The DIY meal kits to buy from your favourite restaurants during lockdown
Recreate your favourite dishes from home while supporting the hospitality industry during the third national lockdown
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Your support makes all the difference.As we head into our third country-wide lockdown, all restaurants, pubs, cafes and eateries of any sort were forced to close once again from 4 January.
Eating home-cooked meals all the time isn’t quite the same, and we’re pretty sure we will once again quickly lose interest in our own culinary repertoire.
And sometimes, we just cannot be bothered with the prep and washing up, and instead find ourselves craving a dish from a local hotspot.
As the hospitality industry was one of the worst affected from the first lockdown, more small and large businesses will be facing a difficult time ahead.
In September, Pizza Express announced it would be closing 73 restaurants and cutting 1,100 jobs, while burger chain Byron has permanently closed 31 restaurants across the UK, meaning the loss of 651 jobs. While earlier in the year Italian chain Carluccio’s went into administration as did Mark Hix’s restaurant group.
But it’s not all doom and gloom. In response to the lockdown the first time around, some restaurants got creative and created DIY meal kits to help you whip up their well-loved dishes in your own kitchen. Making a return for the November national lockdown, here are our favourites to get stuck into this winter and keep your cravings happy.
You can trust our independent roundups. We may earn commission from some of the retailers, but we never allow this to influence selections. This revenue helps us to fund journalism across The Independent.
Fried chicken is the ultimate comfort food, especially on cold, rainy days in lockdown, and if you’re new to Mother Clucker, its tea brined, buttermilk soaked, twice battered chicken is a must have for you next dinner.Try your hand at making their famous fried chicken strips with its D-I-Fry Strip Kit for four people, costing £27.50. It comes with brined chicken, buttermilk, a secret flour mix, hot sauce, lime mayo and slaw. All you need is rapeseed or sunflower oil and you’re ready to start cooking.
You can add fries and extra sauces on at the checkout. It’s available for delivery to UK mainland addresses, which will cost £5.
If you love pizza and beer, you’re in for a treat, as pizzeria Homeslice has teamed up with Camden Fresh Beer to create a Take & Bake pizza kit for £29.50.
It contains everything you need to create two 12” Homeslice pizzas, with toppings on offer including mushroom, ricotta, pumpkin seeds and chill flakes, 'nduja and broccoli or vegan Margarita. Along with you food, you’ll also get six home brew Llager cans.
Deliveries are between Wednesday and Friday each week to mainland UK addresses, costing £3.
Burger restaurant Patty & Bun has eight kits so you can recreate its famous burgers, for both meat-eaters and vegans. There’s even a mixed meat/vegan combo kit for £25 so you can cater to everyone’s dietary requirements.
We’d recommend its Lockdown DIY patty kit, £25, that features four of its signature beef patties, bacon, brioche buns, a squeezy bottle of smokey mayo, cheese slices and homemade pickled and smokey onions. All you need to buy is lettuce and tomato to finish it off.
Its vegan DIY kit costs the same, and contains four plant-based patties with vegan bacon, mayo and cheese along with buns, caramelised and pickled onions.
Delivery is available nationwide six days a week, however if you live outside of London, the restaurant asks that you place your oder by emailing weborders@pattyandbun.co.uk for a quote. You can check if your postcode is eligible at checkout.
Neapolitan pizzeria, Pizza Pilgrims, may be shutting its London and Oxford shops, but it hasn’t stopped the restaurant’s love of making good food.
Instead, it has created three different pizza kits; a classic Margherita, nduja and Margherita and 'nduja, starting from £15.
The classic Margherita is a no brainer, containing two Neapolitan 48-hour proved dough balls, marinara sauce, fior di latte cheese, olive oil, fresh basil and parmesan so you can whip up a pizza yourself.
Available for customers in mainland UK, Wales and parts of Scotland and Ireland, there is a standard £5 delivery fee for all orders delivered Monday to Friday. Try to steer clear of ordering on a Saturday though, as the delivery fee shoots up to £10.
There’s also a foolproof guide to making them with a helpful PDF on its website that you can download.
Italian restaurant La Mia Mamma has created nine kits, starting from £35, full of goodies that will help you create a multitude of dishes during lockdown.
Available with meat, vegetarian and vegan options, the small kits contain food like pasta dough, dried pasta, handmade bolognese and cacio e pepe sauces, a bottle of red or white wine, a loaf of bread, mixed charcuterie and two portions of aubergine parmigiana, handmade ricotta, pizza dough and meatballs.
The larger kits contain double the amount of ingredients which you can cook straight away and freeze what you don’t need. Delivery is free within London and takes four working days, and if you live outside of London, email info@lamiamamma.co.uk for a delivery quote.
Vegan burger company Vurger Co. is offering kits made up of all the ingredients you need to make its signature dish at home.
Starting from £18.95, the takeout box for two contains two vegan patties, two brioche vegan buns, two gluten-free cheese slices, lettuce, gherkins, tomato, a bottle of burger sauce and a portion of gluten-free skin-on fries.
Delivery is nationwide and takes place on Friday’s, starting from £5.50.
While pastrami and salt beef wizards Monty’s Deli have done most of the hard work for you in recreating their bagels for you to enjoy at home, all you need to do is add the mustard of your choice and the pickles.
You can either buy the ingredients separately and build at home, with the pastrami and salt beef costing £15.50 each and a pack of six part-baked bagels are £6. Alternatively, you can buy kits containing all the essentials for a smoked salmon bagels and classic deli sandwiches.
All orders over £30 qualify for free delivery, made every Tuesday and Friday, just make sure to select “free shipping” at checkout. If you place an order between Friday and Sunday, you will receive it the following Tuesday.
Behind some of the best bacon butties in London, Le Swine will be shutting up shop, but in the meantime you can get your hand on its own DIY kits to “bring home the bacon”.
The kits start from £12 for two serving portions and contain middle bacon, Clarence Court duck eggs, bacon butter, milk and onion buns, fresh sage, its homemade ketchup pots and a voucher for a free bacon butty when it opens its doors again in Spitalfields market. You can also purchase a kit to feed four, depending on how hungry you are.
Delivery is available for UK mainland postcodes, costing £5 to arrive on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, or to receive your order on a Saturday, the fee is £14.
If you don’t have an eligible postcode, you can enter your email address at the bottom of the page here, and Le Swine will get back to you and let you know if it’s possible.
For more ways to spice up your cooking during lockdown, read our guide to the independent small food businesses doing home deliveries