Gobble Meal Kit Review 2023: Easy Meals in Under 15 Minutes

As a food writer and serious home cook, I take pride in my weekly meal prep. I love picking out fresh and seasonal ingredients: voluminous kale, fresh cod fish filet, and soft rosemary focaccia. As much as I romanticize my grocery store runs, it takes a lot of work, so I decided to try a meal kit delivery service to see if it could alleviate any of my stress in the kitchen by cutting down the prep work.

My partner and I love creating delicious dishes together, but it can take us hours to figure out our grocery list—and then even more time commuting to and perusing around the store. And don’t even get me started on how long it takes to actually prep our meals. Sometimes we just need a break from our typical routine. So when I learned that Gobble’s recipes only take 15 minutes to put together, I was skeptical, yet excited to try. You mean more time to watch Real Housewives or take hot girl neighborhood walks? Sign me up!

Read this Gobble meal kit review to see if this quick-prep meal kit worked for me—and whether or not it may good fit for you too.

For my Gobble review, I followed the criteria and guidelines in SELF’s meal kit buying guide, which is based on expert advice from registered dietitians. I nixed grocery shopping completely, and tried to order enough meals to last me and my partner Monday to Friday.

My Gobble menu: I ordered what was available for breakfast, lunch and dinner, plus a few desserts, totaling 17 different items.

Here is a sample of what I got:

1. Teriyaki-Pineapple Steak with Vegetable Fried Rice & Bok Choy
2. Chicken Tortilla Soup
3. Spinach & Mushroom Omelette with Sun-Dried Tomato Pesto & Goat Cheese
4. Oatmeal Raisin Cookie Dough
5. Chimichurri Fish Tacos with Shredded Cabbage
6. Corn, Bacon, Tomato & Avocado Chopped Salad
7. Petite Broccoli & Cheddar Quiche
8. Hatch Green Chile Burger with Mashed Avocado & Jalapeño Ranch Dressing
9. Chinese Cabbage Salad
10. Artisanal Belgian Waffles with Apple-Cinnamon Compote

Gobble offers a menu that includes meat, fish, and vegetarian dishes. It’s broken down into categories where you can choose dinner, breakfast, soups, sides, salads, and dessert recipes. I have to say, with all of these menu options, I was disappointed that there wasn’t a specific lunch category. Since I intended to use this meal kit to replace my weekly grocery shop, I worked around this by picking some of their soups and salad add-ons to serve as my lunches.

Gobble only offers two- or four-serving meal kits so if you live alone and don’t like leftovers, this brand might not be the best fit. But if you don’t mind doubling up on the same dish throughout the week, this shouldn’t be a huge issue.

Clicking through the site is surprisingly easy; there’s a menu page that lists all of the recipes for the upcoming week broken into different categories, with some having more choices than others. For example, for dinner, it was a breeze to choose a bunch from a variety of options for the week without feeling constrained. They also had a personalized button that allows you to swap different proteins; for example, if you don’t eat pork but still want their noodle stir fry, you can swap it for shrimp or chicken. (Keep in mind, this may cost extra).

Gobble ranges from $12–$15 per dinner serving, $4–$10 for breakfast, and $6–8 for makeshift lunch options. All and all, I spent about $163 for five days worth of two-serving meals, and that price point includes a $54 first-time buyer promo code. So, every week, for two people, that would calculate to about $21–$25 a day each for a suite of meals. In my opinion, that’s a bit steep. As early-to-mid-career professionals, my partner and I have mastered spending about $17 a day each for fares that include a great balance of seasonal vegetables and creative grains, proteins, and baked goods.

I typically prefer less expensive breakfast options, too, like fruit, yogurt, or cereal. While eating dishes like red pesto omelets and biscuits with sausage gravy was great, I can deal with a more no-frills breakfast (especially if it’s going to be less costly). Gobble’s “lunch” options were cheaper, but their soups and salads lacked protein, which didn’t make them as filling. We had one of their tomato soups for lunch, and while the flavor was on point, we weren't truly satisfied.

