Marley Spoon 2026 Dinner Kit Review: Less Martha, More Moroccan

This included Persian turmeric chicken and dill-currant rice that fit seamlessly into Marley Spoon’s repertoire, drizzled with lemon juice instead of wine. The rice was fried, then cooked with currants and spinach. It was simple, beautiful, and kind of fun. Among the pan-Asian dishes, this was the most successful.

Some international cuisines are less reliable translations.

The essence of Moroccan tagine is hours spent braising and caramelizing in a round clay pot. The challenge of the meal kit is to translate this into a 45-minute meal. Marley Spoon’s chefs have achieved this with beef tag and apricots in particular by browning the onions and carrots quickly rather than slowly caramelizing, and using beef instead of a rich cut that would require slow cooking.

The flavors, a mix of almonds and dried apricots with the North African baharat spices, were delicious. The chef was simple and intuitive, with minimal preparation. When the recipe called for 30 to 40 minutes of cooking, it was actually true. But the dish does not contain the depth or the sweetness of the long-braised meat and onions. It was Rachael Ray’s version of global cooking, where we get real with ourselves and admit we don’t want to try so hard.

The Indian-based keema matar was similarly a tired parent’s version, made with tomato paste and Cento tomato sauce: It’s like, more than anything, a sloppy garam masala joe. That said, it promised to be a 20 minute recipe and it almost delivered.

A similar effect came with the crispy rice and braised-beef-bibimbap oven bake, which involves cooking pre-cooked jasmine rice on an aluminum baking tray. Making my own ssamjang was a fun little exercise, and I’ll always love beef over crispy rice. But this meal did not replace wok-grilled beef and stone-grilled rice.

Moving Forward

These simple recipes are no problem, although the excellent cooking of classic recipes remains the core and strength of Marley Spoon. Most families will be happy with a 15-minute meal as a weeknight option. Convenience is what a meal kit is designed to do. A meal kit gives you a guide to flavors that would otherwise not come to you, while improving the effort. I enjoyed each of Marley’s 15-minute meals on its merits, the way you enjoy a windy ride on a short track.

Microwavable food is even easier, although I don’t recommend it too much. And the market’s ready-to-mix salad offers Ken’s Caesar dressing, stemmy kale, Ken’s Caesar, its main note of soybean oil.

This renewed focus on ease of preparation is redefining what the Marley Spoon meal kit really is. If it was previously a meal kit that stuck to the basics, it now competes in what seems to be HelloFresh’s exact niche: variety, luxury, globetrotting hot tastes. What is not clear is whether it will be successful in doing so.

Marley Spoon is still going great when it’s working at its best. Good cooking. A great improvement to the recipe. Chefs who make real food.