Meal delivery services like Gobble—a company that sends ingredients for easy-to-make meals right to your doorstep—make cooking dinner at home easier than ever. Rather than making multiple trips to the grocery store or spending a ton of time cooking every night, Gobble sends ingredients that can be transformed into complete meals in 15 minutes or less. Subscribers get to select their favorite recipes each week from a rotating menu of delicious dishes, then follow a few quick-and-easy instructions to create a complete meal once the ingredients arrive. With three separate subscription options for classic dinners, protein-filled dinners, and even side dishes and desserts, it’s a great time-saving service that’ll also keep you full. Basically, if you’re new to cooking, you have a crazy weeknight schedule, or you’d simply rather dedicate your time to activities other than meal prepping each night, Gobble just might be the best meal delivery service for you. Sign Up Now: From $72/week, gobble.com
How I Tested the Service
My order from Gobble included five of its most popular dishes, including vegetarian and high-protein options. All of the ingredients for each dish arrived at my front door, and I followed the recipes step by step. Since Gobble claims its recipes can be completed in 15 minutes, I set a timer as I prepared the food to see if the statement is true—and it totally was. In a few words, cooking dinner with Gobble was extremely easy, the ingredients arrived fresh, and the resulting dishes tasted delightful. The hardest part for me about making dinner is simply how long it takes to prepare food that actually tastes good. I loved that Gobble’s chefs pre-marinate ingredients, combine sauces, and simplify the cooking process as much as possible before your order even arrives at your doorstep. In most cases, all you have to do is chop a few fresh veggies, cook the meat, and add spices to complete your meal.
My overall rating for Gobble: 7.7 out of 10
Pros:
Minimal prep and cleanup involvedEasy, beginner-friendly recipesFully cooked meals in around 15 minutesMenu options for gluten-free, vegetarian, and high-protein mealsAbility to swap in a different protein on select dishes
Cons:
No free shippingPackaging includes lots of single-use plasticsLess ingredient transparency compared to other services
Signing Up For Gobble: Takes Less than Five Minutes
Starting a subscription with Gobble requires a super-simple sign-up process that only takes a few minutes. You’ll start by entering your email address, creating an account password, and entering your zip code to ensure Gobble delivers to your area. Then, you’ll choose a meal plan that best describes your normal eating habits: the classic menu, vegetarian menu, or a menu with more protein-focused dishes. You can always order dishes from any of the three menus, but choosing your favorite option up front allows your order experience to be organized based on your preferences. You’ll also be able to specify the number of servings you’d like, the number of meals per week, your first delivery date, and the address where you’ll be receiving the meals. After you’ve entered payment information and started your subscription, you’ll be able to browse the upcoming week’s menu and make your selections (though you can view the menu before subscribing by visiting the menu page of Gobble’s website). Each dish is clearly marked if it contains common allergens, such as wheat, gluten, or dairy, making it easier to spot which recipes will work for your specific preferences. You can browse through plenty of entrees, salads, soups, and desserts to create whatever dishes catch your eye, or you can allow Gobble to pick your weekly menu based on the meal plan you selected during the sign-up process. Sign Up Now: From $72/week, gobble.com
Gobble Meals: Homestyle Dishes With Hassle-Free Prep
Gobble’s menu includes a tasteful combination of classic homestyle dishes and surprising recipes you otherwise might not think to make on your own. There’s a wide range of flavors, proteins, and vegetables featured, so you shouldn’t have a tough time filling your weekly box with a variety of recipes. One of my personal favorite parts about Gobble’s service is the ability to customize some dishes to include your preferred protein—I’m not big on shrimp, so I liked that many of the dishes featuring seafood could be altered to include chicken instead. Other dishes, like the black pepper chicken stir fry, can be swapped for tofu to create a vegetarian dish. Gobble also offers a few premium dinners every week at an additional cost, and there are plenty of salads, soups, and desserts available to add on to your order. While I didn’t try any of these, it was nice to know that there were even more options for special occasions or to add a little extra to an existing order.
