For 5 people including 3 teen boys it’ll still be too much work with the meal kits and too much packaging. It won’t simplify your life. I tried meal kits and just found it too much work still for too little food.

If you’re on a neighborhood list serve or next door, see if anyone may be available for meal prep or preparing (you’d need to share recipes).

Or rely on oven ready stuff like Costco lasagna, or salmon, chicken Alfredo + salad kits from Costco or grocery store.

Alternatively, check out wegman’s family meals. Also, pizza, roasted chicken, etc.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Home Chef has some options for “family meals” that serve four people. I just made a peanut noodle, chicken and vegetable dish from there that ended up being six pretty hefty servings.

Their meals often require less chopping and prep work than some of the other meal out companies.

I also use Home Chef and like it. I get it op - it’s nice for a couple of nights a week to not have to plan a meal. And I found it’s expanded our horizons and given us new meals to put in our regular rotation.

I do sometimes supplement the meal, like add a side or bread, just to stretch it a bit farther. I only have one teenage boy to feed though! I’ll also say it always takes about double the amount of time to cook as is stated on the recipe card. But I cook alone, if your dh or one of your kids helps out, it would be less than that I’m sure.

The bolded, for sure. I like Home Chef and am generally pleased with their portion sizes, but I’m feeding myself and two teenaged daughters. Some meals have huge portions, only a few have portions that seem too small, but the vast majority seem about right for an adult who is not dieting. They would not fill up teenaged boys, though. For two adults and 3 teenaged boys, you’d probably need to order 8 servings, which would run you roughly $100 per meal and would be unwieldy because you’d be using so many burners simultaneously or would need double ovens.

I found a local chef who does a weekly meal service that I have to reheat. It's cheaper and healthier than all the takeout we otherwise get.

I've done a lot of meal kits over the years and I have to agree with the PPs -- the portions are small so you'll need to spend a ton of $$$ to feed your household. This may sound crazy, but if it's just for a couple months, maybe you can find an in-home service that will come and prep meals for you. I did a quick google search and found "Friend that cooks" - It's pricy but hourly, so if you requested some basic meals that aren't complicated, you may be able to make something like this work. Just thinking outside the box, you may find someone home from college for the summer that would do this for less. Post on neighborhood list serve? Are there local culinary schools you can post this at? Good luck, I'm exhausted just thinking about feeding 3 teenage boys.

Anonymous wrote:I found that those meals take more time than they are worth. Sorry that’s not what you’re asking.

I would have a family meeting once a week and decide what night is what type of meal and have everyone pick a night. Pasta night, Asian night, Latino night, meat and starch night, vegetarian night, leftover smorgasbord. 2 adults and 3 teens means 5 nights are covered, 6th night is leftovers and 7th can be takeout pizza. Splurge on Instacart instead of blue apron and ask people to add their groceries to the list and be mindful of prices. Discuss how you can use one ingredient for more than one meal. Ie if you’re buying cilantro for Mexican food, also think about using it in a salad later.

???

Anonymous wrote:Home Chef has some options for “family meals” that serve four people. I just made a peanut noodle, chicken and vegetable dish from there that ended up being six pretty hefty servings.

Their meals often require less chopping and prep work than some of the other meal out companies.

I also use Home Chef and like it. I get it op - it’s nice for a couple of nights a week to not have to plan a meal. And I found it’s expanded our horizons and given us new meals to put in our regular rotation.

I do sometimes supplement the meal, like add a side or bread, just to stretch it a bit farther. I only have one teenage boy to feed though! I’ll also say it always takes about double the amount of time to cook as is stated on the recipe card. But I cook alone, if your dh or one of your kids helps out, it would be less than that I’m sure.

I’m in Canada so not sure if this plan is available in the US, but if so… GoodFood is very good

Home Chef has some options for “family meals” that serve four people. I just made a peanut noodle, chicken and vegetable dish from there that ended up being six pretty hefty servings.

Their meals often require less chopping and prep work than some of the other meal out companies.

Costco has fresh and frozen large prepared meals.

I found Hello Fresh to require more steps then simple dinners we do ourselves. The benefit was having all the ingredients ready to go

If you are not too picky, there may be a local fresh, prepared meals provider. Meal prep kits still require cooking, and some can be pretty fussy.

There's also shef.com

How about some simple meals like rotisserie chicken, pasta and meatballs, pancakes, frozen lasagne. Salad kits

I found that those meals take more time than they are worth. Sorry that’s not what you’re asking.

I would have a family meeting once a week and decide what night is what type of meal and have everyone pick a night. Pasta night, Asian night, Latino night, meat and starch night, vegetarian night, leftover smorgasbord. 2 adults and 3 teens means 5 nights are covered, 6th night is leftovers and 7th can be takeout pizza. Splurge on Instacart instead of blue apron and ask people to add their groceries to the list and be mindful of prices. Discuss how you can use one ingredient for more than one meal. Ie if you’re buying cilantro for Mexican food, also think about using it in a salad later.

All the prepared meal companies and the ones where you cook with the ingredients that you send are made for very light eaters/very small families. And for the prepared ones they are all pretty much single servings so it really doesn’t sound like that would work well for your family. We did the blue apron meals for 4 and we only did a week because it was simply not enough food for our family.