What is CookinGenie

In this day and age, there are seemingly endless options to feed ourselves. One popular method is the do-it-yourself meal kits. There are hundreds of companies offering this service; therefore, a variety of options.

Another option, personal chef services, are gaining traction and becoming a trend for their unique and incredible dining experiences.

Today we compare and contrast the two most amazing services here.

Meal Kits:

 We talked to one of our friends about her experience with certain popular meal delivery services.

We asked her if the experience of using a meal kit was easier, tastier, healthier, and cheaper than the companies advertise?

Overall, she said she had a positive experience with the service. There’s a great collection of healthy, fresh dishes. The boxes came with conveniently sized, pre-portioned ingredients and straightforward, easy-to-follow recipes that came together in 45 minutes or less. It was much quicker and easier than meal planning, grocery shopping, and cooking for yourself.

She could customize her orders to have more or fewer meals per box. As soon as the next day, the boxed food would arrive at her door. The service accommodates those with allergies and dietary restrictions, with plenty of vegetarian, vegan, keto, gluten-free, and paleo options.

When the boxes arrive, the ingredients are of good quality and taste, but it depends on the expertise of the person cooking. She spends about sixty dollars a week to get six meals. Some premium items cost a little more, but generally, you can expect to pay about 10 dollars per meal. It is a bit more cost-effective than eating out.

She also mentioned that the ingredients come with excess packaging, leaving boxes, plastic sleeves, and disposable containers. Occasionally boxes come with missing ingredients or items that are wilted, moldy, or otherwise spoiled.

For her and her family, the portion sizes are mostly sufficient. There are no leftovers.

Finally, while the dishes are simple and easy to make, she has to cook herself. She spends about 45 minutes cooking a typical dish from the box and about another half hour or so cleaning up afterward.

Personal Chef Service:

Personal chefs have been around for a long time. Traditionally used by the rich and famous, now there are more options for affordable personal chef services. Personal chefs provide many helpful services. Some chefs specialize in meal prep for busy families, while some create special occasion multi-course meals for an in-home dining experience for you and your guests. The costs vary depending on the special occasion and the amount of food needed. Meal prepping is comparable to Meal kits, whereas the multi-course meals will depend on the number of guests and the number of courses on the menu.

Personal chefs shop groceries for you, come to your house, and cook for you right in your kitchen. After cooking, they clean up after themselves. With a personal chef, you can customize your meals based on your dietary needs. They can take care of meal prep for the family and create a custom menu for your dinner party as well. They hand-select the ingredients and cook them in front of you. Quality and fresh food are always a priority. With a personal chef, you don’t spend time cooking or cleaning up. Time-saving is a huge bonus.

Personal chefs are gaining traction as more and more people are working longer hours and have demanding lives. People are focused on health and also looking for enriching experiences. The focus is not only fresh, wholesome food, but a personal chef strives to provide a unique dining experience for you, your family, and your friends.

Conclusion:

In the above, we discussed both meal kit service and personal chef service. Let us know in the comment section, which services are your favorite and why.

If you are​ planning to host a dinner party or looking for an unique dining experience with a personal chef, please​ try CookinGenie.

Personal chef service by CookinGenie:

CookinGenie offers a wide variety of delicious foods from different cuisines, in family-friendly sizes. Like these services, they are very accommodating of allergies and dietary restrictions. They tailor a meal to fit your exact needs. You can use the website to book a chef, pick out the menu, schedule a time, and pay in just a few clicks. The chefs (‘genies’) are friendly, professional, and lend a personal touch to your dining experience. With a varied lineup of talented home cooks and trained professional chefs on the platform, CookinGenie strives to provide a delicious wow factor. When you order from CookinGenie, you are supporting a local family-run business and local chefs. If you’re looking for an easy, affordable way to have fresh, healthy meals while saving time, personal chefs provided by CookinGenie are worth a try! Book your chef here.

Written by:  Jared Kent

The holidays are upon us, and for some, it means it’s time to go out and buy the same old, same old gift cards and items for friends and family. Or does it? Rather than gifting the exact same thing every year or what everyone else is giving, why not give your family and friends a new gift experience that they can enjoy right in the comfort of their own home. You may find that you have started a new trend of gift-giving in your circle.  

CookinGenie Gift Card for Any Occasion

This year, it could be a great idea to consider giving a CookinGenie gift card to your friends and family for any special occasion. As much as we’ve moved back to more normal events in life, such as finally being able to gather to celebrate the holidays and important life milestones, there are still things in life that aren’t back to how it was before the pandemic. For example, family members with severe health conditions often don’t get to go out like they used to previously. In addition, many businesses are struggling with keeping up with demand due to supply chain issues and finding help. 

