Published on Nov. 11, 2024
Is it a meal delivery service? Is it an air fryer toaster oven? Our answer: Yes. Here's what we think of Tovala's innovative take on a meal delivery service.
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Back in the old days, a quick meal meant hopping in the car and heading to the drive-through. These days, meal kits like Marley Spoon have completely changed all that. Not only do home food delivery services cut down on weekly shopping trips for busy families and working professionals, but they also aren’t as aggressive on your waistline as fast food. Customers can even find meal kits that cater to their specific dietary restrictions, including keto and plant-based options. The one drawback is that they require at least 30 minutes of time for prep and cooking. Or do they?
Enter Tovala, which ships out meals that are as close to fully prepared as you can get without freezing. The secret is the companion smart oven, which reads each meal and automatically calibrates the oven accordingly. No more pushing buttons or setting timers? Count us in! Of course, our interest was immediately piqued. After trying it out, here’s our full Tovala review.
Established in 2015 by David Rabie and Bryan Wilcox, Tovala was born from David’s desire to reduce the number of appliances required to make a delicious, healthful meal. Formerly called Maestro, Tovala (headquartered in Chicago) won the Edward L. Kaplan ’71 New Venture Challenge (NVC) in May 2015. Since then, Tovala has built up a customer base comprised mainly of young working parents without the time or energy to spend on meal prep.
Tovala’s meal delivery service doesn’t send boxes of loose ingredients or detailed recipe cards like Blue Apron or HelloFresh. Instead, it focuses on ready-made meals a la Factor 75. Unlike your average pre-made meal kit, though, each dish requires just one minute of prep before popping it into Tovala’s proprietary smart oven. This gives the meals a home-cooked quality you won’t find in other heat-and-eat services.
Tovala’s in-house chefs prepare each dish and program each meal’s cooking time and required cooking modes into the smart oven. From there, they ship out the meals fresh to customers. Simply scan the QR code of any Tovala meal using the app and sit back for a low-fuss dinner.
EMIKO FRANZEN FOR TASTE OF HOME
What really sets Tovala apart from other meal delivery services is the companion smart oven. There are two versions available, including the basic smart oven and a “pro” version with steaming capabilities. The best part about these appliances is that they’re fully functional air fryer toaster ovens, meaning that you can use them for non-Tovala meals as well.
The menu offers a library of around 50 meals per week. Most meals are single serving, though there are a few two-serving meals available each week. When filling your cart, you can filter the meals by various dietary preferences, including low sodium, carb-conscious, calorie-smart, and gluten-friendly. You have a choice of anywhere from 4 to 16 meals per week.
Some breakfasts are available in addition to traditional entrees. A few meals offer sides like egg rolls and garlic bread for an extra charge. Once you choose all your meals and proceed to the next page, you can add the previously listed add-ons, as well as desserts such as a brownie, cookie or single-serve pineapple upside-down cake and small breakfast items. When choosing meals, pay extra attention to price, as some of the premium meals come with an upcharge.
Both the website and app are easy to use and bright and clean-looking without an overwhelming amount of text, tabs or buttons. The app lets subscribers quickly manage upcoming menu selections and deliveries. Users can also access support and cooking instructions for the Tovala oven, including basic instructions for recipes like air-fried chicken or more detailed recipes like pear walnut crisp.
There’s a list of brands with items that cook well in the smart oven, as well as cooking instructions for those specific items. You can also connect the smart oven to WiFi and pair it with the app. Just like other family meal delivery services, it’s easy to skip a week or cancel at any time.
Deliveries are flexible, with a choice of either the beginning or end of each week. The meals arrive in a mid-size, branded Tovala cardboard box. The whole interior is lined with fluffy insulation, and the contents are fresh. Each meal’s ingredients come packaged together in dedicated cardboard boxes, along with their ingredient list and any directions. Beneath those ingredient boxes is the meat. Tester Annamarie Higley received sausages, a chicken breast and a turkey patty, which arrived layered between the ingredient boxes and two large frozen gel packs. Note: All the food needs to be refrigerated open receipt.
