Elderly and Senior Meal Delivery Solutions from the Experiences of Family Caretakers for New Family Caretakers
Prepped
Prepped Review of their Senior Meals and Prepared Meal Delivery Service
About Prepped Senior Meal Delivery Service
Prepped prepared meals delivery has a lot to offer family caretakers, seniors, and the elderly. Overall, we found their senior meals to be above average in quality, but the service is not without shortcomings, that are more of an inconvenience than a reason to not order.
We loved the pricing, with meals averaging between $10 and $15 each. We also enjoyed how the meals will fit most nutritional meal plans so family caretakers of loved with diabetes, low sodium, or weight loss diets can buy meals without having to measure calories, fat, and carbs.
We also loved the portion sizes. We have seen numerous meal delivery services in this price range skimp on protein portion sizes or eliminate a side dish. A properly balanced meal should have a protein, carb side, and a vegetable serving.
The menu rotates weekly which provides the excitement of new meals, but the selections are limited to about 15 lunch and dinner options per week. If your loved one is a finicky eater, you could find yourself struggling to create enough unique meals in a single order. We prefer services with more extensive menus that rotate less frequently. We enjoyed numerous meals we would love to order again, but they are not available.
We also like that there is no commitment to reordering, another caveat of meal delivery services with this type of menu selection. Also, the pictures of the meals on their website are not actual pictures of their food. They are purchased photos of clip art. Please keep this in mind when ordering. Our pictures are of the actual food we received, and don't be fooled by the fancy names of their dishes. They never live up to expectations. Either the names are being created by someone who hasn't actually tried the food, or the chef is grossly incompetent in executing the dish.
- We could not find a 100% Satisfaction Guarantee
on the website. The quality of the food we received suggests one may not be needed, but it is a huge selling point for first-time buyers.
Some Reheating Issues
Please be careful reheating these meals! Some seniors or elderly family members can easily burn themselves if they are not careful. These meals come in bags, not trays, with each individual meal component in its own microwaveable and vacuumed sealed pouch. The microwave instructions say to microwave each meal component individually, 1-2 minutes, which will seem inconvenient.
After a few tries, we were able to microwave a complete meal for 2 minutes and have each meal component reheat perfectly. Some seniors and elderly may find the type size for the heating instructions a little too small to read, adding to the likelihood of an accident.
We felt the direction could be a little more complete such advising the customer if they should poke holes in the bag. We assume the food reheats as well as it does without poking holes but be warned: If you over microwave, the pouch will blow up. We would suggest you put your food on a microwave-safe plate with a cover, just in case. When the food is reheated, the pouches are extremely hot! You or your loved one could easily get a minor burn by trying to handle the food too quickly. You have cut the pouch and pour the contents on to a plate. Be careful handling these hot pouches which are loaded with steam.
Lastly, some meal components can have a lot of residual water that is not so easy to see. We had a few meals where our plates were drowned in excess water and made the meal unappetizing. Again, please let the pouch cool completed before trying to handle it, and especially drain any excess water. Overall, we thought Prepped could do a little better job explaining and cautioning customer how to reheat their meals. But rest assured, once you get the hang of it, these meals reheat to perfection and in record time.
Our Prepped Review of their Prepared Meals
All of these arrive fresh, not frozen. They are easy to store in the refrigerator too. Our delivery arrived after we went to bed for the evening. The food was still chilled in the morning when we saw an email saying our food arrived.
Sometimes companies like to make super extravagant names to their meals like they think it makes them taste better. If you are going to call something "garlicky," then it should be. For the most part, we found these chef adjectives didn't live up to the flavor promise they make on the website when you are ordering.
Prepped Meals We Would Reorder
Herb Seasoned Grilled Chicken with Yucca Fries and Seared Broccoli - $11
We didn't get much "herb seasoning," flavor, or was hard to believe the broccoli was seared. Why would you sear broccoli anyway? We over microwaved the Yucca Fries following their directions and they were hard as a rock.
The chicken was good, the broccoli was excellent, and the Yucca Fries were awesome, which we learned from a meal we had later on.
Seared Steak with Mashed Sweets and Sauteed Green Beans - $12
Steak is a protein you don't see a lot of on many meal delivery websites, and this one was amazing delicious. Not only that, the portion size was very generous at this price. You can see in the picture how the meat is hot and still pink in the center.
Our Sweet Potatoes were the only pouch that blew up on us in the microwave, but most of it stayed in the bag. It too was outstanding. The Sauteed Green Beans were perfectly reheated and tasted like they came from a farm stand. That is not an exaggeration. I grew up working on farm stands when I was a teen.
Steak and Vegetables - $13
This was only meal that wasn't a balanced meal, as there was no carb side dish, but a low carb meal is okay once in a while too. Again, a very nice sized cut of steak is the highlight of the meal.
The green beans and broccoli were just as perfect this time as they were last time. We like that kind of consistency.
Philly Cheesesteak Breakfast Scramble with Chesapeake Home Fries - $9
This was the surprise of the day for us, and also our first experience with some residual water in the pouch. The Philly Cheesesteak topping cam out of the microwave perfectly, and the gooey cheese was a masterful touch. The eggs were good, a little cheese would have been nice, and we are not sure what made the Home Fries "Chesapeake," they seemed like standard breakfast fare. They were good but a little mushy as you might expect from reheating a cooked potato in a bag. A quick sautee on the stove top would get a much better result.
