Ingredient delivery service to teach teens to cook

[okright]

Contemplating hello fresh/ Gousto etc to encourage teens to cook. Have you experience of this?

I know cheaper to do myself but we will argue- I think I need the gimmick.

Gousto was good for my DD, all the ingredients measure and packaged and step by step instructions have her the confidence to try cooking but also to try things she might otherwise no have. I do it again when they have discounts available and still use the old recipe cards.

Give them a budget, tell them to find a recipe and send them to the shop. Get a receipt obviously.

Tell them they're doing dinner tomorrow night.
If they don't use the money wisely but try to cook something at least they're learning.
If they fail to buy or cook anything just say there's no dinner then. They can have a sandwich or toast and they need to return the money.

They need to know how to budget and shop for food as well as cook it. Those things are really expensive and just cut out steps they need to learn.

I know Bobby. You're totally right. I think I need this baby step. They're very resistant and slippery to my commands. My plan was to get them good/ like a dish then do just that. At least if they can cook- the budgeting will become a necessity at some point.

My kids started with supermarket meal kits. For example fajita meal kits are very easy and don’t take long.

Do they watch TikTok? I get a lot of recipe content that doesn’t take long eg Nandos style pasta, marry me orzo

This kind of thing will be quick too
www.simplycook.com/ppc/generic

Supermarket meal kits are probably cheaper and will also teach them how to think about planning all the components of a meal.

Simply Cook seasoning mixes are a good option, Spice Tailor and Blue Dragon and also some restaurant chains such as Yo!Sushi, Wagamamas and Nando's do supermarket seasonings and kits.

The other option is to get them to look at TikTok...my daughter is 20 and has been cooking since she was about 16 - she gets most of her recipes online.

Why the extra step they need to learn to cook what you all eat on a regular basis.
Buy per a normal shop get them to put it away and have them pull the individual items for a meal on the day?
Stick a note pad and pen in the kitchen and if they are using the last of something they list what is needed for the next shop.

Once they can cook the usual then they can add in extra meals themselves

During lockdown my youngest son learned to cook with Hello Fresh, although the quality of the ingredients is not great. I liked that the recipe cards are very straightforward and result in a whole meal, with sides whereas most recipes are for one element at a time - Marry Me Chicken, but you need to learn when to start the accompanying vegetables, carbs etc. I’d recommend it as a starting point.

I tried Hello Fresh and Gousto and was so disappointed with both of them. We found the quantities to be tiny and the quality of their meat in particular, but also vegetables, was dreadful. If you want your teens to learn about cooking, having everything prepacked into tiny portions won't help them much to learn about ingredients and preparing a meal. We ordered a box of four meals from each company and all the slices etc were packed together so it still took ages to sort them out. I would think it's much better to buy a couple of good basic cookery books for whatever type of cuisine they like, with good appetising photos.

I did similar last summer. I got gousto when dd was back from university and she made dinner every night.

It worked really well, she enjoyed doing it and she made some of the recipes again with supermarket ingredients.

We didn't find the portions too small, but I haven't got a teenage boy.

We use hello fresh. I would say that over the past 5 years as CoL has bitten, the service has gone way downhill.

We get hello fresh for 4 people - both kids are adult/virtually adult though. The meals are generally lacking something, to keep costs under control. The instructions are also designed to minimise washing up and minimise kitchen equipment needed - but I have found that this does compromise the meal or causes problems - this could hamper your dd learning. I find rice to be quite oversupplied compared to the meal (which might be curry or whatever).

So, we still use it as I hate meal planning and am not a skilled cook. But we usually have to add additional vegetables to the meal - often this is peppers/onions.

It's a decent start, but it is not as good as it used to be.

Thanks everyone. I think it's worth a go for a month or so. See how we go. I will look out for the supermarket ones.

I have one dc that will research recipes and make the dish happen and one that is completely resistant/oblivious. That's mainly who I'm targeting this at.

Keen to hear how you get on, @okright.My teen is similarly reluctant - but I can imagine if I got him on board by selecting the meals he might do it. Or it might just be an expensive mistake - who knows!

We’re doing Gousto again at the moment and it’s great for getting our teens to cook stuff other than pasta! Go for it 😊

Surely the best way to learn is to start small? Eggs multiways, chicken pieces fried in a pan (progress to fajitas or add a quick sauce with pasta), reduce a home-made tomato sauce to put on....most things. Build up a knowledge of cooking and a repertoire of basic dishes first. I hadn't cooked a single thing except eggs before I married at 20 but soon picked it up out of necessity. Perhaps get them in the kitchen to make the interesting part of the meal beside you?

Unfortunately the ideal of baking and getting them cooking along side me hasn't really inspired my kids particularly. I'm great at pretty good at quite a few things, but totally not succeeded at getting them to want to cook regularly. .

My son has been doing hello fresh meals every night since January. He absolutely loves being in the kitchen every evening cooking the family meal. We've kept all the recipe cards and when we have a good healthy stack I intend to cancel hello fresh and buy in the same ingredients so he can continue to cook from scratch. It's Ok but the quality could be better, portions are small - suits me on a strict diet but two growing teens means I double up the meat content. I've found the seafood awful-all off cuts of fish and not great at all.

Simply Cook is good, and alot cheaper. They send you the herbs and spices, and you buy the raw ingredients. It gives you more flexibility about when you cook the meals.

My DD used Hello Fresh for a while when she moved out after uni and she liked it. At home I've got a good collection of spices and sauces but she didn't have that when she was on her own so it helped that it was all included in the kit. She now cooks from scratch but I think the kits definitely gave her some confidence in the early days.

Jamie Oliver ‘5 ingredient’ books are also good to encourage cooking.

Simply cook looks good! Also ordered the Jamie book. If nothing else I'll learn a few new things. I seem to have peaked an interest by saying people only want to flat share with people who can cook 😬 you don't wanna not be able to cook something