Sendik’s Family Meal: Lasagna and more

Milwaukee-based grocer Sendik’s has been offering its fully cooked Fresh2GO family meals for the past two years.

There are 11 different meals to choose from, and the variety varies from store to store, Marissa Worzella, marketing/customer insights manager at Sendik’s, said via email.

These are heat-and-eat meal kits that are designed to serve a family of four.

The lasagna meal purchased at the Germantown Sendik’s was $19.99.

“Our deli team prepares and assembles each Family Meal fresh in-store daily,” Worzella said.

“All of the entrées in Sendik’s Family Meals are made from scratch. For example, take one of our best sellers, chicken enchiladas: the chicken is hand-pulled from a Sendik’s rotisserie chicken, the cilantro and onions are hand chopped, and the enchiladas are handrolled,” Worzella said. “The Spanish rice that accompanies the enchiladas is made from scratch, steamed with herbs and tomatoes.”

Everything is packed in a bag and placed in a refrigerated cooler for customers to purchase, take home and reheat.

The family meal program is overseen by the grocer’s lead chef.

Total bake time for the lasagna meal (with garlic bread and green beans), purchased and heated up on a busy Sunday, was 25 minutes.

There was really no cooking involved other than turning on the oven and setting a timer. The heating times vary for each portion of the meal.

And, there was no food waste in the preparation. Again, the verdict was pretty good.

There were enough leftovers for another complete meal the next day.

Choices to make

So which grocery store meal kit would I choose? Depends on the circumstances.

If totally pressed for time and facing basketball games, parent-teacher conferences, work, taking the dog to the vet, doing laundry and raking leaves/mowing the lawn/shoveling snow, I’m going to run to Sendik’s for the comfort-food enchiladas or lasagna.

If I’m actually able to spend 15 to 30 minutes in the kitchen, but I don’t have time to gather up all the ingredients needed for one of my venison dishes, I’m going to pick up a teriyaki chicken or chimichurri pork tenderloin kit at the local Pick ’n Save.

Joe Taschler is the Journal Sentinel’s assistant business editor and a reporter as well as a single parent with two middle school-aged boys.