Yael Milobsky of Dimensions Kosher shares some great news out of Chicago, that United is now offering fresh, chef-prepared kosher meals from Dimensions Kosher for premium cabin passengers departing from Chicago O’Hare International Airport (ORD).
She writes that, “This is a game-changer for kosher travelers. We are proud to partner with United Airlines to bring freshly made, restaurant-quality kosher meals to their premium passengers. United has always been an industry leader in customer experience, and this initiative shows their dedication to serving all their passengers with excellence. Gone are the days of uninspiring, frozen kosher airline meals. Dimensions Kosher ensures that every meal is prepared fresh daily, using the highest quality ingredients to deliver delicious, authentic flavors that meet the highest kosher standards.”
All meals are CRC kosher certified, pas yisroel, cholov yisroel, and glatt kosher.
United currently offers kosher meals in premium cabins on flights that are 2,000+ miles or in all cabins on long-haul international flights.
Unfortunately, that means no flights from Chicago within the US48 will offer kosher meals. That’s a big step down compared to business class offerings from AA, Delta, and JetBlue on shorter flights, and hopefully, passengers give United feedback about that restrictive policy.
Yael shared some sample menus and meal pictures:
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Honey Mustard Chicken served with mashed potatoes and garlic green beans. A fresh chickpea salad, roll and homemade cookies
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Lamb tagine served with couscous and roasted root vegetables. A black bean salad, roll and homemade cookies.
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Appetizer: smoked salmon, grilled vegetables
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Breakfast: scrambled eggs, home fries, fresh fruit, yogurt, homemade cinnamon bun, orange juice, coffee
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Mid flight snack: turkey sandwich and pretzels
For now, long-haul economy passengers will still get frozen Borenstein meals, but Yael is hopeful that by the time United restores its Chicago-Tel Aviv flight that they will be able to cater fresh meals for all passengers on the flight.
Yael also shares that fresh kosher meals should be available in the Chicago Polaris Lounge in the coming months, which is great news! Currently, the only United Polaris Lounge with kosher meals is Newark.
We reached out to United for comment on whether they are looking for fresh meals from other airports. After all, they told me pre-COVID that they were hoping to upgrade Washington DC-Tel Aviv flights to have fresh kosher meals. We also asked if United had plans to offer kosher meals on flights shorter than 2,000 miles in the future.
United responded that,
“United now offers fresh kosher meals on flights departing from Chicago O’Hare International Airport (ORD). This is part of United’s ongoing commitment to meeting the diverse dietary needs of our customers. In addition to ORD, fresh kosher meals are offered out of Newark International Airport (EWR) and Los Angeles International Airport (LAX).
We’re continuing to evaluate opportunities to expand our fresh kosher meal service and will keep you posted as we have more to share.”
If you fly out of Chicago or Los Angeles on premium cabin flights on United, let us know about the kosher meals you receive!
You can share your KSML reviews on DDF here.
I always preorder a kosher meal when it’s available. More often than not, it seems like KSMLs (that’s airline speak for kosher meals) are reheated dog or cat food at best, or completely unfit for human consumption at other times. But I do enjoy taking pictures of just how bad the food can be. And when airlines forget to load kosher meals, which happens all too often, they’ll typically provide some sort of compensation. Getting a $100-$300 travel credit for a missing meal is a whole lot better than getting a borderline edible meal!
If I’m flying long-haul, I’ll bring along my own meal and a HotLogic to have a delicious hot meal on a plane. I used to rely on trying to get a flight attendant to warm up my own meal, but that’s always up to the whims of the flight attendant.
It sure beats some of these meals…
Stogel long-life kosher meal served in USAirways business class from Paris to Philadelphia in December 2012:
The rock-hard frozen gefilte fish is always worth a chuckle. I mean, who is eating this stuff??
Weiss kosher meal served in SAS business class from Newark to Oslo in March 2016:
Seriously American Airlines, what in the world is this first class Borenstein Regal meal supposed to be?
And United, can you please find a European meal supplier that isn’t Stogel?!? Your Fresko meals from Newark and great, but this business class meal from Europe is wholly unacceptable!
And there’s nothing quite like getting a Passover meal on Aeromexico business class from KOSHair, several weeks after the holiday had ended:
Sometimes the food is decent. Hermolis meals are usually pretty good.
