Mindful Chef

Mindful Chef

If you were to look at what the fads are in the current healthy lifestyle market you’ll doubtless find mindfulness, healthy eating and pre-measured ingredient boxes coming close to the top of the list. How convenient, then, that Mindful Chef is a service that combines all three things into one place.

Mindfulness is defined as ‘the quality or state of being conscious or aware of something’, which goes some way to explaining what the guys behind Mindful Chef are hoping to achieve. They want their customers to be more aware of what they’re eating, how they’re cooking their food and what the health benefits – or otherwise – are with any given menu.

To give you some indication of the level that Mindful Chef are operating at, they are financed by sports stars, Sir Andy Murray and Victoria Pendleton. They also include members of the England rowing, rugby and hockey team amongst their current customers. On this page, we’ll tell you all about why and the sort of things you can expect to get if you take out a Mindful Chef subscription.

At A Glance Info
What's in the box? Healthy gluten and dairy-free recipes and fresh ingredients
How often does it come? Once a week (usually on a Monday)
Sent from UK
Options Other options include boxes with less meals per week. For example, a box with just 2 meals for 2 people per week costs only £28.
Website www.mindfulchef.com

How Does It Work?

Mindful Chef is a company that offers customers health-focused recipes on a regular basis. Launched in 2015 by three school friends named Giles, Myles and Rob, the company sends out recipe boxes to customers, normally on a weekly basis. The boxes contain the ingredients for your food for the week, as well as a recipe card that tells you how to make it.

The company delivers its goods every Monday throughout the United Kingdom, though if you live in the outer limits of the Scottish Highlands then you might not be able to get the service. If you live in London, meanwhile, you can get deliveries on both Sundays and Mondays.

As with similar subscription services, Mindful Chef keep things as flexible as possible for you. There’s no minimum subscription period, for example, neither is there any sort of contractual tie-in. At the end of the day, they want to enjoy receiving, cooking and eating their products so there’s really no point in trying to ‘trap’ you in to staying a customer for longer than you’re interested.

What Do You Get?

’Precision’ is the keyword when it comes to Mindful Chef. They send you out precisely the right amount of food that you need for the meal plan that you’ve selected, meaning that there’s as little waste as possible. The pre-portioned ingredients you find inside the cardboard box that gets delivered will do you for your week’s meals.

There are two main things that Mindful Chef care about more than anything else: sustainable eating and healthy living. The former is taken care of by ensuring that all of the ingredients in your box come from independent local farms and fisheries. The meals are all broken down into different brown paper bags, so you’ll never get confused about which meal you’re supposed to be cooking.

When it comes to the healthy eating aspect of Mindful Chef’s philosophy, they aim to reduce your intake of both refined carbs and sugars. You’ll never get a recipe that includes bread, pasta or white rice and, instead, the recipes are more focused on fresh vegetables. There’s still some meat to be found for the carnivores out there, it’s just that the meals are healthy and both gluten and dairy free.

If you don’t consider yourself much use in the kitchen, then don’t worry. None of the recipes contain more than about ten ingredients, for starters, and you’ll also find a recipe card included with each meal. These take you step-by-step through the cooking process and all meals will be ready to eat within half an hour.

Options

There are essentially three different options when it comes to selecting the size of box that you want. All of these depend entirely on how many people you’ll be cooking for, starting with boxes for one person.

If you’re a couple, then there’s a box designed for the two of you, whilst families will be pleased to know that there’s another box for four. The allergen information for all recipes is listed on the company’s website, should you have one that you need to keep an eye out for. As mentioned already, every meal is gluten free and dairy free, too.

The beauty of the Mindful Chef system is that you get to choose the meals you fancy each week. That means that if you’re a vegetarian or don’t eat fish then you don’t need to worry about receiving a big steak or a salmon dish through the post!

Examples

There are twelve dishes that are offered every week, with eight new dishes added every seven days. The Mindful Chef also promise not to repeat a recipe for three months, meaning that you can have a real variety to your food.

You pick five dishes every time you place your order, so here’s a look at a few of the dishes they’ve offered in the past, as well as the ingredients that you’ll receive in your meal bag:

Blackened Haddock Fillet and Brazil Nut Slaw

  • 2 teaspoons of smoked paprika
  • 2 x 150g skin off haddock fillet
  • 30g Brazil nuts
  • 60g radishes
  • 80mg millet
  • Large handful of fresh coriander
  • 100g celery
  • 150g red cabbage
  • 1 lime
  • 1 tablespoon of oil
  • 20g creamed coconut
  • 2 teaspoons of ground coriander

Miso Aubergine Buddha Bowl and Tamari Nuts

  • 2 spring onions
  • 2 tablespoons of sweet white miso paste
  • 2 tablespoons of tamari
  • 2 teaspoons of white sesame seeds
  • 80g brown rice
  • 1 aubergine
  • 1 avocado
  • 1 tablespoon of maple syrup
  • 1 tablespoon of sesame oil
  • 200g carrot
  • 20g cashew nuts

Honey and Mustard Pork With Butterbean Mash

  • 1 tablespoon of wholegrain mustard
  • 240g drained butter beans
  • 2 x 170g pork loin
  • Large handful of flat-leaf parsley
  • 1.5 teaspoons of honey
  • 180g cherry tomatoes
  • 180g purple sprouting broccoli
  • 1 red onion
  • 1 tablespoon of oil

Other Important Notes

There are two more things worth mentioning that you might want to know, starting with the fact that you don’t need to be at home to receive your delivery. People work, which is something that the company is more than aware of. You tell them where you’d like your box to be left by the courier if you’re not in and they’ll do exactly that.

The final thing is that Mindful Chef support the One Feeds Two movement. That means that for every meal purchased, they donate a meal that feeds school children in Malawi, Zambia and some of the world’s other poorest communities. Those meals are also sourced using local farmers, helping the community to grow and develop.