Dream Dinners: Homemade Meals {And How I Was Able to Stretch My Meals to $2.50 Per Serving!}

Last week I had the privilege of visiting Dream Dinners in Lancaster for the first time! After I found out more about Dream Dinners, I couldn’t believe that I had never heard of them before! They’ve been in Lancaster for over five years and are one of the top Dream Dinner locations in the nation!

What is Dream Dinners?

Dream Dinners is kind of like a meal service similar to HelloFresh or BlueApron, but instead of just receiving a box in the mail with the food and recipe (requiring the full 30 minute prep time usually to prepare and chop your ingredients), you actually go to the Dream Dinners state-of-the-art kitchen and make your freezer meals. When you are ready to use your meal, you take it out of the freezer and quickly prepare, or even just heat up, your home cooked meal!

My original thinking was, why would I want to go to a kitchen and prepare meals, just to come home and then still need to do the 20 minute prep before dinner time? Wouldn’t it be easier to just order a HelloFresh kit and have only one 30 minute prep time for each meal? I’m glad I asked myself these questions and checked out Dream Dinners though, because I found my answer pretty quickly.

My experience at Dream Dinners wasn’t just about the food. Yes, I did save time prepping the food and chopping it in their kitchen. Yes, I didn’t have to do any clean up. (Yes, they do all the clean up for you!!!!!) And yes, the meals did take a lot less than 30 minutes to prepare when it came to dinner time as a result.

But the key factor that I forgot to consider, was the socializing with other individuals preparing their meals, along with the friendly and encouraging atmosphere! It was like a relaxing night out instead of going to work—if that makes sense! And for myself, who isn’t extremely comfortable or confident in the kitchen, it was like an education as I learned how to be confident in the kitchen and even discovered some new flavor combinations that my family loved!

What do you actually do when you visit Dream Dinners? I loved how simple it was. There were several prep stations each with a separate recipe. You found the stations for each of your recipe and then followed their step-by-step guide to add ingredients to your freezer bags. Everything was color coded so you didn’t even have to measure your ingredients! As you finished preparing each meal, you added your bag to the freezer area with your name on it, and then went on to make your next recipe.

While we were preparing our meals, they served Dream Dinner horderves for us to taste and sample too!

The 3 Meals We Tried

Dream Dinners generously invited me to test out three of their 3-serving meals. I prepared them at a Open House Dream Taste and then brought them home to test them on my family!

I’m excited to report that we were very pleased with each of the meals we tried from Dream Dinners. They were full of flavor, simple to prepare (with the exception of my one mistake which I’ll tell you about later), and could easily be stretched to more servings by adding simple sides.

These three-serving meals fed our family of five perfectly (our kids are 3, 5 and 7), with a few side additions and extras. After adding some extra sides at home (like additional rice or tortillas or a side vegetable) meals cost only about $2.50/serving for a total of $12 per meal. Cheaper than eating out, but definitely more than if you’d make up your own meal plan and go grocery shopping.

Southwest Pork Carnita Wraps. These were absolutely delicious—the flavor filled our mouths! I thought they had a little bit of ‘kick’ to them, but even my 3-year-old ate his without a word (and lately, that’s rare!) I loved that this recipe was hearty and filling, so it easily filled us. It came with 4 wraps, but even after I stuffed each of those with the pork, there was plenty of pork left to fill a few extra tortillas I had on hand. All I had to do to prep the meal was thaw it, put the pork in a pan on the stove and let it simmer, and make the rice. So simple it probably took me less than 5 minutes—the rest of my meal prep time I could spend with the kids!!

Savory Grilled Chicken with Sesame Honey Butter and Roasted Broccoli. I loved the simplicity of this meal—I’d say it took about 10 minutes of my time, but I could easily be helping the kids with things while the chicken was cooking on the grill. My 5-year-old begged for more chicken she loved it so much. I had extra honey butter and marinade, so in retrospect I kind of wish I would have added a few more pieces of chicken to the mix. This meal was very easy to serve extra sides with like cooked carrots, corn on the cob, rice or salad.

Limoncello Shrimp with Coconut Rice. Again, this meal had excellent flavor! We did wish the rice was a little more creamy and had more coconut flavor. This meal was the hardest of the meals to prepare, and I probably should have given it my full attention for 20-30 minutes. I was trying to host some family and help the kids while I made this meal and I ended up ruining the limoncello sauce. I was horribly disappointed because it looked so delicious!!! My fault though—it said to let it simmer and reduce a little, but then I got distracted and next time I looked at it, it was black. Oops! Otherwise the meal was delicious and if you’ve never made shrimp before, it made it very easy to learn for the first time.

