BBQ Shrimp Pizza Round Two – Recreating A Previous Meal Kit

A while back I cooked a BBQ Shrimp Pizza with Pico de Gallo from a Home Chef meal kit. It was delicious, so I decided to recreate it on my own tonight. That meant I had to go to the store to get the ingredients, which wasn’t fun. In addition, I couldn’t acquire the exact ingredients that I’d been sent in the meal kit. Specifically, I couldn’t find anything remotely similar to the Mango Habanero Wings Seasoning, so instead I just grabbed a can of pineapple. I know, the two things aren’t the same, but mango and pineapple are both tropical fruits, so I went with it.

Tonight’s dish turned out at least as good as the meal kit’s version, so I’m pretty excited about that. Gail and I both loved it. I’m happy that I can duplicate and adjust the meals that we loved, on days that we don’t get deliveries.

But here’s the big question…

Is It Cheaper To Buy The Ingredients Or To Purchase The Meal Kit?

Everyone always asks if meal kit delivery services are expensive. I’ve always believed the cost was fair, but I found out for sure tonight. Although I substituted one ingredient for another, the cost probably wasn’t affected in any significant way.

The cost of the Home Chef meal kit: $19.90
The cost to buy the ingredients myself: $19.02

I was amazed! Technically, it was cheaper to buy the ingredients myself, but only by 88 cents! Plus, I spent an hour of my day at the grocery store, and at least a few cents on gas to get there and back.

So with everything taken into consideration including time spent grocery shopping and the cost of gasoline for the trip to the store, the cost of a meal kit is virtually the same as buying the ingredients yourself!

My belief that using a meal kit service is a smart decision has just been validated.

~~~

Note: I didn’t take photos of tonight’s dish, but they ended up looking pretty much exactly as they did the first time around, so I’ve just reused the photo from back then. Hope you don’t mind too much.

 

If you decide to try Home Chef, you can get $30 off your first order by clicking this link. You can freely choose to skip or cancel future deliveries, so there is no lock-in. If you don’t like it, no worries. Just skip a week (or weeks), or cancel the service completely.

Disclosure: If you use my coupon code, I also receive credit on my meal kit. We both benefit!

2 responses to “BBQ Shrimp Pizza Round Two – Recreating A Previous Meal Kit”

  1. Tracy Avatar
    Tracy

    I’ve always said it definitely saves me money to do the meals. My problem… I can’t walk in a grocery store and get ONLY the ingredients I need. For that $20 meal I guarantee I would of spent $50 at the store! If it keeps me out of the store it definitely saves me $$$$$

    1. Donna Cavalier Avatar

      Oh absolutely. I actually spent $78 at the store, but $19.02 of that was for the actual meal. So I feel your pain, Tracy!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *