Forelle Raw Vegan Meal Delivery, Portland

This post is in collaboration with Forelle Foods.

Greetings from Portland, Oregon! We (and the cats) have finally recovered from our week long cross country drive from the east coast. While we were still in the midst of unpacking, it was a lovely surprise when Forelle’s founder, Tim Gowen, reached out and invited me to try their raw vegan meal delivery. Talk about great timing as it’s not always easy to eat healthy while you’re in the middle of a move.

There are meal deliveries with vegan options, and then there’s Forelle, a Portland based meal delivery offering 100% raw plant-based meals. If you’re not familiar with raw food, it just means that no ingredients are heated above 115 F. This retains all the nutrients in the ingredients, making raw vegan food the best stuff you could fuel your body with. Raw food is great if you need to refresh and reboot, or if you’re looking to maintain a healthy, clean eating.

Forelle officially launched this Monday, and they deliver to doorsteps around the Portland area via zero emission vehicles seven days a week. Made of 100% post-consumer, recycled materials, Forelle’s packaging is thoughtful and well designed. Everything is handcrafted, from the handwritten labels to Chef Salimatu Amabebe’s made from scratch creations, before Tim personally delivers each box to customers. Depending on how many days and meals you order, it ranges from $12 – $18 per meal. Not bad considering it comes straight to your door and all you have to do is assemble each dish.

Let’s take a look inside, shall we? Each meal comes in its own container and sauces are kept separately so everything is at its freshest when you enjoy it. I’m no stranger to raw food, and I can honestly say that Forelle is among the best raw vegan that I’ve had. Over the years, I’ve had a number of raw vegan dishes that are too tart, but that’s not the case here. You feel fully satisfied after each meal, and each meal feels balanced and complete.

Breakfast: Strawberry Breakfast Bowl with Raw Peanut Butter Granola
What you don’t see in this photo is the layer of pink strawberry mousse underneath the mountain of granola, coconut, and fresh strawberries. The mousse had a creamy, yogurt-like consistency that contrasted the crunchy granola. I’m normally not a peanut butter gal, but this granola won me over. The only miss for me was the ratio of ingredients. It seemed like a lot of dry granola for the amount of strawberry mousse.

Lunch: Bok Choy Mango Slaw with Lemon Cilantro Dressing
You can always count on a raw vegan salad to be photogenic. Beautiful mixture of colors and textures. It never occurred to me to make a slaw out of bok choy (one of my favorites to saute), and the fresh mango was especially tasty. The bright, zesty lemon dressing brightens everything up. Even as devoted veggie eater, I sometimes have a hard time getting excited about salads, but this is one of the good ones.

Dinner: Daikon Rainbow Carrot Raw Pad Thai
In this raw vegan interpretation of pad thai, daikon and rainbow carrot noodles in various shapes and sizes make this noodle bowl a delight to eat. I don’t know about you, but I really enjoy twirling colorful veggie noodles on a fork. The noodles had released some water in the container (typical of veggie noodles), but they didn’t get soggy. You’ve got some classic toppings: bean sprouts, scallions, peanuts (there’s a peanut theme going on here), and limes. All the individual components of this dish are great, but it’s the sauce that brings this dish to life. Don’t be shy, drizzle on that sauce and enjoy!

If breakfast, lunch, and dinner aren’t enough to fill you up, you can also add on a snack for a $5. My second delivery from Forelle included jicama fries with sundried tomato ketchup. The dehydrated jicama fries were chewy and spicy, while the ketchup had a creamy, cooling effect. Some of the other snacks include kale chips, trail mix, hummus and veggies, and dried fruit.

Breakfast: Banana Walnut Chia Pudding
Chia pudding is one of my favorite ways to start the day, especially when it’s topped with some of the biggest blueberries I’ve ever seen. The banana slices tasted fine, but weren’t looking their best as they came pre-sliced. This wasn’t that different from chia pudding that I make myself, but the addition of maple in the pudding was a clever and tasty move.

Lunch: Red Cabbage Slaw with Creamy Dressing
Salads are definitely one of Forelle’s strong suits. Hope you’re ready to do lots of chewing! Crunchy shreds of cabbage and carrot topped with a light ranch-like cashew (?) dressing. Every once in a while, you’ll get a bite with shred of Thai basil in there. Those were my favorite bites. There are golden raisins, coconut flakes, and black sesame seeds in there too.

Dinner: Raw Taco Salad
Tacos and nachos might be my favorite type of raw vegan dish. Why? Because raw vegan nut and seed meats are the best. Forelle’s spicy maple walnut chorizo really nails that taco flavor and texture. Like most nut and seed meats, it fills you up. The rest of the ingredients are fresh, but pretty standard for a taco salad. It all mixes together into a tasty salad, but I can’t help but wish there were a cashew based sour cream thrown in there too.

Note: This post is in collaboration with Forelle Foods. I received complimentary meal deliveries from Forelle. This was not in exchange for a positive review and all opinions expressed here are my own.

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