Many of you are probably familiar with Vegan Cuts, a fantastic company that operates sort of like a Groupon or LivingSocial for vegans (meaning that you can get great deals and discounts on all sorts of fun foods, beauty products, and other fun vegan stuff).
Maybe you also know that Vegan Cuts also offers a monthly subscription service for both snacks and beauty products. Basically, each month, you receive a treasure chest of surprise goodies delivered right to your front door–how cool is that?!
Recently I was offered the opportunity to review the Vegan Cuts May Snack Box, which I enthusiastically accepted!
Long story short: the Snack Box service is AWESOME. Here is the low-down on each of the items that came in my box:
Nature’s Bakery Lemon Fig Bar
LOVE. Lightly sweet, very subtle but lovely lemon flavor, like a Fig Newton but WAY better.
SuperEats Kale + Chia Chips
These were pretty good. The taste reminds me a little of spanakopita (weird, right? But tasty!). Nice crunch, not too salty. Definitely good enough to satisfy a chip craving, but way healthier. One bag has 180 calories, 6g fiber, 6g protein, 105% Vitamin A and 120% Vitamin C.
Beanfields Ranch Chips
I had heard a lot about these prior to trying them, and I can tell you they live up to the hype. They have everything you could want in a chip: crunch, body, saltiness, and tons of flavor.
At the Table Together Easy Make Pizza Dough
Unfortunately this one was a complete and utter fail. In theory it’s an incredibly easy and quick way to get homemade pizza dough (just add seltzer and olive oil to the mix and let it rise for up to 10 hours, then roll it and bake!). Well, I followed the directions, and the dough did rise, but somehow it was far too sticky to handle. I could barely get it off my fingers, so rolling it into a ball was out of the question. Total waste 😦
Meatless Select Vegetarian Taco Filling
Yum–this was excellent! Great texture, extremely easy to prepare, and very well-seasoned. Usually I expect to add seasonings to something like this, but there was no need. [P.S. – This is the meat substitute I used in my delicious, lazy Taco Salad last week!]
Bonelli Simply Sesame spread
Oh goodness, I LOVED this. It was creamy and sweet (but not too sweet) and made a perfect afternoon snack (with staying power!) on a piece of Ezekiel toast. I also love the fun, portable little packet it comes in! I can see so many more fun uses for this, and if I see it in a store I am going to snatch it right up.
Jyoti Appeteasers Indian Savory Snack Mix
This was a really interesting and tasty snack! Lots of different textures and distinct flavors. It definitely has a sweet element to accompany the savory, and is mildly spicy. I enjoyed it; my only qualm was that the minuscule size and irregular shape of the pieces made it hard to pick them out of the bag to eat. Instead I had to sort of pour some out into my palm and eat it by the handful. Fortunately no one was around to frown at my poor manners 🙂
Saffron Road Rogan Josh Simmer Sauce
Saffron Road is not a vegan company but the majority of their premade simmer sauces are vegan. I chose not to snap a photo for you of the package for the Rogan Josh because it contains a picture of a meat dish. Shame, because the sauce is absolutely PERFECT for veggies! I made an extremely delicious curry out of it, using half of a red onion, two cloves of garlic, half a head of cauliflower, a can of chickpeas, and one bunch of fresh spinach. The sauce has lots of flavor so I didn’t need to add any additional seasonings, however it is not very spicy so I did throw in a generous helping of Vesta to liven it up. With the cooking laziness I’ve been experiencing lately, I could see myself using this or other Saffron Road simmer sauces frequently for their convenience and great taste.
Pearls black pitted Olives to Go!
What a cute and convenient snack this one is! If you like black olives you can’t go wrong with this one. The only thing that’s kind of weird is that the package says there’s 2.5 servings (each serving being 4 olives) inside…why not just make the serving size 1? It’s 10 olives (40 calories)!
Jiva Hot Chocolate
Inside the adorable little packet is a compressed cube (well, more of a rectangle) of hot chocolate mix! You simply boil some milk, drop it in, let it sit for a minute, then stir, and you have a delicious, creamy mug of vegan hot chocolate! Love this! I could totally see myself popping a few of these into my purse to enjoy when I’m on the go.
The Bottom Line
The overall experience of a Vegan Cuts Snack Box is outstanding. I consider myself an adventurous vegan and I tend to enthusiastically buy and try new products whenever I see them (case in point). However, every last thing in this box was totally new to me! And, with the exception of one unfortunate failure, I enjoyed every last one.
In sum, this is a fun and innovative way to expand your horizons, try some new things, and find some new favorites each month. I would recommend it to both newbie vegans as a way of discovering joy and variety in vegan eating, as well as to seasoned vegan vets who love trying new things. If you’re like me, anyway, you derive a lot of pleasure from watching the universe of vegan options continue to expand and prosper!
A.Cook in the Making 