How Meal Kits Help You Learn to Cook

Michelle Fonger

You’re wondering how meal kits help you learn to cook, and we’re here to tell you all about it.

There are many ways that meal kits will aid in the meal planning process, including shorter trips to the grocery store, less time figuring out ingredients needed, and of course, less time cooking.

But how do they actually teach you?

That’s exactly what we’re going to go over in the sections below.

5 Ways They’ll Help You Improve as a Cook

There are 5 main ways that meal kits will improve your skills as a cook, and it’s not as cut & dry as you may think.

Yes, of course, they’ll save you time from meal planning, shopping, and cooking, but they’re built on actually helping you improve your skills in the kitchen as well.

How you may ask?

These aspects include:

  • An easier cooking process leads to better learning.
  • Trying new things leads to more experience with ingredients, recipes & techniques.
  • New techniques learned regularly, then repeated through recipes over time.
  • Gaining confidence means you’ll want to know even more as you hone your skills.
  • The time savings will allow you to make better food decisions, both when shopping for your own meal plans and when cooking on your own.

Let’s dive in and take a look in more detail at what we’re talking about!

Easier Cooking Process

One way that meal kits boost the cooking process is by making it easier so it’s not as overwhelming.

It depends on the specific kit you’ve chosen, but they all have some degree of prep already done for you.

There are some services such as Gobble that prep everything for you to the point that you’re doing just the final steps, and other services let you take more of a role with prepping the less shelf-stable ingredients.

Either way, you’re learning new things without the pressure of having to go through the entire planning, shopping, prepping, AND cooking process.

Not to mention, their recipe instructions are written by chefs with the idea of people learning cooking skills already in mind, so they’ll be targeted to teaching you the skills you need.

Trying New Things

A lot of people tend to get caught in a rut when it comes to home cooking.

There are meals you know how to make, but going outside of your comfort zone to figure out something new is scary.

That’s where meal kit delivery services come in to help you try new things easily.

You can choose your meals in advance, so you’ll still know what’s coming ahead, and meal kit services typically rotate menus for quite a while before repeating, so you can be consistently trying new things and enjoying the process.

A lot of people don’t try new things with cooking because they’re unsure about which recipes to try, or if they can cook a particular dish the way it’s supposed to be cooked.

These delivery services take the guesswork out of the equation and simply let you have fun in the kitchen with new ingredients, recipes, and techniques.

New Techniques

As adults, we rarely pick up new cooking techniques unless we actively search them out via videos or classes of some sort.

That doesn’t mean we don’t want to learn, but simply that the process isn’t really built into our lives.

Meal kits solve this problem by including new techniques in many of their recipes.

They include step-by-step instructions that make the learning process as simple as possible and many services (Blue Apron, for example) offer companion videos on their websites for additional assistance.

This process is great because you not only pick up a new cooking technique but you also gain knowledge about why the recipes used that particular technique.

You also keep the recipe cards, so if you want to cook that meal again, you can!

And you’re more likely to retain the cooking techniques you pick up in this manner than by simply fumbling through figuring it out yourself.

Gaining Confidence

When it comes to good cooking, confidence can make a big impact.

It’s hard to gain confidence without experience, so meal kits can encourage growth in this area.

By providing a weekly opportunity to study new ingredients, cooking methods, recipes, and overall cooking skills, meal kits will stimulate confidence growth so that you’ll be able to keep improving and feel better about it too.

And the great thing about meal kits is that there are so many different varieties.

If you’re an absolute beginner cook, a meal kit such as EveryPlate or Gobble might be in your wheelhouse; both are simplistic approaches for new cooks.

If your skills continue to improve and you want to continue to challenge yourself, you can always switch to a higher caliber meal kit such as Blue Apron, HelloFresh, Home Chef, Green Chef, etc.

No matter which way you go, continuing to practice will make your confidence soar, and before you know it you’ll be able to put together meals you never thought you’d be able to handle.

Making Better Food Decisions

Many poor food decisions actually happen before the cooking even starts.

When you’re grocery shopping, bad ingredients tend to find their way into your cart.

When half of your weekly meal planning, grocery shopping, and food prep is already done for you, your ingredients list is a lot shorter, which leaves less room for bad decisions.

Meal kits tend to keep this principle in mind when creating their meal plans as well.

Most of their meal planning includes ingredients that are nourishing and at least mostly healthy, and their meals usually have a lower amount of calories and fat as well.

Overall, utilizing meal kits within your weekly meal planning will allow you to make better eating decisions as a whole.

Michelle Fonger is the culinary expert behind Mealkite, offering guidance on cooking tips and techniques. With a BA in culinary management from The Art Institute of California – Los Angeles and experience spearheading culinary initiatives, she shares her extensive knowledge through insightful articles and recipes. As a trained chef and seasoned writer, Michelle helps others enhance their cooking skills and culinary understanding through the Mealkite platform.

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