Super Suppers?

[maraki527]

Has anyone of heard of them or had an experience? One just opened up by my house and I keep seeing advertisements for them

 

[tedhowe]

We have used Super Suppers (and Dream Dinners - the other large national chain in the Easy Meal Prep store space) for years.

They are certainly not a "budget" option in general - the meals that you get there are generally more expensive than you could prepare them from scratch yourself, but they are certainly less expensive than eating out.

For us, when our daughters were infants and young toddlers, they allowed us to have a variety of good foods that we could cook at home without the time investment necessary to cook from scratch.

Now that our girls are a bit older, we are back to cooking from scratch at home more, and we haven't been to SS or DD in about 8 months.

Some things are very good and some are a great value, depending on what the dish is. I remember one dish from Super Suppers (a jambalaya) that included about 20 different spices - most of which were a bit exotic and that I would not have had at home - just purchasing those spices to make that one dish would have been more than the cost of the whole 10 meals we made that day. And it was very yummy.

It's interesting that you have one opening in your area... while our closest Super Suppers and Dream Dinners locations are still open, the economy has been very hard on other stores of this type in the area... it seems that the extra costs of having them do the assembly is one area where people have been economizing during the recession and business has been off significantly in this sector.

 

[ilovediznee]

SuperSuppers is great. Not just because I work there, but the food is top notch - at least here. We have several places like this and people make the drive to our in Lexington.

Some meals you could prepare yourself for less and others you can't, so I stock up on those.

It is nice to have some meals in the freezer and not worry.

Ours has changed and meal assembly is no longer an option. More of her business was from people purchasing assembled meals so she went to that in January of this year. Ours also has Supper Club in which you order 12 meals, get a discount and a free side dish.

I would go into the one that opened and just check it out.

Diane

 

[imagine]

... My friends and I get together every 6 - 10 weeks and make meals to put in our freezer that "mimics" super suppers, but because we do it ourselves, we control the ingredients and the cost is MUCH cheaper. We pick 6 - 8 recipes, everyone "orders" how much of much they want of each recipe (or order none of something if your family doesn't like it). We created formulas in excel where we input the recipe and the number of orders and it tells us how much of each ingredient we need to buy. We divy up "prep work" (i.e. shopping, baking chicken in advance, browning hamburger, etc) and then get together and put them all together. Each person tends to end up with an hour or so of prep and 3-4 hrs of "meal making". You then go home with what you 'ordered' - often I take home 12 - 15 meals. Our family is smaller (DH, me, DD8 and DD4) so an 8x8 pan feeds us plus typcially leaves a lunch for one of us to take to work as a leftover. Some others need a 9x13 pan so they "order" 2 8x8's and we assembly theirs in a 9x13 pan -- so it works great for everyone. Everyone brings their own pans - some use the ovenware pans, some use the disposable aluminum pans.

We typcially eat 3 of them a week and it REALLY helps at dinner time. Then it is easy to supplement the other nights with making spaghetti or "refrigerator clean out" (eating all the leftovers), or homemade pizza, etc that aren't very "prep" intensive.

We've gotten really creative with what we make - so it isn't all casseroles - soups store/freeze in ziplocs great, sloppy joes, bbq beef, burrittos, sandwiches that we grill, marinated meat to put on the grill, even side dishes.

Sorry so long, but maybe another idea to consider that would give the same benefit at a more budget friendly method (plus healthier!!)

 

[mjantz]

I've not done Super Suppers but I took a similar cooking class from the woman who founded the company. I still remember her talking about these places she was going to start that you could assemble meals to freeze for later. She was very excited about the idea & I'm glad its done so well for her.

 

[shirleyb]

... My friends and I get together every 6 - 10 weeks and make meals to put in our freezer that "mimics" super suppers, but because we do it ourselves, we control the ingredients and the cost is MUCH cheaper. We pick 6 - 8 recipes, everyone "orders" how much of much they want of each recipe (or order none of something if your family doesn't like it). We created formulas in excel where we input the recipe and the number of orders and it tells us how much of each ingredient we need to buy. We divy up "prep work" (i.e. shopping, baking chicken in advance, browning hamburger, etc) and then get together and put them all together. Each person tends to end up with an hour or so of prep and 3-4 hrs of "meal making". You then go home with what you 'ordered' - often I take home 12 - 15 meals. Our family is smaller (DH, me, DD8 and DD4) so an 8x8 pan feeds us plus typcially leaves a lunch for one of us to take to work as a leftover. Some others need a 9x13 pan so they "order" 2 8x8's and we assembly theirs in a 9x13 pan -- so it works great for everyone. Everyone brings their own pans - some use the ovenware pans, some use the disposable aluminum pans.

We typcially eat 3 of them a week and it REALLY helps at dinner time. Then it is easy to supplement the other nights with making spaghetti or "refrigerator clean out" (eating all the leftovers), or homemade pizza, etc that aren't very "prep" intensive.

We've gotten really creative with what we make - so it isn't all casseroles - soups store/freeze in ziplocs great, sloppy joes, bbq beef, burrittos, sandwiches that we grill, marinated meat to put on the grill, even side dishes.

Sorry so long, but maybe another idea to consider that would give the same benefit at a more budget friendly method (plus healthier!!)

I'd love more info about this if you'd be willing to share some of your recipes, or spreadsheet or whatever. I think it's a great idea.

 

[tasha99]

I really liked Super Suppers, but our local one went out of business. Last month I went to Dinners Done Right and thought it was good as well. They are very expensive for "homemade food," but I just had to last month since I took 12 graduate hours in 4 weeks, I work, and I'm a single mom. My schedule was insane, so it was great to have dinner already made each night. That said, I normally do my own freezer meals. It takes more time (for grocery shopping as well as all the chopping), but it's maybe 1/4 to 1/3 the cost. With places like Super Suppers, you're buying time as much as food, and for me at least, it's only worth it when my schedule is so busy that even coming up with the time to grocery shop seems impossible.

 

[annsteere]

The books "Dinner is in the Freezer" and "Once A Month Cooking" helped me start doing this at home. I didn't end up using many of their recipes. But, the inspiration, lists of what you need and what would be nice to have to pull this off, the information on what freezes well and how to convert a standard recipe for freezing, as well as the checklists, etc. really helped me figure out how to do this at home with the recipes we already enjoy.

The author of "Dinner is in the Freezer" was a Disney cast member (chef??) before kids. Her book is based on the idea that as a Christian pre-preparing meals saves her time and money that allow her to help others. I liked that her charts were designed for me to be able to copy and the illustrations done by her small children.

The "Once a Month Cooking" author did one about crock pots too. No religion in hers, just straight cooking tips.