Dream Dinners

I have no idea why I thought it would be a bunch of low quality junk, but it is NOT. Very much the opposite. The food is great, hearty, lots of whole ingredients and the menus can be altered to taste.
It’s a little hard to find tucked in the back of the Forum, but the staff and the owner were great. The only complaint I have is I felt a little bit pressured to sign up for more dinners and their rewards program… Which I did. But now that I’ve had my first round of dinners from them I’m stoked and really glad I took advantage of the sign up in the store discount.

This was my first time visiting dream dinners. It is truly a one-​stop dinner shops where you can put together about a ½ dozen or more FRESH, family-​size dinners in an hour. EVERONE who work’s here were extremely friendly, knowledgeable. The place is super clean, something that HAS to be at the top of my list.
There were great choices and it is REAL food — NOT processed crap. You don’t need to bring anything with you except maybe a LARGE bag to keep your dinners safe for the drive home. I love that they had all FRESH ingredients and seasonings ready for me to put together. I was a simple process, nothing complicated at all.
I have already chosen my meal for the month of September and I can’t wait to return. We will surly enjoy trying our new dinners, instead of having the same old thing. It will also be nice to have something in the freezer all ready to go at any time. AND I won’t hear those famous words from the family (THIS AGAIN). Thank you Dream dinner’s you have given me a chance to change up my menu and not order out or resort to frozen, processed meals. See you next month.
Linda C

Love Dream Dinners! I first came here with a friend of mine. Its a fun, easy, convenient way to make some healthy and delicious meals. Assembly on some fancy meals is easy. I’m not much of a cook, but these meals make it easy for even someone like me.

I was really impressed with the service and generosity of Dream Dinners Carlsbad. The owner Valery donated a Dream Event to the school that I teach at. The winner took herself and six of her friends (including me).
Sammy was working last night with Valery. She was very attentive, sweet, and made an effort to keep checking in with us as all of us were new to the concept of assembling meals in this fashion. Dream Dinners had two entrees for us to taste. Thai Shrimp and Chicken Marinara, both were very delicious.
We all walked away with a 3 serving meal of our choice as well as a reservation to return at the end of November. I think we are hooked!

I bought a Living Social deal to try it out, and now I’m hooked. It took me about an hour to prep 18 servings of food, and we have loved a the meals so far. They make my day so much easier when I come home. I get off work around 6pm, and some days it’s just hard to get dinner on the table, and a good healthy one at that. I’m signed up for next month and I can’t wait:) The only reason I gave it a four star was the lack of communication when scheduling. I had walked in, called and emailed and I was still getting different answers about my appointment. But besides that, everything was great.

I had read about these meal preparation centers years ago when the fad first hit. Basically, you show up, they have a bunch of salad bar style stations to make that month’s recipes, you assemble everything in bags, and then freeze them. For this, you pay a little less than $ 5 a serving. It’s made for busy families who don’t have time to make things from scratch but want something better than Mickey D’s or preservative laden frozen foods. I don’t have a busy family. It’s just me and my wife and we are just lazy. So it’s tailor made for lazy people as well that just don’t feel like really putting in the effort to cook that night.
We assembled all of our meals in a little under 2 hours. We thought it was fun, and the staff is incredibly helpful, enthusiastic and knowledgeable about the process. They generally have samples to nibble on which is nice. So far, the food has been delicious with incredibly easy prep. The food isn’t all cooked and then frozen, you have to combine the bags to form sauces, boil pasta, sauté chicken, etc., but that stuff is easy and quick and you get the illusion of having a made from scratch meal in about 15 minutes.
The food only comes in 3 or 6 serving sizes, so for a couple, we have an extra serving to bring to lunch the next day. The servings all have full nutritional information so you know exactly how many calories each serving is, which is a big step beyond what you can generally do with made from scratch as far as nutritional tracking. So far, the sherry chicken has been the big winner for us. If you’re pressed for time, I can’t see a better solution than Dream Dinners for tasty, healthy food in not that much time.

My wife and I have been members for about a year now. We go about every other month, otherwise our freezer fills up!
Here’s how it works. Each month, you choose a dozen (or so) different entrees, from a menu of about twice that. There are prep stations for each entrée with all the ingredients, including decent meat, sauces, oils, spices, cheese, etc. You get wear an apron and assemble each item — follow the instructions to add ingredients to ziplock bags — they go through a ton of ziplock bags! Measurements are marked for dummies — one green spoonful (a tablespoon) of this, an orange scoop (one cup) of that, easy peasy. Drop in cooking instructions, throw it in your freezer.
While you’re prepping there’s usually a sample or two of one of the dinners to try. The staff are really helpful.
The «dinners» are entrée only, usually without side veggies or bread, though some have rice or potato. Each entrée serves three; my wife and I are hearty eaters and we do get three whole meals out of each one; my wife tends to take the third to work and reheat it for lunch. $ 15 to $ 20 is a pretty good deal; I’m sure you could do better at the supermarket, but then you’d have to have the recipe and all the other ingredients handy.
Dinners are almost all meat-​based, with fairly basic chicken, pork, beef, shrimp, fish as the base, and usually a fairly simple sauce. Most are either grilled, baked, or sautéed. Each month there’s a different selection, but you tend to get used to their style, so you know what you like; we’ve had a few repeat items, and a lot more that were very similar to what we’ve had before.
When it comes time to cook, there’s usually a couple of steps — sauté the onions and peppers, steam the rice, grill the meat, whatever. Takes a kitchen idiot like me about half an hour to make dinner — seriously, the most difficult part is remembering to defrost, and washing the dishes.
My main complaint, is that I don’t tend to eat enough good fresh veggies, and DD doesn’t include the veggies, so you’re still on your own for that. They do have side items, desserts, etc in a freezer that you can get along with your meal.
They seem to always have some sort of a «deal» going — discount trials, refer-​a-​friend, buy 3 get 1 free, etc. Heck, if you tell them «Fred and Becke» sent you, they’ll probably give me some sort of credit, so do that! And it’s upstairs form BBB (
), in case you need cooking gear.

Dream Dinners is amazing!!! Such a great idea, and the team is absolutely wonderful! We have been doing Dream Dinners for 4 months, it makes life so much easier and really does help to bring the family back to the dinner table. Thank you so much ladies, and a special thank you to Kacie!

This place is an absolute MUST for anyone with a busy lifestyle. I, myself have a husband & twin boys and love the convenience and ease as well as the healthy options. But, I have single girlfriends who work more than full time that love it as well. It’s super fun to assemble your meals and prep on the nights that you cook your meals is so easy.
Highly recommend!