Any shortcomings were overlooked as the Philly Cheesesteak makes up for everything, and then some. Here is an example of a meal that would make us go back to the website and reorder, and in multiple quantities, but it's not on the menu this week.
BLT Steak Topped with a Bacon, Roasted Tomato and Arugula Pesto and Yucca Fries - $12
That is quite a mouthful of a name. This meal should be called Steak and Yucca Fries, with Pesto. I get what they are trying to: Put all the components of a BLT Sandwich is a pesto, but this over promises and under delivers.
Again, the steak is perfect, as are the Yucca Fries. The pesto was such an after thought we didn't think it improved the perfection of the steak or the fries.
Everything Bagel Crusted Salmon with Buttery Horseradish Cream Cabbage Noodles and Carrots-Parsnip Medley - $12
Okay, so we did the BLT steak, now let's do the "Everything Bagel" Salmon. Silly and unnecessary in our opinion. The amount of salt on the salmon is just like an everything bagel, but we didn't think that was a good idea. The piece of salmon they you is tremendous and a great value at this price. Why not just do simple, perfectly? We scraped off the salt which overpowered the delicate salmon.
Also, for seniors on low sodium diets, the nutritional information provided does not include sodium levels. The "Buttery Horseradish Cream Cabbage Noodles," could only have been written by someone who has never eaten this dish, or the chef failed miserably to execute it. It's cabbage, and it doesn't have to look like noodles (which it doesn't) to be great, which it is. We didn't taste buttery, horseradish, or cream. The Carrots-Parsnip Medley was also outstanding.
Prepped Meals We Would Not Order Again
Garlicky Cubano Chicken and Shrimp with Spanish Rice and Crispy Plantains - $12
We didn't taste anything garlicky or Cubano (salt, sugar, cumin, coriander, allspice, mustard seed, black pepper and ground cloves) in the chicken, and that is a huge spice blend not to taste anything. The shrimp were similar to a shrimp cocktail. Small but good, and the best part of the meal.
The rice was bad on every meal we purchased. This one was a clump of mush with no trace of Spanish seasoning except for its appearance. The Crispy Plantains were far from crispy. It is near impossible to reheat anything crispy in a microwave bag. These were closer to the texture of leather.
Basic Grilled Chicken and Rice with Seared Brussels Sprouts - $12
To be honest, with the limit number of menu choices, we are getting of the chicken breast. They are all basic as far as we are concerned. Again, the rice was a disaster. It was closer to a sushi sticky rice with a mushy texture. It is almost funny to try and remove a grain of rice from your hands.
The Brussels Sprouts were good, but sliced so thin it seemed like there may have been two spouts in the whole side. If they were cut in half, at least we would have something to chew.
Carolina Gold BBQ Pulled Pork with Caramelized Onion Mashed Sweets and Smokey Campfire Squash - $12
Carolina BBQ is seasoned with vinegar, something we felt should have mentioned on their menu. Customers expecting a red-sauce BBQ would have been disappointed. Customers expecting a Carolina BBQ would also be disappointed. This looked very unappetizing, and this case, it was. We didn't see or taste any caramelized onion in the mashed sweet potato, it was exactly the same as the last meal we had.
The Smokey Campfire Squash (and we just have to laugh at this name) isn't smokey, nor would it ever be associated with any type of cooking done on a campfire. It was steamed, and the amount of residual water that came out of the bag contributed to the failure of the meal. Something had could have been avoided with proper heating directions.
Vietnamese Pork and Shrimp Meatballs with Vegetable Vermicelli “Noodles” and Marinated Cucumbers, Radish and Snow Peas - $12
In a restaurant, it would be hard to imagine any expediter letting this meal get out of the kitchen. Apparently there is no such quality control personal at Prepped. The meatballs are as plain as they look in the picture. Just clumps of meat, but we can share with you that they were also dry and flavorless. It is hard to make anything Vietnamese that is flavorless. Again with the finely julienne vegetables being called "Noodles." They are not noodles, nor do they look or wrap around a fork like noodles. They were good, as were the limited amount of sugar snap peas, but the entree made this a meal we would never order again.
In Summary
Overall good service, especially for steak. Fancy names don't make the food better, and not using actual photos of the meals they sell on their website is misleading. Shipping, as well as the average cost per meal is very economical. Reheating is amazing, once you do a few. The reheating instructions on the packing could be larger for seniors, and more complete to ensure a perfect dining experience for the customer instead of a learning curve. The rotating menu seems to be a disservice to us, as there were many meals we would add to our weekly inventory.
Shared Experiences from Other Family Caregivers
Be the first to review these prepared meals.
Share Your Reviews and Comments
- Have any comments? We would love to hear yours! Please share your food experiences with other family caretakers below. You can upload pictures of your meals to seniormealdeliveries@gmail.com.
Your Prepped Review
Our reviews are written only
from the viewpoint of a family caretaker who has the responsibility of feeding one or two senior or elderly loved ones. We take into consideration shipping, packaging, storage, reheating, food quality, and price per meal to determine if the meal delivery service is a good value, convenience, and an option to support their family caretaking responsibilities. Advertisers do not influence our reviews.
Copyright 2013 Senior-Meals.org All Rights Reserved. Art commercially licensed through Shutterstock. Senior-Meal.org reviews are not influenced by Advertisers.
Submitting reviews or comments through the use of forms on the website permits us to publish the content you choose to share in your correspondence.