steps (and when you have messy hands from cooking!)

by Auburnalum01

The food has been excellent so far and there are enough options to keep even a picky eater like myself happy. The portions are even great for two people and most meals don’t take that long to make (although I wouldn’t be upset if there were a few quicker options).

The bad: most of the recipes are very hard to understand and might as well be Greek to someone not handy in the kitchen. Also, Dinnerly could be more user friendly. There needs to be an option to text/message the recipes without having to take pictures and send each step individually. It’s a huge pain in the rear.

by Kristinalustig

I was excited to see that this app has an app. Finally, I thought, I can just throw the recipe up on my iPad, prop it up, and no longer need to do all kinds of scrolling and unlocking my phone with dirty hands. But... nope, the number images between each recipe step are MASSIVE (...MASSIVE) and I still can only view one step at a time. Because, obviously, when I’m reading, it’s very important that I focus on the fact that the items towards the bottom come after the ones before them.

Snark aside, it works well and looks nice, but that’s such a fundamental usability issue and missed opportunity that I’ll probably stick to my phone.

by Mds48285

Like having all my recipes in one place, but the inability to view all recipe steps in one frame in landscape mode on my iPad, like I can using the web PDF, is a nonstarter for me. Simple fix would likely improve user experience!

by Texaschainsawbunny

Nice looking app, easy to use. So much easier to access the recipes! Much easier to edit the recipe is and delivery dates. But, Dinnerly needs landscape rotation when using it on a tablet.

by Jamtooday

It was a bear to get working (wouldn’t accept my password; changing the password took several attempts before it worked), but it was well worth the aggravation. Since one of the money-savers of this app is only providing menus electronically, Dinnerly simplifies searching for and saving of favorites. Editing orders are also far less cumbersome than on the website. In short, this is a welcome addition to what I believe is a very good service.

by Bethannelikesthis

this app is great and has totally surprised me how much I look forward to it each week. If I could make any suggestions I would update Dinnerly so recipes can be viewed in landscape mode, and I agree with another review it would be helpful to have the ingredients list on the recipe instructions page, I have also had to go back to check the ingredients list in the middle of a recipe. Thanks!

by YUKZ71

Very smooth user friendly app! Light years ahead of the mobile web version. I enjoy the meal image graphics to quickly see what you have in your box. Changing box recipes is super quick and easy. Thank you for putting together a solid app. I look forward to using it for meal directions tonight.

by MtrCtyJoe

I tried Blue Apron ... but it was very expensive and the meals a little too over the top with bizarre ingredients and long prep times. this app has been fantastic so far and a great value. I think the ingredients are very high quality - especially the meats. Recipes are fun and easy to follow. I am certain we will be sticking with this app long term.