Raddish box review, August 2018

ABout raddish

Raddish is a kid-friendly cooking club, culinary lesson, and mealtime solution all-in-one designed for kids and parents to cook and learn together.

how raddish works

There is only once choice – boxes come monthly and all users receive the same items. Each month's Raddish kit features a surprise theme that generally falls into one of four categories: Seasonal Spotlights, Global Cuisine, Creative Cookery (science- or imagination-based), and Holiday Celebrations. A kit’s theme cannot be chosen in advance—that would ruin the surprise! Here’s a FREE digital sample kit so you can see what’s included.
Each monthly kit includes:

• 3 illustrated recipe guides (see a sample)
• 3 culinary skill cards (see a sample)
• a creative theme project (see a sample)
• kid-friendly tools and collectibles (see a sample) such as Table Talk cards, a culinary tool, and an iron-on Raddish patch
• 1 free Raddish apron with the purchase of a membership (additional aprons may be purchased during checkout)

Meal Box Review readers can get $10 off a new Raddish service! Sign up here and use coupon code gpxghh
In addition, you’ll receive a grocery store shopping list inside your kit and via email. They also provide digital “Bonus Bites” recipes, videos, playlists, activities, dietary substitutions, digital lesson plans about the holiday or culture of that month’s theme (see a sample), and more! These items are always archived on the website, so you can return to any previous month’s theme activities.
The biggest difference is that Raddish does NOT include the food or any other ingredients. You do the grocery shopping – ideally with the child(ren) – using their pre-made list.

$10 off for Meal Box Review readers! Coupon code = gpxghh

what we got in this box:

Remember, we always post individual reviews of one recipe at a time - so you may need to return to read all the recipe reviews if we are still working on this box. Sign up here to get updates sent directly to your inbox!

This month the theme was TASTE OF INDIA!
The three recipes this month were:
1. Indian Naan Bread
2. Chicken Tikka Masala
3. Yellow Rice Biryani
4. Indian Lassi (mango smoothie)

Because Raddish is not a meal-delivery service, no food comes packaged in the kit. Instead we got these kid-friendly supplies and printed materials:

what we learned:

We learned how to use garam masala! It's that secret ingredient that makes your local Indian buffet smell so good! It's one of the key ingredients in the Chicken Tikka Masala recipe.

box rating:

Our rating system considers quality, value, convenience, cost, waste materials, taste, freshness, choice/variety, and family friendliness. Here's our review of this box as a whole:

MOM:

The recipes were super-easy to shop for and make. But for Mom, the extra run and cost of the groceries is an inconvenience. Everything for these four recipes cost us about $50. We did have to buy several bottles of the spices new, so having these on hand may save around $10.

KID:

Kid loves to cook! While she didn't really care for the chicken (she rarely does except in nugget form...), she still had a great time shopping for, cooking, and presenting these meals. Making dough from scratch, especially the kneading part was not easy for her to do on her own.

We also review each recipe separately:

1. Indian Naan Bread
2. Chicken Tikka Masala
3. Yellow Rice Biryani
4. Indian Lassi (mango smoothie)

General PROS of Raddish:

• We love that Raddish aims to get kids involved through their fun and creative activities, videos, kid-friendly supplies and directions. Our kid can cook! She did most of the work in making all of the recipes from this box.
• We especially liked that because they send a prep email when your package ships that we had a few days to get the ingredients from the recipe card before the kit arrived. The prep email also includes links to all of the Bonus Bites material, including at-home lesson plans, a grocery store scavenger hunt, a bonus recipe (this time it was the mango-yogurt smoothie), and other fun stuff.
• The supplies in the box include a kid-friendly utensil, a cute patch for the apron, a couple of fun art activity instructions, high-quality recipe booklets, and little "Table Talk" cards about the monthly theme and/or recipes. It's obvious that Raddish really put a lot of work into making these not just "kid-friendly" versions of recipes but actually recipes for kids!
  

General CONS of Raddish:

• Obviously, the major con of Raddish is that we still have to buy the groceries. However, this list was fairly straightforward and didn't require any trips to specialty stores.
• The second issue we noticed takes a hit in the value category. While they offer a TON of valuable content on their website (https://www.raddishkids.com/blogs/bonus-bites), all of the online material is FREE for anyone to access - like this recipe card for DIY Dreamsicles! In fact, there is no log-in or members-only section of their website. Everything is either public, or accessible only through the email or box they send. What members pay for that the public doesn't get includes the patch, the physical supplies shown above, and expanded recipe booklets - these are well made and high-quality.
  

get yours:

$10 off for Meal Box Review readers! Coupon code = gpxghh

Thanks for cooking with us and remember to eat well!