Eating healthy always seems like a good idea, but after a day’s work, errands and who knows what else, cooking healthy becomes, well, aspirational. The path of least resistance is often fast food or a frozen pizza. Meal kits take away the task of shopping, but still need to be cooked. But what if you didn’t have to cook? Local prepared meal services like Lauren Montelbano’s The Vibrant Veg focus on healthy meals, often made with local produce. And hand-in-hand with health is convenience.
“I wanted to be approachable to people with different dietary requirements and needs,” says Montelbano. “You can choose meals, customize which meals you want. It streamlines it for the customer.”
A week’s meal choices might include (as for the week of Dec. 30), jackfruit “chicken” noodle soup with petite salad; lemon tofu steaks and veggies with pistachio and dill basmati rice and chimichurri sauce; butternut squash gnocchi with spinach, broccoli and maple mustard tempeh crumbles; miso roasted root vegetables with garlic butter bean mash and sautéed greens; and crunchy detox salad with chickpeas and lemon ginger vinaigrette. There are always five options.
Montelbano once ran the Surya Cafe, a vegan restaurant with its first location in Fitchburg and a short-lived second location in Garver Feed Mill. Those shut down when COVID-19 hit in March 2020. She opened The Vibrant Veg as a private chef service at the end of 2020 yet found it difficult making so many different menus for different clients. This sparked the prepared meal service as a way to streamline operations and make meals more affordable and options more flexible. “I thought it might die out after COVID, but interest has increased.”
About half of her customers are vegan, says Montelbano, and the rest are just “looking to have healthy meals provided.” It’s the preparation of vegetables and sauces that home cooks find most time-consuming, she says, and non-vegetarian subscribers tell her they sometimes add broiled salmon or another easy protein prep to the meals.
All meals are also gluten-free. “This opens up a world for people who are gluten-free or have celiac disease,” says Montelbano. People with other health conditions or are “just looking for good clean food” are also customers.
Ordering is easy and Montelbano is working on ways to make it easier. Orders need to be in by Friday at noon for the next week’s meals; no subscription or membership is necessary. “Some people with families order 20 meals a week, others whose appetites are smaller stick with three meals. Some just order for a week in which they know they’re going to be busy. Sometimes people order for friends who are experiencing illness or loss.” Pickup is Monday from 2:30-4:30 p.m. at her kitchen, 3226 Progress Road (off Stoughton Road near Highway 12/18), or, for a $10 charge, home delivery is available within 12 miles of the site. Three meals end up costing about $21 each; the more you order, the lower the cost.
Right now Montelbano and her staff are making about 250 meals a week. “We could probably go up to 400,” she says. “I have really talented people working for me. The biggest challenge is sourcing in mass.” Many of the vegetables come from Vitruvian Farms in McFarland, “five minutes from the kitchen,” says Montalbano, noting that proximity lessens the carbon footprint. Frequent customers can get their meals in reusable glass containers; otherwise, the containers are compostable.
While a few fan favorites are in rotation, like a zucchini noodle lasagna and a crunchy peanut salad, Montelbano doesn’t repeat meals often and says she and her staff are “constantly thinking of new dishes” and are inspired by dishes where they eat out themselves.
“It takes work off of people’s shoulders. The team and I are so grateful to be able to provide healthy meals to people who wouldn’t have the time to do it otherwise.”
While The Vibrant Veg appears to be the only dedicated vegan and gluten-free prepared meal service in the Madison area, there are other options, more focused on meal cooking kits. Pasture and Plenty offers a subscription service in four-week increments that includes one meal kit, one frozen dinner, and one ready-to-reheat fresh meal with an emphasis on local sourcing and a vegetarian option. Isthmus Eats, while also a meal kit service, offers heat-and-eat options with vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free options. Mad City Chefs provides meal kit service along with heat-and-eat and vegetarian options.
