Mosaic is how I actually save time cooking

Almost everyone has at one point or another fantasized about having a personal chef. Who doesn’t want healthy, delicious food every day that they can eat from the comfort of their own home, without spending hours preparing it? In the fantasy, someone else is also taking care of all of those dirty dishes, of course. 

Well, the reality is that most of us aren’t going to have personal chefs. But that doesn’t mean we have to live off fast food or spend most of our evenings cooking to enjoy a good meal. Many people who want to save time cooking have turned to meal kit services.  

I’ve personally tried several popular meal kit delivery services, such as HelloFresh and Purple Carrot. Unfortunately, while there are benefits to these services, saving you time isn’t one of those benefits. Luckily, I have found a service (Mosaic Foods) that has saved me cooking time, while still helping me eat tasty food. 

There are two major ways in which meal kits supposedly save you time and those are not needing to go to the grocery store and having your ingredients already in the proper portions. Today’s grocery shopping is different than it used to be.  

While it used to be necessary to stroll down the aisles, you can now order groceries ahead to just pick up or pay a fee for delivery with most chains or through a third-party service. Groceries delivered to your door are great, but it’s more common now than it was in the past. 

Having everything portioned out certainly does save measuring time. However, there are still many tasks the customer must do. Depending on the meal, there is chopping, sautéing, grating, simmering, mixing, and more. 

These recipes are usually much more complex than what the average person would attempt on their own. Even with multiple people cooking, it can take hours to complete everything. Afterward, you still have a mountain of dirty pots, pans, and dishes that need to be washed. Overall, these simply don’t save time over other meals you could prepare. 

Roasted Grape & Butternut Squash Pizza

When I want to eat a home-cooked meal, but not spend hours preparing it, I’ve been heating meals from Mosaic Foods. Just like meal kit services, these meals are delivered straight to my door. The deliveries are in 100% recyclable packaging. 

One of the reasons I was attracted to Mosaic is because they offer vegetarian meal delivery. Far too often, if you want vegetarian meals, you’re rounded up into the vegan group. I need my meals without meat, but I still enjoy cheese, eggs, honey, and other ingredients that are vegetarian-friendly without being vegan. They do offer a vegan meal delivery as well though for anyone with that dietary need.

Butternut Squash & Sage Past from Mosaic

These meals are packed with veggies, whole grains, and ripe fruits. They don’t include any artificial ingredients or preservatives. The Mosaic chefs make all of their food by hand. They then freeze it. One reason they freeze it is to make it easy for customers, like me, to store the food and cook it whenever is convenient. The other reason is to reduce food waste, as otherwise, people who don’t cook meals fast enough would have to toss ingredients out.  

We’ve been trained to believe frozen food is unhealthy because, well, it often is unhealthy. A lot of frozen meals at grocery stores contain far more sodium than our diets require and don’t offer much in the way of nutrition. But frozen doesn’t have to mean unhealthy -just ask meal preppers! If you freeze healthy, homemade food, the freezing doesn’t make it lose its health benefits or taste.  

Speaking of taste, let me tell you about the “Pumpkin Spice and Everything Nice” bundle I ordered. It costs $131.80 and comes with a LOT of meals which, again, I didn’t have to rush to eat because they’re frozen. I stuck them in my freezer and ate them at my leisure. For most meals, all I had to do was stick it in the microwave or oven. The exception is the smoothies, which I had to put in my blender with some milk (I chose sesame milk). 

Curried Lentil Soup from Mosaic

The bundle came with Coconut Chickpea Curry, Squash Harvest Bowl, Butternut Sage Pasta, Butternut Squash Risotto, Carrot Spice Smoothie, Curried Lentil Soup, Ginger, Quinoa, and Veggie Soup, Butternut Squash and Roasted Grape Pizza, Cranberry Cinnamon Oat Bowl, Italian “Sausage” and Pumpkin Lasagna, BBQ Meatloaf and Sweet Potato Mash, and a Ginger Papaya Smoothie.  

I really enjoyed most of these meals! The Squash Harvest Bowl tasted like a full Thanksgiving dinner and was definitely one of my favorites. You don’t need to get a pre-decided bundle. Customers can also choose meals a la carte, with the minimum order being six meals. I’m eyeing up the Peanut Tofu Bowl and Yellow Dal Curry as meals for a future order. 

One of the best parts of Mosaic is that you can make a one-time order. You aren’t roped into a subscription service. I’m still constantly getting mail from Hello Fresh telling me to come back to them. On nights I eat Mosaic, I save a ton of time by not needing to prepare food or deal with a bunch of dishes. 

As a bonus, it’s nice to know that Mosaic donates two pounds of food to the non-profit City Harvest for every box they sell. Everyone deserves to be well-fed. 

Yes! I’m not trying to imply meal kits don’t have benefits. They do. For people who enjoy cooking and have the time to do so, meal kids can provide them with new meal ideas. It can get people out of their food comfort zones and have them try dishes they may have been hesitant to taste or attempt to make 100% on their own.  

Furthermore, cooking together can be a fun bonding activity for couples or friends. I’ve had a great time making meals from kits with others. Just don’t sign up for meal kit subscriptions with the expectation that they are going to save you time in the kitchen. 

Meal kits have benefits, but they don’t save you as much time as you may think. When I want to save time cooking (and am trying to avoid fast food and sodium-filled frozen meals from the grocery store), I use Mosaic. Mosaic’s frozen meals are easy to heat up, filled with veggies, and don’t leave me with endless dishes. 

Hannah Kowalczyk-Harper is a Wisconsin-based, full-time freelance writer. She mainly writes about personal development, business, writing, travel, and productivity. When not writing, Hannah is frequently chasing around her niece and nephew or traveling around the world. You can read more by Hannah on her Medium profile (https://medium.com/@MsHannahTweets) and get her remote writing tips at RemoteWriting.com.