Reasons to Gift a CookinGenie Experience 

1. It’s something that’s fun and unique. You can almost guarantee that your gift will be memorable and one-of-a-kind (unless there’s another CookinGenie lover in your circle of friends and family). 
2. You’ll provide the gift recipient with a relaxing dining experience that they can enjoy whenever they need a night off. You’ll gift them a night of no cooking, dishes, or shopping. 
3. A CookinGenie experience lets your gift recipient get a restaurant-quality meal at home without the hassle of visiting a restaurant. No looking for a parking spot or waiting on a table. 
4. Not to mention that gifting a CookinGenie gift card may even result in the recipient giving you one in the future or inviting you to a gathering where they use a CookinGenie personal chef. 

CookinGenie Experience 

A CookinGenie gift card is the perfect gift this year as it offers a new experience while still being practical. Who doesn’t want to have a personal chef experience? You’ll be gifting them an evening of relaxation and great food. A CookinGenie experience starts by selecting a chef and a menu that the chef will prepare at the recipient’s home. Once they’ve decided on the details and checked out with their gift card code, the fun begins. The chef will shop for the fresh ingredients to cook that evening. Once they arrive at the house, they’ll start preparing the meal using the home’s pots, pans, and other necessary kitchen tools. The food will be served right away to get the freshest experience possible. After the chef is finished cooking the selected dishes, they’ll handle the kitchen clean-up leaving the gift card recipient the opportunity to relax and enjoy their meal without worrying about handling the clean-up at all.  

A Gift That Fits All Occasions 

Some ideas include: 

• Special days: a CookinGenie gift card is the perfect gift to celebrate special days in your loved one’s life. They can get a special meal prepared specially for them in their home. 
• Newlyweds: Couples that are newly married can enjoy a romantic dinner at home with their personal chef from CookinGenie. 

• New Parents: Bringing home a newborn can be a busy time for first-time parents or even more experienced parents. A gift card from CookinGenie can give them a meal where they can indulge in some self-care while also balancing the new task of caring for a baby.  
• Anniversaries: Celebrate any anniversary with a fresh meal prepared for you in your own home. Spark that romantic feeling for wedding anniversaries or have a congratulatory dinner for work or other anniversaries.  
• Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Christmas, and New Year’s Eve: Family get-togethers can be a lot of work. Why not make it a little easier on your family and friends by providing them a CookinGenie gift card that they can use for a special holiday meal.  
• Birthday celebration: Everyone knows that one person that ends up cooking their own meal for their birthday. Or they choose to go out to a restaurant usually because they don’t have someone to cook for them or their loved one isn’t gifted in the kitchen. Why not change it up and give them a CookinGenie gift card? 
• Newly moved: Moving to a new place can be a task that most people don’t relish. Why not give them the opportunity to relax with a personal chef for an evening?  

• Buy a new house: Celebrating the purchase of a new home is always fun. Make your housewarming gift one that will delight their tastebuds. 
• Bright light in the darkness: Some events in life are hard to go through. The loss of a loved one, medical diagnosis, or other adverse events may not need to be celebrated, but you can do something to help. Sometimes, a meal can be precisely what’s required to give comfort and hope for the future. 
• Sometimes it’s just fun to give a gift. 

How to Gift a Personal Chef Experience from CookinGenie 

Giving a gift card for CookinGenie couldn’t be easier. Visit the CookinGenie gift card page. Once there, you’ll see a variety of gift card categories to find the perfect design to fit your gifting needs. You can have the gift card emailed or texted to the recipient with your personalized information. You can also print up the gift card to hand over in person. We offer a feature where you can add a message. Then, they’ll be able to use the gift card online to select a personal chef and dishes they’d like to enjoy. During checkout, they’ll need to apply the gift card code. That’s it.  

Questions or concerns about gifting a personal chef experience from CookinGenie? We’re happy to go over anything you’re not sure about or help you with purchasing a CookinGenie gift card for your gifts. Let us help you gift an experience rather than a boring gift card this year and for years to come. 

Today, the age-old question of how to meal prep for dinner is more complicated than ever. With a range of different meal delivery services, prepared and frozen foods delivered to your door, and a wide market for takeout, the choices are seemingly endless. Now, entering the fray is a new service, CookinGenie, which rethinks the idea of dining at home by bringing a culinary expert into your home to prepare a delicious, home-cooked meal in your very own kitchen. So, with all these choices available, let’s look at the process, price, positives, and negatives of each to find out the option that might work best for you.  

Meal Delivery Kits for Meal Prepping 

Price: 

$-$$ With so many different meal delivery kits available, the prices can run anywhere from $5/meal to $18/meal. But for most mainstream services like Blue Apron or Hello Fresh, $10-12 per meal is standard.  

Process: 

Visit the website of one of the many meal delivery services, create a profile, and begin choosing your dishes. With a few clicks, you can have boxes of fresh ingredients and recipes arriving as soon as the next day. Then, unpack the box, follow the recipe, and cook yourself a meal.  

