From buying ingredients in bulk to creating standard recipes that are easy to replicate, there’s a lot of crossover between restaurants and meal delivery services. So it makes sense that a restaurant would ship you everything that you’d need to cook its meals at home. Housemade—a meal delivery, spin-off service from the Just Salad restaurant chain—does just that. It lets you enjoy tasty, easily prepared meals without signing up for a subscription. That said, Housemade’s tiny menu and limited delivery areas may keep you from experiencing its offerings.
Where to Get Housemade?
Some meal delivery services, like Blue Apron or HelloFresh, serve customers nationwide (aside from Alaska and Hawaii). Others, like Snap Kitchen or Vegetable and Butcher, only serve their own local communities. Housemade, at least at launch, sits somewhere in the middle. Housemade currently delivers in South Florida, Philadelphia, Chicago, Jersey City, Brooklyn, and Manhattan. I live in a part of Astoria, Queens that falls right outside the delivery window, so I was only able to get a sample box through a special one-time arrangement for this review. On the website, you enter your zip code to see if you qualify for deliveries.
Alternatively, you can choose to pick up your order from a local Just Salad restaurant. I suspect it’s this connection to physical restaurants that currently keeps Housemade limited to these select regions. Fortunately, by keeping everything so close, food arrives in a matter of hours rather than days. I requested my sample box during my lunch break, and it arrived in time for dinner.
Housemade Pricing
Housemade’s prices fall in line with other meal-kit delivery services. Whether you order meal kits or fully prepared meals, you’ll pay approximately $11 per serving with a $5 delivery fee. Similar to Sunbasket and Editors’ Choice pick Hungryroot, Housemade sells groceries you can use for your own recipes. The selection includes produce, cheese, and salad dressing. The prices depend on the specific food, with most items costing a few bucks. What could one banana cost? $2.45.
While many meal delivery services lock you into a subscription, Housemade is a completely a la carte service. You can order whatever you want, whenever you want, without committing to additionally weekly purchases. Veestro operates in a similar fashion. I like having flexibility, not having to plan a weekly box or make sure I’m skipping weeks when I don’t want deliveries. However, you may prefer a subscription’s consistent rhythm. After all, getting food without having to think about it is part of these services’ appeal.
Housemade Menu Options
Perhaps Housemade doesn’t offer a subscription because its menu isn’t large enough to support one. At the time of this writing, Housemade offers just seven different meal kits. Compare that to Editors’ Choice pick HelloFresh, a meal-delivery service that my partner has loved for months. HelloFresh still sends new dishes.
However, you’ll find surprising variety within those seven kits. From vegan tofu Healthy Stir Fry to the gluten-free Buffalo Chicken Bowl, you should find at least one kit that fits your diet—unless you can’t eat the brown rice included with every meal. Along with the calorie count, menu icons displays at-a-glance details like “spicy” and “contains fish.” For a more detailed allergy breakdown, read Just Salad’s PDF guide.
You’ll find even more choices under prepared meals. As a Just Salad spin-off, Housemade sells a healthy mix of seasonal salads from Maple Crispy Chicken to Tokyo Supergreens to Chipotle Cowboy. You can also buy fixings to make your own salads, bowls, or wraps. This fits with Housemade’s theme of turning over the restaurant keys right to the consumer. For more plant-focused meals, check out Editors’ Choice pick Green Chef.
Housemade Packaging
Housemade’s meals come so quickly from a local source that there’s no need for additional cooling, such as dry ice, to keep fresh ingredients cold during transit. My meal arrived in a big, paper bag, with each meal in its own separate bag. Housemade says that meals should last three days.
Along with being incredibly streamlined, Housemade’s packaging is eco-friendly. Everything comes in cardboard containers, with no plastic. Raw chicken came sealed up tighter than other ingredients, to prevent fluid from leaking out. Cleaning up and recycling all this packaging is a breeze.
Cooking and Eating With Housemade
My partner and I cooked and ate three different Housemade meals: two Taco Tuesday Bowls and a Mediterranean Chicken Bowl. Preparing all three was about as simple and easy as it gets for a meal you technically still need to cook. Each major component comes in its own cup. Typically, you season and sautée your protein before adding the cooked brown rice and pre-cut vegetables. Then maybe finish things off with a sauce.
The finished products tasted wonderful considering how little time and effort it took to cook them. My chicken taco bowl reminded me of an upscale Chipotle, and came with a generous seasoning (too much, frankly) for the single moderate portion. I saved the rest of the spices for later. As someone who tends to overcook meat out of paranoia, I appreciate the lemon-basil vinaigrette that added needed moisture to my Mediterranean chicken. My partner, who doesn’t eat meat, enjoyed the colorful vegetable variety in each side salad, from the chickpeas to the spicy avocado. She noted that the Beyond Beef tasted better than any fake meat she’s gotten from HelloFresh.
Cooking Housemade meals is fast and simple. The recipe instructions fit on half of a pamphlet. If you don’t have time, or don’t know how to cook, it’s a great option. However, if you want your meal-delivery service to teach you to cook, consider Editors’ Choice pick Blue Apron.
Housemade, Home-Cooked
If I could incorporate Housemade into my regular diet, I would. I liked receiving, cooking, and eating restaurant-quality meals in under an hour. The limited menu keeps it from becoming my primary meal delivery service, but it could thrive as a supplemental one, especially since it doesn’t require a subscription.
However, I can’t get Housemade at the moment. Housemade has a tiny delivery area, and I’m not taking the subway to a Just Salad (or anywhere else) any time soon for pick up. Housemade could grow into a fantastic service; you should give it a shot if it’s in your neighborhood.
In the meantime, check out our Editors’ Choice-winning, meal-kit delivery services that serve larger audiences. Blue Apron teaches novice chefs to cook; Green Chef excels at plant-based meals; HelloFresh is great for omnivores; and Hungryroot sells you both meal kits and groceries.