Annamarie chose a menu consisting of the following meals during her week of testing: Cheddar Cheese Turkey Burger, Pulled Pork Carnitas Bowl, Roasted Mushroom Gnocchi Alfredo, Crispy Chicken Potstickers and Sweet Soy Noodles, Italian Sausage in Marinara and a Pesto Chicken Melt.
Each recipe’s instructions are divided into three sections: prep, scan and enjoy. The prep section includes any pre-work. For this recipe, Annamarie had to wash, slice and season the provided mushrooms. She also needed to add cream and water to the gnocchi tray. Then, she scanned the QR code on the recipe card with the app and pressed “start” on the oven—that’s it! After cooking, she followed the “enjoy” instructions, which entailed stirring in the parmesan, letting the food rest, plating it and pouring over the basil vinaigrette.
“The gnocchi themselves were cooked to perfection,” notes Annamarie. “They were pillowy and tender. The alfredo was ingenious—I mean, cream, water and grated Parm mixed together to create this thick, luscious sauce? Amazing. The mushrooms, which initially looked like too much, cooked down a ton, so the ratio was just right. I loved the texture they added to the dish. Lastly, I was dubious of the basil vinaigrette. This seemed overboard to me initially, but I really did enjoy the bright, herbaceous complement to this super indulgent, dairy-laden meal. I used about half the pouch.”
For this recipe, Annamarie had to line (and spray!) the sheet pan with foil and oil, transfer the potstickers to the pan and then place the noodles, cabbage, sweet soy broth base and water in a disposable tray. She put the tray in the oven, scanned the QR code and let it cook. Afterward, it was the standard process of letting everything sit for two minutes, then transferring it to a serving bowl and dressing it with sauce.
The prep for this recipe took just under three minutes, and the oven automatically set itself to 20 minutes. When all was said and done, it took just under 25 minutes of cooking to enjoy this meal. This meal uses the same “dump-and-go” method as the others. First, Annamarie put the broccoli in a foil tray, then put the chicken in the other foil tray and topped it with pesto and mozzarella. Afterward, she let the food rest, then tossed the broccoli with the vinaigrette.
“The pesto was super delicious and actually fresh-tasting! I was expecting this to taste like yucky shelf-stable pesto from the supermarket, which I loathe, but this tasted much brighter and more homemade,” says Annamarie. “This entree reminded me of a meal my mom used to make growing up. She’d serve pesto- and mozzarella-topped chicken over marinara-coated spaghetti, so it was kind of nostalgic.”
After testing it for a week, Annamarie is totally taken with Tovala’s premise and meal quality.
All meal delivery reviews are backed by testing from different Taste of Home team members with varying degrees of cooking expertise. Our testers’ needs, wants and budgets reflect those of the average shopper. We aren’t new to testing this product category, either. In addition to over a dozen meal kits, our team has reviewed meat and chicken delivery services like ButcherBox, Snake River Farms and Good Chop. Our testing extends to grocery services, like Misfits Market and Thrive Market, as well.
Tester and former editor Annamarie oversees Taste of Home’s product testing team and daily operations in our testing lab. She and her team assess online trends, search traffic and audience engagement to determine which items warrant testing firsthand in our dedicated office space or our homes. This includes everything from kitchen appliances to beauty products to power tools. Knowing we sourced, saw and tested these products ourselves, readers can feel confident in our recommendations and, ultimately, secure in their purchases.
Customers interested in trying Tovala will find their meal kits on the Tovala website. Choose as few as four meals per week for around $60 or as many as 16 meals for around $218. If bought alone, the Tovala smart oven costs $300 for the regular model and $350 for the pricier pro model. Alternatively, it costs $50 (or $99 for the pro model) if you buy six meals to accompany the oven and subscribe to the service.
While testing the service for our Tovala review, we were totally blown away by the ease and freshness of the meals. While pricey, the addition of the Tovala Smart Oven, coupled with the minimal prep, makes this service a promising option for home cooks operating on limited time.
EMIKO FRANZEN FOR TASTE OF HOME
