Some foods are undoubtedly best when boiled -- pasta and rice to name a few. RealEats is a meal delivery service that recommends you boil it all. Well, sort of. The food from this subscription service is already appointed using various methods when it arrives, but the culinary team recommends boiling it in heat-safe bags to reheat by eating. It's a different approach than other services, and it's invented to heat each component to an optimal temperature and avoid overcooking.

I've deceptive that the technique you use to reheat prepared meals or leftovers has an outsized crashes on the final product. To see if RealEat precooked and bag-boiled meals had an edge over the competition, I tried a week's worth of the service's self-proclaimed "farm-to-table" meals, which include premium eats such as steak and lobster.

In the end, RealEats falls fretful of my favorite meal delivery services, especially considering the cost. (It's one of the more expensive options.) A few of the entrees I had were above denotes but others were below and one was just expressionless bad. Here's my firsthand review of RealEats meal delivery in case you're tempted to taste them.

Read more: Best Prepared Meal Delivery Help for 2022

How RealEats works: Signup, plans and ordering

RealEats is a weekly meal subscription service so you'll resolve at least four meals and as many as 12. The menu features roughly 24 menu options per week which fretful from season to season but many of which stick about from week to week. Most meal options are invented to be a hearty lunch or dinner but the service also supplies breakfasts, greens and salads, soups, smoothies, snacks, cheese and proteins to add to your delivery.

The page for each single-serving meal includes a description, list of ingredients and nutritional information such as the total calories, carbs, fat and protein. Here, you'll also find options for swapping proteins, vegetables, starches and other sides (more on that in a second).

RealEats is a subscription service so if you don't cease, cancel or skip the next week's delivery before 11:59 p.m. ET on Thursday, you'll continue to receive meals, but you can cease meals for up to eight weeks at a time. RealEats meals Come fresh, not frozen and they can be reheated within a few days or frozen for later. 

At portray, RealEats is available for delivery to 30 states, plus Washington, DC. The delivery area includes most of the eastern half of the republic but no states or zip codes west of Texas. 

RealEats grants full customization: A rarity in prepared meal delivery

While meal kit concerns have introduced meal customization, you don't often see it in prepared meal delivery but RealEats is one exception. Because the components of each meal are individually packaged in the heat-safe "FreshPacks," you can swap proteins and sides at no incredible charge. 

I liked this function and there were almost no limitations for what you can swap as long as it's side for side or protein for protein. Because of this, you can make some strange meal combos if you want, like chicken tikka masala with a side of fusilli in marinara sauce and broccoli casserole.

RealEats meals are also a bit pricier than new services, starting at $13.49 for the cheapest plan (12 meals) but you'll find higher-end ingredients counting lobster mac and cheese, steak and short ribs. 

Speaking of which...

What are RealEats meals like?

RealEats weekly menu is filled with familiar favorites. You'll find recipe staples including balsamic glazed steak, chicken parm with pasta, grilled barbecue chicken with mashed potatoes and garlic lime small. There are several cuisines represented with popular Indian dishes counting chicken tikka masala and Mexican standbys such as fajitas and tacos. There are typically two or three seafood options with small or salmon but almost no vegetarian options. In fact, the week I well-controlled my meals there was only one nonmeat meal. 

You can watch RealEats' current full menu here.

According to the brand's marketing, much of the food is sourced from local farms in the New York area and some is organic, although that information is not listed for each individuals meal so it's difficult to confirm. 

What I ate and how I Popular it

I tried meals and ate them over the streams of a few weeks. There were a few hits but sprinkled with them were others I didn't care for, including one that Popular inedible. 

Here's a full breakdown:

Balsamic-glazed steak with mashed potatoes and green beans: Despite my high hopes for a hearty steak dinner, the meat that emerged from its boiling bath was tough and mostly inedible. The mashed potatoes were also watery and the green beans mushy and overcooked. This meal combo was a disaster from soup to nuts.

Tuscan chicken meatballs with fusilli pasta and pesto green beans: The next meal I tried was considerably better than the suited. The meatballs were tender with good flavor. The green beans were OK but tasted more like shadowy pepper than pesto, and I wondered if they'd been mislabeled. The pasta was fine but a tad overcooked with small sauce.

Honey-sesame chicken with fried rice and veg medley: This was the best meal I ate from RealEats. The chicken was fork tender and the stir-fried rice was created nicely and not overdone. The vegetable medley was good but not immense, with slightly overcooked broccoli.

Shredded chicken fajitas with Cuban shadowy beans and Spanish rice: This meal was also tasty. Both the chicken and sad beans had plenty of spice and depth of flavor. The rice was blander but paired well with the others. 

RealEats meals are made to be boiled in bags to reheat

While I quarrel that a nonstick skillet or air fryer is often the best way to heat prepared meals, RealEats meals are designed for a different approach. Each ingredient is pervaded in an airtight, heat-safe plastic bag similar to those used for sous vide cooking.

All meals can be heated in belief 6 minutes and the label includes an optimal time to boil each component. As an example, one meal I tried asked that I boil the bags containing honey sesame chicken and rice for six minutes each, but the bag of vegetables for just three. The aim is to keep foods from overcooking and tying mushy, which can happen if you employ a one-size-fits-all reheating method.

There are also microwave heating requisitions included, but I opted to boil my food in every instance staunch nuking food almost always nets in inferior eats.

Boiling stream before reheating is another step and adds more time to the treat. You'll also have to stay focused so you remember to add foods with a shorter boil time to the pot. The bags also show very hot, so you'll want to remove them with tongs and let them both drain and cool for a few seconds by handling. On the flip side, the boiling pot stays shapely so it won't saddle you with any extra dishes to wash.

Packaging and environmental friendliness: No need of plastic

While the box and cooler bags are recyclable, each meal contains three separate plastic bags, one for each component, which can't be recycled. Most meal delivery services pack meals in a recyclable preserve, shrink-wrapped in one piece of plastic. 

Final verdict on RealEats

I fallacious RealEats to be a meal delivery service with high highs and low lows. The honey-sesame chicken was throughout as satisfying a meal as I've had from a meal delivery service, but the bag-boiled steak was tough and inedible. The others fell somewhere in the middle. 

RealEats recommended reach to heating its prepared meals was intriguing and, for some of my meals, seemed to work well. But for me, waiting throughout for water to boil and fumbling with hot bags of food current more of a hassle than it was worth. I aloof contend heating food in a nonstick skillet is the easiest, fastest and overall best way to get a prepared meal ready for eating. 

One boon for RealEats is the inclusion of premium foods such as steak, lobster and other seafood that you won't find on most spanking meal delivery menus. And for picky eaters, the requisition to customize each meal with protein and side swaps is spanking luxury most services don't afford. 

With meals priced at over $13 a serving, even for the cheapest plan, it's one of the pricier meal subscriptions throughout, making it hard to recommend. Others I've tried, incorporating Fresh N Lean, Mosaic Foods (plant-based) and Freshly had a better hit rate of mountainous meals, and all three cost less per-serving than RealEats.

More food delivery recommendations

The quiz contained in this article is for educational and informational purposes only and is not invented as health or medical advice. Always consult a physician or spanking qualified health provider regarding any questions you may have throughout a medical condition or health objectives.