Sue Z.’s Local Finds: Home Delivered Meals

These local companies will deliver full meals, or ingredients you need to make a home cooked meal.

There is a recent surge of local entrepreneurs creating healthy meals delivered to your doorstep. You will no longer feel too busy to sit down for a home cooked meal.

With a subscription to Homegrown Foods (eatgoodathome.com), you’ll receive fresh ingredients in pre-portioned packages for 3-4 meals each week. All you need to do is follow the detailed cooking instructions. Owner Aleks Till emphasizes the importance of cooking kid-friendly meals so the whole family can cook and dine together at home.

Frank Jackman and Mike Stalbaum, two former Schwan Food Co. execs, believe in supporting the local community through food, which is why they created LocalCrate (localcratemeals.com). Chefs curate meals that you can pick from each week, and then the pre-portioned ingredients are delivered to your home, along with recipe cards. With each delivery, LocalCrate donates a pound of produce to the Finnegans Community Fund to help hunger relief efforts in Minnesota.

If you’re looking for the same homemade taste, but without the shopping or the cooking, Tomato Vine (thetomatovine.com) will deliver ready-to-bake meals to your door. Owner Abby Randall is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, but got her start at her mother’s farm-to-table restaurant. There, she formed connections with Minnesota farmers whose ingredients she now uses when making dishes to deliver. Her deliciously healthy menu offers soups, mains, sides, and desserts.

Sue Zelickson (Sue Z.) is a James Beard Award-winning food media personality, philanthropist, and longtime contributor to Minnesota Monthly and WCCO radio. She has founded the Charlie Awards, the Women Who Really Cook networking organization for women in the local food industry, and the Kids Cafe at Perspectives, Inc., which improves access to nutritious meals for families in need. You can find her buzzing around from event to event throughout the Twin Cities, helping to raise funds for charitable organizations, including some she has had a hand in building.