Planthood’s on a mission to create the most mouthwatering plant-based recipes that are incredibly fast and convenient to prepare.
I love a good plant-based recipe kit, but finding the right one for you can be tricky.
You need to consider taste, how much work is involved, whether it’s healthy and most importantly how much does it cost?
The big selling point of Planthood compared to other recipe kits is time and effort.
They boast a mere 15 minutes to cook a meal – and I mean cook, not just warm something up in the microwave.
But how does Planthood make it possible to prepare a freshly cooked meal in just 15 minutes?
Simply, they do all the heavy lifting – by cooking sauces, preparing dressings and garnishes all from scratch so when it comes down to it, all you have to do is add it in while cooking.
I’ve tried my fair share of plant-based recipe kits and ready meals, and whilst Planthood isn’t perfect, they’ve found a happy middle ground – which I’ll cover in this review.
Planthoods commitment to the planet
As always when picking out one of these recipe kits I like to know what they do to help the planet (besides selling plant-based meals).
And it’s good to see Planthood doing their part too, they:
Aim to use as little packaging as possible
100% of the packaging is reusable, compostable or recyclable
Offer a return and re-use scheme for their boxers, liners and ice packs
Fruit and veg are sourced in their real seasonal window
Work with local growers who use sustainable farming techniques that protect the land from soil depletion
They’re a supporter of Rewilding Britain – helping to restore and protect wild nature in the UK
This plant-based recipe kit doesn’t only taste good – they do good too.
If you’re after some more details, make sure to check out Planthood’s sustainability page.
We donate 1% of all our sales back to the planet and work closely with environmental charities to protect nature and boost biodiversity.
How does Planthood work?
Each week you can choose between 3 to 5 meals (from a choice of around 7). You’re also able to select whether these meals serve 2 or 4 people.
Your Planthood meal kit will be delivered on either a Monday or Thursday – which you can choose on the website and you’re able to change this from week to week.
If your circumstances change you can skip a week or change the delivery day.
Once your recipe kit arrives, you’ll find individual bags with the ingredients of each meal pre-measured to get started.
Are Planthood’s meals tasty?
This is an easy one to answer, simply put – yes.
It’s hard to believe the meal is going to turn out so well, I really had my doubts whilst cooking a couple of them – especially as you’re only dealing with like 6-7 ingredients for the meal.
But it shows how much of the heavy lifting is done by the sauces and garnishes that are freshly prepared for you.
Planthood don’t just understand flavour, they also manage to get that perfect blend of textures in a meal, which simply elevates it to another level.
In the first box, my wife and I tried:
Are Planthood’s meals filling?
Picture this, you’ve finished a long day of work in the office – having survived only, on your carefully prepared meals for the day, you shoot off to fetch the kids from nursery, drag them home, and give them something to eat at which point it’s your turn to throw a meal together.
By now, you’re so ready to eat, and eat you shall.
Of course, this is what happens to me, but funnily enough, I must be a terrible judge when it comes to portion size as on multiple occasions whilst cooking one of Planthood’s meals I thought to myself – what am I going to eat after this to fill me up.
But to my surprise each time, I sat down to eat the meal, it’s a far more generous size than I first expected.
So to answer the question, are Planthood’s meals filling – yes. At least they are for me.
Are Planthood’s meals quick and easy?
Time to see if Planthood lives up to its claim – do meals really only take 15 minutes to prepare, and are they as easy as they say?
Technically, no.
Each time I entered the kitchen to cook one of the meals it ended up taking me longer than 15 minutes to cook… by like a meagre 5 minutes.
20 minutes though, to cook a tasty meal is a massive win in my eyes.
And to say they were easy to prepare is an understatement – I fully expected to be running around frying one thing, boiling another and so on, but that just wasn’t the case.
Are Planthood’s meals healthy?
So up until now, everything sounds pretty great. But I’d argue this is the point where it falls down (just a teeny weeny bit).
There are a lot of different ingredients that go into making the delicious sauces and garnishes – but these largely all seem to be A-OK.
But to make recipes quick and easy something has to give. And that thing is a smaller variety of plants per meal.
What I mean by this, is that your meal might have 1-2 key vegetables in it and if more were to be added this would impact the simplicity of putting a meal together and how long it takes.
So that’s it – all things considered, these meals are still really good for you! Especially if the other meals throughout your day have various plants in them.
How much does Planthood cost?
Now let’s get down to the cost.
I’d say Planthood is on the pricier side (compared to some other recipe kits, but only slightly).
You’re ultimately paying for that convenience of being able to quickly and effortlessly throw a meal together that tastes great and is good for you.
Again pricing will depend on what you’re buying, but if you’re looking to buy meals that serve 2 people per meal you’re looking at £6.99 per serving:
3 meals (6 servings) – £41.94
4 meals (8 servings) – £55.92
5 meals (10 servings) - £69.90
And if you’re looking at getting meals that serve 4 people per meal, you’re looking at £5.95 per serving:
3 meals (12 servings) – £71.40
4 meals (16 servings) – £95.20
5 meals (20 servings) – £119.00
When you break it down by serving size, these meals are quite competitively priced.
If you’re someone who gets takeaway regularly throughout the week – Planthood is a great alternative, you’ll likely save some money and they’re better for you.
And if you’re a little bit more like me, Planthood can simply take the pressure off during the week!
Planthood verdict – would I buy it again?
Truthfully, to date I’ve only ordered a single box from them – but this shouldn’t reflect the offering of Planthood.
I think what Planthood are offering is fantastic and it’s great to see someone tackle the time/effort problem of recipe kits – which is what I love most about them (other than the taste of the food of course).
Come 2024, I can see myself ordering more recipe kits from Planthood – maybe once a month to take the pressure off from cooking.
If you’re in the market for a plant-based recipe kit, I would highly recommend you check out Planthood.
If you’re looking for something more hands-on that not only tastes great but is chock full of plants make sure to check out my review for Grubby the plant-based recipe kit.