Who is Dream Dinners for?

What I loved about Dream Dinners, was how I couldn’t stop thinking of people that this service would be great for. There are so many different types of people, at different life stages, who would find Dream Dinners helpful!

• Working moms. Honestly, I don’t know how working moms do it! They have so much going on, and truly impress me! I think Dream Dinners would be a great time-saver for them, saving them from some meal planning, grocery shopping and even meal prep if they choose the ‘made for you’ option.
• Someone who thinks they can’t cook. Dream Dinners is absolutely perfect for the unconfident or beginner chef. It provides quality recipes with simple steps. After 2-3 times of preparing meals at Dream Dinners and then making them at home, I think anyone could become confident in the kitchen and learn enough to start meal planning on their own.
• Singles. There are so many reasons why Dream Dinners is perfect for the single person. For one, the meals are healthy and homemade—when you’re cooking for one, isn’t it so easy to not want to go to the effort of preparing a healthy, hearty meal? Second, it gets you out meeting people and socializing while you prep the meals at the Dream Dinner kitchen. And lastly, its a great savings compared to what it would cost you to eat out!
• Extroverts. While I don’t think Dream Dinners is just for extroverts (introverts will definitely enjoy the friendly atmosphere of the Dream Dinner kitchen too), I do think extroverts would especially thrive in this environment. I heard of two ladies who started coming to the same Thursday night cooking session five years ago, and have become friends just through attending the same session once a month over the past few years!
• Busy Moms. What mom isn’t busy? But there are some seasons of a moms life that are even busier than others. Here are a few creative ideas of when busy moms might find Dream Dinners particularly helpful.
  • Back To School Week. Let’s face it, that first week of school can be a doozy. Schedules are changing, kids are adapting to new teachers and they need extra attention and love from mom. What a perfect time to have a few meals prepped ahead so you can devote extra time to your children those first few weeks of school?
  • Vacation Meals. You can save a lot of money by not eating out on vacation, but shouldn’t vacation be a break for mom from meal planning and grocery shopping too? How simple would it be to order 6 meals for your trip and have them already prepared and planned out?
  • New babies. Dream Dinners is a perfect idea for moms who are about to have either their first baby or a new baby in the family. Having extra meals in the freezer is a must during this season of life!
  • Christmas gift idea. I feel like many moms don’t want more stuff for Christmas, but they do love gifts that help them live their life fuller. By giving a busy mom a gift of some freezer meals, you’re actually giving her a gift of more time with her family and children. This would also work perfect for a birthday or Mother’s Day gift idea!

Ways to Save on Dream Dinners

While Dream Dinners does cost you more than doing your own meal planning and grocery shopping, they do have some exciting ways to save, and are even offering a special savings offer for Frugal Lancaster fans! I love that each of these ways to save lowers the cost to $4-5 per serving, or even less!

These offers are available to new guests only (anyone who hasn’t been to Dream Dinners in over a year is considered to be “new”). The special offer coupon code for the standard order will be valid through the end of September.

• Open House Dream Taste — New guests are invited to try Dream Dinners and make 3 medium meals (9 servings) for just $34.99. That’s less than $4 per serving (and in my opinion the best deal if you want to try Dream Dinners and see what you think!) Their next Open House Dream Taste will be Thursday, August 31st at 6:00pm and 7:30pm.
  • August 31st at 6:00pm — Register now!
  • August 31st at 7:30pm — Register now!
• Introductory Offer — This is a one-time special where the guest can make 18 servings for a flat, discounted price of $84.95. That’s just $4.72 per serving (but remember, if you stretch the meal with some extra sides, it costs even less per serving!) You can view the entire menu options for the introductory offer here.
• Standard Order (36 servings or more) — anyone who signs up for a full size order right off the bat can receive 10% off of their bill (use coupon code “10NEWDD2017” at checkout).

For standard orders, there is a minimum order of 36 servings. Most Dream Dinner customers spend an average of $200 per month on their meals (which could be 12 meals for your family, if you stretch them like I did.) You can find their menu and all the recipes they are currently offering on their website. But I’ll warn you, their photos make your mouth water and will entice you to sign up right away! 😉

Have you ever used Dream Dinners? I’d love to hear what you thought about it and any tips you have to share!