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The Bottom Line

Tired of the scramble to put a healthy meal on the table every night before the kids melt down from hunger? Let’s Dish promises to save you time preparing meals by providing a commercial kitchen and all the fresh ingredients you need to assemble multiple dinners ahead of time. You freeze the meals for later use and follow simple cooking instructions when you’re ready to eat them.

Let’s Dish is a good choice for time-starved moms who dislike preparing food or coming up with their own recipes.

Do-it-yourselfers may prefer to spend Sunday afternoon cooking for the upcoming week.

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Pros

• Spend two hours preparing one or two weeks’ worth of tasty dinners from fresh ingredients.
• No need to assemble or cut ingredients yourself, or clean up.
• No grocery shopping, no waste of leftover, unused ingredients.
• Easy directions, both in meal assembly and cooking from frozen.
• Invite your girlfriends and enjoy the complimentary snacks.

Cons

• More expensive than cooking from your own groceries, for many recipes.
• Chatting with friends while cooking may lead to double helpings of chili powder.
• Few vegetarian choices.
• You still have to supply side dishes or buy them from Let’s Dish.
• Only available in 12 states.

Description

• Customers assemble 4, 8 or 12 different dinners to be frozen for cooking and eating at home.
• Every dinner serves six, but can be split for smaller families or to share with another family.
• You choose the recipes you prefer, and use the workstations that correspond to those dishes.
• Workstations hold containers of pre-cut ingredients and spices, which you scoop into bags according to simple recipes.

• You can tweak the recipes to fit your family’s preferences or allergies.
• Let’s Dish employees answer questions and help find the right ingredients or utensils.
• Sign up for a two-hour session by phone or via the Website, which also gives nutrition information.
• If you don’t have time to assemble meals yourself, you can pay extra for pre-prepared dinners.
• You can also buy side dishes or desserts. Some locations provide delivery.
• Let’s Dish offers reward points and frequent coupon codes. Ask around for friends with codes.

Guide Review - Let's Dish Meal Assembly Store

I’m not a creative cook, so Let’s Dish sounded perfect. I took three friends for a session at the Rockville, Md., location. The owner explained the store, and we started preparing the meals we had pre-selected online from that month's menu.

Each workstation was stocked with the needed ingredients for the recipe, which was idiot-proof down to which cup or bowl to use. The measuring spoons did get a bit gloopy with ingredients, but it still beats dirtying your own kitchen.

I appreciated Let’s Dish’s emphasis on cleanliness. We each had to wear kerchiefs and aprons. Hand washing is mandatory between different meals, after using the bathroom, and after having a snack or drink.

The experience wasn’t as social as I hoped, because we all worked at different speeds. Also, at one point my friend and I got involved in conversation, only to realize we’d both put the wrong ingredients in our sauce cups and had to start from scratch. We did enjoy the complimentary desserts and coffee, though.

I put together four dinners in about an hour and a quarter, splitting each one in half. The ones we’ve tried so far have been yummy, although a bit creative for my fussy preschooler.

I'd go back -- though probably not with a big group of friends.

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