Finding time to prepare dinner each evening can be draining, yet the cost of restaurant meals quickly outpaces what you'd spend cooking dinner at home. For anyone seeking a middle ground that simplifies weeknight cooking, meal kits might be exactly what you need.
Through my work testing these services at CNET, I've grown fond of options like Blue Apron, Marley Spoon and HelloFresh. With a busy start to the year and no signs of it slowing down, I've gravitated toward one particular cooking method. I'm not referring to choosing chicken over beef -- I mean sheet-pan dinners.
Here's what makes them so appealing.
This healthy and delicious meal came from Blue Apron. Jeffrey Hazelwood/Corin Cesaric/CNET
Sheet-pan meals are almost completely foolproof
Lately, as I'm scouring meal kit service websites, I've noticed that more and more sheet-pan recipes are appearing. These are meals that cook all at once in the oven on one or two sheet pans and require very little preparation.
In my experience, these types of meals shorten overall cooking time. While the entire meal (sides included) is baking, I have time to clean up the little mess I made while preparing the meal, and even end up with a bit of relaxation time. With sheet-pan meals, I can still enjoy a home-cooked meal in a fraction of the time it usually takes to cook dinner. It's a win-win situation in my book.
This sheet-pan meal, roasted salmon and veggies, is from Blue Apron and took only 30 minutes to make. Corin Cesaric/CNET
Some sheet-pan meals take just five minutes of active work
While some meals still require a little prep work, like chopping or dicing vegetables, others, like the one above, require almost none. For my salmon dish, all I had to do was season the salmon with salt and pepper, rinse the produce and snap off the tips of the green beans. The whole process took me less than five minutes. Some recipes even come with pre-cut vegetables to save more time.
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