Ordering the Gobble meal kit was seamless. Their interface shows you available recipes, along with the expected delivery date. (For your first order, allow at least a one-week buffer time to receive your box). I really liked that as soon as you sign up, a video tutorial pops up before you select your meals to give you detailed instructions on how to choose them.

While the ordering was pretty easy, the delivery process was not ideal. The meals come all at once for the week packed in ziplock bags in refrigerated, thinly-insulated cardboard boxes with only a few ice packs. When the order arrived, some food felt room temperature to the touch, which concerned me. There were also no instructions on how to store everything, so I just put the bags of food into the fridge and then placed some of the meat in the freezer. It would have been great if the boxes had instructions to ensure I knew how to keep everything at its optimal temperature for the best quality.

Gobble meal kits live up to the promise that the recipes only take 15 minutes to cook. For me, this is what really made this brand shine compared to others I’ve tried. Each ziplock bag contains pre-portioned ingredients that require little prep time and very detailed recipe cards. During the week, I typically only needed to wash a small amount of produce, like scallions, and then give them a quick chop. Some other examples of how they made cooking quicker: Providing packets of pre-made sauce for recipes like mac and cheese so that all you need to do is boil the pasta and seasoning packs to make flavoring proteins like steak painless.

All of their meals require pulling out your pots and pans, but this was okay because the recipes came together so quickly that we had extra time to wash dishes. My partner and I kept remarking about how it felt like we were eating delicious restaurant food spun up in a matter of minutes.

When I’m choosing my meals, I gravitate to ones that have a nutritional balance—including protein, carbs like fiber, and micronutrients. With Gobble, it was difficult to locate the meals’ nutrition labels, which usually help me make my decisions. So to offset this lack of info, I tried to choose meals that contained vegetable-forward side dishes like bok choy. While they had very protein-packed options, like steak or chicken, the accompaniments felt like an afternote. I wish some of the assortments included larger portions of veggies to balance out the richness of the meals. Also, when it came to vegetarian proteins, there were only a few dinners on the site to choose from, so if you’re plant-based, this may not be the best meal kit due to its lack of vegan dinners.

All the meals I tried were packed with delicious flavors. Each dish—whether it was a well-seasoned steak topped with caramelized pineapple or a creamy broccoli cheddar mac and cheese with grilled chicken—tasted like something from a cozy neighborhood restaurant. The meals were rich, though. And with such heavy dishes, it would have been great to have more of a balance with some vegetables—especially during the summer when there are so many delicious ones in season. This could look like adding some fresh arugula as a side to their quiches or throwing in more vegetables beyond peppers for their stir fries.

My least favorite category from Gobble had to be their “lunch” recipes. I wish they had more hearty meals to help power me through long work days. Instead, I had to settle for soups and salads lacking filling ingredients like proteins or vegetables.

Should You Buy It?

Overall, Gobble provides easy, throw-together meals that taste like they’re from a restaurant. But while tavern-style food is tasty, it doesn’t mean I want to eat it daily. I could see this meal kit being great for when family or friends visit and you’re looking for quick and flavorful meals to serve them. But for these kits to replace my grocery runs, they would need to be much more balanced and not so rich that they make me feel sluggish after eating them. Also, they could be a few dollars less per serving and more intentional about incorporating seasonal vegetables.

All in all, after a week of eating this meal kit, I did notice how much I loved the convenience of it all, and how their 15-minute meals allowed me more time to relax and unwind after. The next time I go grocery shopping, I plan on focusing on quick and easy recipes, as a huge learning from Gobble.

Related:

• Green Chef Review: A Great Meal Kit to Get Out of a Cooking Rut
• Sunbasket Review: An Easy But Expensive Way to Get Nutrient-Dense Meals
• The 12 Best Vegetarian Meal Kits to Try