Meal Kits: Dining In The New Normal

1) A Meal Kit?

What is a Meal Kit? It's simple. A Meal Kit is an All-In-One kit with pre-cut vegetables and meat packaged separately with step-by-step instructions to prepare restaurant quality dishes at the comfort of your own home. All the ingredients are cut, vacuum sealed and blast frozen to ensure that they are kept fresh and bacteria-free for the longest possible time. 

2) Why Is It Popular?

Meal Kits gained popularity during the time the world was hit with a pandemic and there was a lock-down in Korea. People refrained from dining out and begun either packing their food home, or cooking. As many of the younger generation Koreans prefer eating out and do not like to cook at home, Meal Kits took the country by storm when it first came out.

Meal Kits are prepared proportionally to what you will be consuming and does not produce any wastage in terms of ingredients. Everything is pre-cut and pre-prepared in the Meal Kit and all you have to do is follow the instructions on the box and you will end up with delicious Korean food in a matter of minutes.

Coupled with the fact that you do not have to buy the ingredients yourself, Meal Kits ensure that you can prepare a home-made dish with fresh ingredients in 20 minutes without the need to do too much preparation of sauces, ingredients and cutting. 

Parents who work late no longer have to spend hours preparing food for their children. Staying indoors no longer mean being unable to eat restaurant quality food or having to pay exorbitant amounts to order them from restaurants any longer.

3) Famous Korean Food

Some of the more famous Korean food like Woogyeopsal Soondubu Jjigae (Tofu Stew with Beef Slices), Jjimdak (Braised Chicken) and Mille-feuille Nabe (Thousand Leaf Hotpot), were some dishes that are widely loved by Koreans, but were extremely hard to prepare and create at home. 

Woosamgyeop Soondubu Jjigae 우삼겹 순두부찌개 (Tofu Stew with Beef Slices)

A warm and hearty tofu stew topped with generous beef slices, enoki mushrooms, bean sprouts, egg and and our special sauce. A delectable mix of salty and spicy flavours to tickle your tastebuds over a warm bowl of rice. 

Andong Jjimdak 안동찜닭 (Braised Chicken)

Jjimdak is translated to braised chicken, and Andong is the province in which it became famous for in Korea. Andong is very well known for serving up braised chicken in a thick sauce full of vegetables, glass noodles, rice cakes, and of course, chicken. 

Mille-feuille Nabe (Thousand Leaf Hotpot)

The word Mille-feuille comes from a French pastry that means "thousand sheets or leafs" and this dish was a fusion of a Nabe (Japanese: Hotpot) and the layers of cabbage, perilla leaf, sliced beef and china greens. This dish became a huge trending fad because of how beautiful it looks and how delicious it tastes. 

As such, many meal kits aimed to re-create the same dish and experience one would have at a restaurant is now available in the comfort of their own homes. With all the sauces, ingredients, and steps provided, anyone can now be a chef in their own homes to prepare these dishes within minutes. 

4) Recipes We Curated

In order to come up with these favourite Korean dishes that Singaporeans love, we worked together with a Korean chef who is also a mother. We wanted a concept where we can combine restaurant quality food with ingredients that are painstakingly sourced in order to provide the best nutrients for our family. 

Our main goal for the meal kits is to allow people who purchase our meal kits to enjoy restaurant grade food that does not take hours on end to prepare, and ultimately nourishes our family and loved ones, all while not compromising on the authenticity and taste of our Korean food. 

5) Meal Kits for Singaporeans?

For Singaporeans, this product was made with a few key factors in mind:

Firstly, the prices of our products were made comparable to the Korean restaurant prices in Singapore. Many Singaporeans love Korean food, but it's far too expensive to be consuming it for multiple days over a week. We source our main ingredients from Korea in bulk to ensure that we're able to provide the most affordable prices for our customers while not compromising on the taste. 

Secondly, the time taken to prepare food at home was taken into consideration. In general, from preparing the ingredients to cooking, the average time needed is roughly 40 minutes to an hour for home cooking. Our meal kits range from 15 minutes to 25 minutes in cooking time with no preparation time needed because all of our ingredients are pre-cut and prepared for you in advance, and all you have to do is to cook it! If we could, we would even take out the dishwashing process to make it more convenient for you.

Thirdly, we remove the shopping and possibility of food wastage for you. When purchasing ingredients from supermarkets or wet markets, they usually come in bulk or large packets, and you would probably have some leftover after using what you need for cooking. In our meal kits, everything is prepared to require only the right amounts of ingredients so there wouldn't be any remaining food wasted. Best part of it all, you wouldn't have to go and shop for the ingredients yourself!

Finally, we hope to re-introduce Korean food to all of our Singaporean customers in the midst of working from home (WFH). It does not have to be something that you only treat yourself to once in a while, neither does it have to be a dish that takes a long time to prepare at home.

Here at BlueBasket, we are committed to bringing you quality premium Korean products that is beneficial to you and your loved ones so that you don't have to compromise what you want to enjoy.