Organic Coleslaw Kit

My favorite recipe for making coleslaw (is it coleslaw or cole slaw anyway?) is the one I found years ago on the Budget Bytes site in the recipe for the BBQ bean sliders. A simple mix of shredded cabbage, scallions, and a dressing of mayo, honey, mustard, and vinegar, it was so easy to make and a great side dish. When we were shopping at Trader Joe's over the weekend, I saw this organic coleslaw kit and thought I'd see how it compared, both in terms of taste and convenience. Theoretically, a salad kit should save you time since a lot of the components are already done for you, but that doesn't really matter if the salad isn't as good.

Ingredients:
The coleslaw kit came with a mix of green cabbage, red cabbage, and carrots, while the slaw I usually make just uses shredded green cabbage. There are scallions in my usual slaw, but I added them in with the kit as well. For the dressing, the kit had a "creamy, sweet dressing" made with soybean oil, sugar, apple cider vinegar, egg yolks, garlic, onion, lemon juice, and some other spices and seasonings, compared with mayo, honey, mustard, and vinegar. I think the taste of the latter is slightly better, and it's a little creamier, but they were very similar. The amount of dressing in the kit, however, was far less than the dressing that the slaw recipe from Budget Bytes made.

Price:
The coleslaw kit was $2.69, and the only thing I added to it was some scallions, so it came out to about $3. When I made the coleslaw from scratch in the post a few years ago, the slaw also came out to around $3. Prices of the ingredients may have increased over the years, but I don't think by much, so on this factor, they're about equal, except that the coleslaw kit had red cabbage and carrots and less dressing (which probably cancel each other out).

Speed/Time:
When making my usual slaw, I liked to let it sit for hours, usually overnight, in the fridge for the flavors to meld together. We didn't have that type of time with the kit, nor did it recommend doing that anywhere on the package. I made it at the start of dinner prep, and left it to sit for an hour or so, and the dressing seemed to have completely soaked in. I think there is a slight advantage to the kit here because the dressing ingredients have already had lots of time to mix together, and you also don't have to make it from scratch. The mixing of the salad is about the same, although marginally more difficult with the kit because it has less dressing in the packet. (Note that it seemed kind of dry and like there wasn't enough dressing when first mixed, but by the time the hour was up, it was enough.)

Taste:
I like both slaws, although the taste of the dressing in the Budget Bytes slaw is a little better than the kit. That's probably due a little bit to the mustard, as that's one component that's different, and a little bit to there just being so much more dressing.

Buy Again?
I would get this slaw again for a couple of reasons. One, the convenience factor of not having to make the dressing. The dressing isn't difficult to make, but when it's 10:30 pm and you need to get dinner on the table, every minute counts. Two, making our own dressing means having mayo on hand, and since we use mayo so rarely (pretty much just for slaw and tuna sandwiches), having a fresh jar in the fridge hasn't always been a guarantee. That's even more the case now that we aren't buying any more mayo, other than maybe vegan mayo, for so long as baby B is allergic to eggs. Having a small packet of dressing that we can consume and then toss is much better for our current situation. Very glad we tried this, since now we know we have another option other than just making it ourselves!