Gobble Meals I Tried:
Mushroom, zucchini, and feta in spiced shakshukaSeared salmon with roasted broccoli and cauliflower with Italian salsa verdeSirloin steak with cauliflower and broccoli gratinCroque madame with black forest ham and farm-fresh eggsButternut squash soup with pecan topping
Gobble Delivery and Packaging: Conveniently Organized, but Lots of Plastic
Your weekly Gobble delivery arrives on your doorstep in a large cardboard box and surrounded with ice packs and insulation to keep everything cool. My order arrived while I wasn’t home, so I wasn’t able to put any of the ingredients in the fridge for a few hours. Once I was finally able to unbox everything, I was glad to see that the packaging had successfully kept everything cold. Inside the box, ingredients are grouped by recipe in large plastic bags. This made it super easy come dinnertime to easily grab everything I needed at once and minimized the chance for me to lose ingredients in the back of my fridge. Pre-made sauces, like the shakshuka sauce, were packaged in plastic bags or bottles, and the eggs arrived unharmed in a secure plastic container. While all of the separate bags made for quick and convenient meals, I’ll be honest: It’s a lot of plastic. However, many of the items can be recycled if you’re willing to drop them off at a nearby recycling station. The cardboard box can be tossed in your recycling bin, and the gel ice packs are completely non-toxic—just cut them open and pour the melted insides in your trash. To recycle the plastic bags, you can clean and dry them in your sink, then drop them off at a recycling center that offers plastic bag recycling (find a drop-off location here). The insulated liner is also recyclable, but you’ll need to double check with your city’s waste management service first. My weekly Gobble delivery also came with large recipe cards that contain step-by-step cooking instructions, ingredients, and even a list of cooking utensils I’d need to prep the meals. There are even photos documenting each step to help ensure you stay on the right track throughout the cooking process. Gobble delivers to the continental United States with the exception of Montana, and the brand offers limited service in New Mexico, Nebraska, and Kansas.
Cooking Gobble Meals: Exceptionally Easy
Speaking of the cooking process, making each of the Gobble meals was just as effortless as the company promised it would be. Since the ingredients were already pre-portioned to match the recipes and the sauces came already prepared, I only had to follow a few easy steps to complete each dish. For the most part, this simply involved cooking the meat and vegetables and heating up the sauces. Even if you’re a novice in the kitchen, the recipes break down each step and provide specific cook times to help ensure everything turns out perfectly. Before I started cooking, I set a timer to see exactly how long these recipes would take, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that Gobble’s 15-minute estimate was pretty accurate. Most of the dishes took anywhere from 13 to 22 minutes, with the croque madame dish taking the least amount of time and the spiced shakshuka taking the most. Cleaning up the kitchen after cooking these dishes turned out to be pretty easy, too. Since the recipes use the same few pots and pans for multiple steps in the process, there were only a couple of dishes left to wash after eating. Also, because the ingredients came individually packaged, I didn’t have many measuring cups and spoons to wash or any big messes left over from prepping.
Gobble Ingredients and Sourcing: Sustainable Whenever Possible
According to Gobble’s website, the service is dedicated to sourcing the best sustainable, natural ingredients whenever possible. To break it down, this means that the chicken in every Gobble meal is hormone- and antibiotic-free, its pork is hormone-free, and eggs are always cage-free. Other ingredients, like dairy products, are sourced as often as possible from cows that are not given regular hormone treatments. Gobble uses wild-caught and farm-raised seafood that has been recommended by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch program, the Marine Stewardship Council, or the Best Aquaculture Practices—all organizations considered to be authority figures in seafood sustainability. This helps to ensure that the seafood you’re consuming is of the highest quality and isn’t harming important habitats in the ocean. I reached out to Gobble’s public relations team to find out more about where non-animal ingredients are sourced from and what “as often as possible” means when it comes to sourcing, but they didn’t provide me with any specific information.