Pros:

• The recipes are quick and easy to make.  
• Feeling of accomplishment from cooking your own food.  
• You can customize the number of meals you want. 
• Kits are accommodating to dietary restrictions and allergies.  
• Precise portioning cuts down on food waste. 
• The platform is easy to use, offers plenty of fresh, healthy choices. 

Cons: 

• Kits come with excess packaging to get rid of.  
• Subscription required. 
• For hungrier eaters, portion sizes may leave a little bit to be desired.  
• On occasion, ingredients may arrive spoiled.  
• Dishes are not quite chef or restaurant quality.  
• You still need to put the time and effort into cooking and cleaning up afterward.  
• Usually supporting a large, multinational corporation.  

The bottom line:

Easier than shopping and cooking for yourself and cheaper than eating out, meal prepping kits are a good mix of affordability and convenience. But if you’re looking for a more memorable experience that you don’t have to cook yourself, there are better options out there. 

Ready to Eat/Frozen Meal Delivery Service 

Price:

$$ There are many different services that ship frozen meals to your door, and they can all fluctuate on price, with some high-end options out there. However, you can normally expect to pay about $11-15 per meal, plus shipping fees.  

Process: 

Create a profile on a frozen meal delivery site such as Home Bistro, choose your meal(s) or meal plan(s), wait for delivery, and pop the box in the microwave to heat up. 

Pros:

• Good variety of chef-inspired meals that come with protein, starch, vegetable, and sauce.
• Many of the meals are highly tailored to specific diets such as weight loss, keto, and paleo. 
• Most of the meals are ready to eat after just a few minutes in the microwave or oven.  
• Frozen meals can keep in the freezer indefinitely.  
• No cleanup required.  

Cons:    

• Many services don’t begin to offer free shipping unless you order a certain amount.  
• Reheating frozen food can feel boring and impersonal; food may be bland.  
• Boxes may take a while to arrive. 
• Sometimes food may come partially defrosted or not reheat evenly.  

The bottom line:

There’s no denying the convenience of being able to pop something in the microwave and have a hot meal in a few minutes. But while frozen meals have certainly improved from the days of supermarket TV dinners, they’re more of an occasional fare than something you’d want to eat regularly.  

Takeout/Delivery

Price:

$-$$ Depending on where you’re getting takeout from, the price can fluctuate greatly. 

The Process:

Call up a restaurant, go online to order, or use one of the many apps like DoorDash or Uber Eats to set up a pickup or delivery.  

Pros:

• During the pandemic, it’s easier than ever to get takeout.  
• There’s a great variety of places to get fresh, healthy, delicious takeout from. 
• Usually only takes about 30 minutes to get food.  
• Supporting local businesses.  

Cons:  

• You have to drive to the restaurant or pay extra delivery fees. 
• Generally, one can only get one type of cuisine at once and may not have leftovers to enjoy all week.   
• If you have dietary restrictions or allergies, it could be tricky to ensure the meal fits your needs. 
• Food apps layer on their service charges and those can add up. 

The bottom line:

Generally speaking, takeout is a relatively affordable, convenient way to have dinner once or twice a week.  

CookinGenie for Meal Prepping

Price:

$$ Prices will differ by Genie and by dish, but most are between $10-$15 per portion. 

The Process:

Visit CookinGenie.com, type in your location, and you can browse through our many talented genies. You can look through each genie’s menu and profile individually, or search by dish or type of cuisine. Then, select the dishes you want to order and pick a time and date for a genie to come to your home and cook for you. They will arrive with everything they need, cook you a delicious meal, and restore your kitchen to the state they found it in.  

Pros: 

• CookinGenie food is fresh, wholesome, and delicious.  
• A skilled cook preparing restaurant-quality food for you adds a unique personal touch.  
• A wide variety of different cuisines and dishes are available at once. 
• Service is accommodating to dietary restrictions and allergies.  
• Generous, family-friendly sizes of 4 or 8 portions.  
• Flexibility; date night, dinner parties, special occasions, weeknight family meals, and meal prepping can all be taken care of by CookinGenie. 
• You don’t have to leave home, cook, or clean. 
• Supporting a local business and local chefs.  

Cons: 

• CookinGenie does require some planning ahead.  
• May take a couple of hours after the Genie arrives for food to be ready.  

The bottom line:

In terms of affordability, CookinGenie is on par with takeout, cheaper than frozen meal delivery, and just a hair more than most meal kits. But that small difference is well worth it when you consider the superior food and convenience of not having to cook yourself. With so many options out there, it can be hard to decide what the dinner plan should be. But all things considered, in terms of taste and overall value for your hard-earned dollars, CookinGenie stands head and shoulders above the rest.