Healthy Habits Kitchen

Something I don’t yet understand, and perhaps won’t until I get there myself, is parenthood. How an adult (like me) can manage a full-time career, a family, friends, and time for themselves is just beyond my comprehension. I guess the last on that list sort of drops by the wayside, but the rest of the stuff is still there, and I’ve always been completely perplexed as to how people handle it. My parents both worked full-time while I was growing up, yet I had a rich, fulfilling, and happy childhood, and they both progressed in their careers and maintained a healthy social life. These days, I can barely fit in all of the things I need to do in my own life — work, friend time, family visits, more work, and hobbies. Often the things that fall off are the non-essentials, like cooking a delicious meal, baking a fresh batch of cookies, and clearly… keeping up with this blog! When Healthy Habits Kitchen got in touch with me about trying some of their meal kits, I was pretty ecstatic… delicious, wholesome food made in my own kitchen in no time flat? Color me intrigued.

According to their website: “Healthy Habits Kitchen is turning the idea of a convenient, quick dinner on its head. We provide the tools and information to keep staying on the right path easy through convenient, wholesome meals made from scratch, collaboration with community partners and events and workshops for our customers.” They offer meal kits to consumers, in small and large sizes, that come with all of the ingredients pre-portioned, sauces and seasonings mixed and made, and instructions for putting it all together. They offered to let me try a few different meal kits, so I chose 3 — one vegetarian, one fish, and one poultry.

Before I get down to the nitty gritty, I’ll tell you a bit more about the process. Ordering and having my food delivered was super simple. It came quickly and well-packed with plenty of cold packs to keep the food chilled until I was able to scurry home from work with it and stick it all back into the freezer. Everything comes frozen, and many ingredients need a thaw in the fridge overnight before preparing. Even though I had my food delivered, there are also pick-up options available if you live nearby. You can check out their website for more information on how it all works.

The first of my meals that I tried was the Noodles with Veggies and Lime Peanut Sauce. I found the instructions to be really easy and straight forward. The pasta was whole wheat, a touch I very much appreciated. Healthy Habits Kitchen is definitely conscious of the nutritional profile of their meals, limiting each serving size to 400 calories, with less than 30% fat and no more than 800mg of sodium.

Overall, I enjoyed the noodles. The included broccoli and edamame seemed fresh, and the flavor of the sauce was good. Once all assembled, the sauce flavor kind of got lost, and was a bit runny, but this could easily be attributed to me not draining my pasta long enough. It made for a hearty dinner one night, and a (probably too-big) lunch the next day.

Next I tried the Cod with Tomato Cream Sauce and Creamy Polenta. I am always a little leery of frozen seafood, but the cod was really tasty — notably fresh and without a single trace of that off-putting fishy smell. The tomato cream sauce came together nicely, and all of the flavors in the dish went really well. I made a veggie to go alongside of it, just for some extra nutrients. I noticed the lack of salt in this dish, but found that there was enough other seasoning to keep it interesting.

Last, I had the  Turkey Burgers with Sundried Tomato and Feta, which were my clear favorites. They came with white bread buns, so I instead opted to have one on it’s own with a side of mashed cauliflower, and that combination was actually awesome. The turkey burgers were very well seasoned, with giant chunks of sundried tomato throughout. I cooked mine on the stovetop, and they took a lot longer than noted on the outside of the packet (after an overnight thaw), but once finished they were still pretty juicy, and really delicious.

Overall, I really enjoyed my Healthy Habits Kitchen experience. All of the meals are easily prepared in a short amount of time, and have a lot of thought and care put into how they’re assembled and presented, which makes eating them simple and enjoyable. What I like most is that these meals still allow you to do some of the cooking — because for someone like me who loves to cook, that’s imperative — but it takes a lot of the tedious prep work out of the equation. It’s like cooking with a very quick and competent sous chef!

Disclaimer: I received three complimentary small meals in exchange for my review. As usual, all opinions expressed here are my own.