Gobble Flavor and Quality: Varied and Delicious
While convenience and easy cooking are important, none of that matters to me if the resulting dish doesn’t taste amazing. After trying five different Gobble recipes, I can honestly say that everything was delicious. My personal favorite Gobble meal was the sirloin steak with cauliflower and broccoli gratin. While I love steak, I rarely make it for myself since the stress of successfully searing a steak without it becoming tough is usually too much to ask on a weeknight. However, Gobble’s recipe only took me a little over 20 minutes to make, and the instructions guided me through the whole process. Plus, the peppercorn sauce for this dish arrived premade with my order, so all I had to do was steam the veggies, cook the steaks, and then drizzle the sauce on top. The end result was tender and flavorful, and it paired nicely with the cheese-sprinkled veggies. I also tried the seared salmon dish with roasted broccoli and cauliflower with Italian salsa verde, which featured a combination of tangy and spicy flavors. This, paired with pan-seared salmon, was a surprising flavor profile I wouldn’t have come up with on my own, but it tasted amazing. This dish is one of Gobble’s customizable recipes, so people who don’t like salmon can swap the protein for chicken or shrimp. The croque madame recipe, which featured Black Forest ham, eggs, and a creamy bechamel sauce on a toasted baguette, was another favorite of mine. I’m a sucker for breakfast foods at any time of day, and I loved this savory combination. The only downside of this dish was its cost—all Gobble meals are $12 per serving, and I felt that I could easily recreate this recipe with ingredients from the grocery store for a lot less. However, given the convenience of having the ingredients dropped off at your door and some ingredients like the bechamel sauce already made, some people might not mind the added cost.
Gobble Pricing: Comparable to Other Meal Delivery Services
Compared to other services with similar offerings, a weekly subscription to Gobble is about what you might expect. At $12 per serving, it’s more expensive than HelloFresh and Blue Apron, which both start at $8 per serving. However, Gobble is also a lot more convenient than the other services—with such minimal prep involved, you’ll end up saving a good 30 minutes in the kitchen compared to a service with longer cook times. Additionally, heat-and-serve meal kits like Factor or Freshly are similarly priced, so for people who favor convenience, a Gobble subscription is still a great option. Sign Up Now: From $72/week, gobble.com
Gobble Customer Service:
If you need to make changes to your shipment or skip a week, Gobble asks that you do so by 11:59 p.m. PT the Wednesday of the week before your meals are supposed to arrive. This ensures that you aren’t incorrectly charged and that the correct meals are included in your box.
Gobble Reviews:
According to TrustPilot, over 2,000 Gobble reviewers have given the service an average score of 4.2 out of 5 stars. Many of the five-star reviewers praised the service’s convenience and ease in preparing the meals, while others mentioned that customer service was quick to sort out any problems the reviewer might have had. “We have tried several of the more popular prepared meal services, and Gobble is by far the best,” one reviewer said. “I love to cook but don’t always have the time during the week. Gobble allows me to prepare restaurant-quality meals in less than 30 minutes, and the variety of choices and personalizations can’t be beat.” “After dinner, the cleanup is super quick and easy, which is a major plus,” another customer said. “There is just enough food for the two of us, and we never have any food waste. … Gobble is a life changer, especially after a long day at work and a nightmarish commute.” Most of the single-star reviews Gobble has received on TrustPilot have to do with late deliveries or difficulty in cancellation. It appears that Gobble has followed up with a majority of its reviewers—both positive and negative—to ensure any complaints are resolved.
Gobble: My Take on the Meal Delivery Service
As someone who often resorts to takeout dinners to save time on busy weeknights, I found Gobble to be a great solution that helped me eat better-quality meals more consistently. The dishes tasted amazing, they were easy to make, and cleaning up afterwards was a breeze. Signing up for Gobble also minimized the need for regular trips to the grocery store, which also saved me a ton of time in my schedule.
Who Is This Service Good For?
Gobble is a great option for anyone with a busy schedule, beginning cooks looking to grow their skills, and couples or small families who value home cooking but may not have the time for an involved recipe.
Who Isn’t This Service Good For?
I wouldn’t recommend Gobble to anyone who values ingredient transparency or for people looking to minimize consumption of single-use plastics.