Hermolis sliced lamb stew kosher meal served in Cathay Pacific first class from Hong Kong to Toronto in January 2011:
Some of my favorite kosher meals have been from even more exotic locales. The KSML on Singapore from the Maldives, catered by Sydney-based Lewis caterers, and the KSML on United from Honolulu, catered by Oahu Kosher, stand out the most.
Oahu Kosher supplies fresh salmon, ribeye steak, and chicken for their kosher meals on United. This delicious salmon was served in business class from Honolulu to Newark, February 2016:
Perhaps the best kosher meals in the skies these days are United’s meals on Newark departures. Those are freshly made meals from Fresko, and they’re delicious!
Fantastic dinner and breakfast in United business class from Newark to Tel Aviv in March 2024:
United’s Newark Polaris Lounge also offers kosher wine and kosher meals on demand, and they’re excellent!
You can find more airports and lounges with kosher meals available on this DDF thread. Delta has done a great job of expanding kosher meals across their lounge network in hub airports, though thanks to their stingy mileage program, I typically find myself flying American and United, but you can share your Delta lounge meal reviews here.
If I have a long layover, I’ll often just Uber food from a local kosher restaurant and meet the driver curbside. If Uber Eats isn’t available, I’ll use Uber Courier or even Uber X and have the driver bring food that was ordered directly from the restaurant or via Uber Eats or Doordash pickup. At some airports, Uber Courier isn’t available, but if you go to a nearby hotel, they are available…
Can kosher meals be fixed on more airlines?
DDF member ChAiM’l once spoke to the owner of Hermolis about the issue and got a blunt response. “NOT ENOUGH PEOPLE ARE COMPLAINING.”
He told him that so many people complained to British Airways that their kosher food from Argentina was awful, so BA started catering Hermolis meals from Argentina.
Is the reason that kosher meals are so bad our own fault? Should we be letting the airline know what we really think about them?
I complain when I don’t get a meal, but I almost never complain about a bad or frozen meal.
You can send a complaint to American here, Delta here, or United here.
But based on United’s changes in Chicago, Los Angeles, and Newark, it seems like they’re listening to our feedback!
What are your favorite kosher airline meals?
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40 Comments On "United Adding Fresh Kosher Meals On Flights From Chicago And Los Angeles, Can We Get Other Airlines To Fix Their Kosher Meals?"
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Delta serves to israel and even got on Passover to La -from jfk very good poppers. Delta sometimes serves short ribs in FC domestic. But most of time it’s just salmon. I do enjoy AA haggan daz vanilla ice cream.
Ethiad and Emirates have very good kosher meals. you can get good kosher meals in the Emirates lounge in Dubai
BH for Fresco meals United EWR to TLV. And in thr Polaris Lounge. Lufthansa had started serving ribs in business class IAD to MUC and FRA plus they serve like 2 or 3 trays of appetizers and salads and desserts so even United has a ways to go IMHO
I had short ribs in United business from EWR. Delicious!
Is there a priority pass lounge that has kosher food?
Yes, in JFK and ATH
To list a few
And MAD, BCN, TLV
Are all United meals out of EWR fresh form fresko or just Polaris flights? Like ewr to lax or ewr to sjd? Thanks
All
Is this for ALL flights that have meal service? Not just to TLV? Example: I am flying to Honolulu in December. If I have a flight form ORD to HNL can I order a kosher meal on there? (I know because it’s domestic there might not actually have a meal which stinks)
Last time we flew this route I had to pack food for 24 hrs for my whole family because we had an overnight layover. It was rough!!!
All from ORD in premium cabins on 2K+ mile flights.
How about Yoshon? Unfortunately Fresko isn’t which IMHO is unacceptable.
Also they need to improve the serving instructions Ive had great meals come half frozen or cold and once open its too late. scrambled eggs are especially tough item to get right on airline, ive had hermolis eggs served inedible, i’d recommend for a hot breakfast some type of sandwich or savory pastry eg. borekas which combines protein and starch and will be easier to heat. Airline meals are a science as well as an art and hermolis has it mostly figured out.
Lewis Caterers in Australia make the best meaty meals on Quantas! Delicious sausage and other charcuterie.
They’re great!
No ‘u’ in Qantas…
I think it’s good to also give positive feedback/ a thank you when airlines do improve. For example when flying United from those airports, you can give a thank you
How much is fresko paying you for this ad?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_aLESDql1U
Biz out of London …Hermolis is literally restaurant quality
Yes !
most of the chichago is NOT attractive! take out the water, the cookie, gives us appetizing salmon, bulgur salad, appetizing cut up fruit, veggies. breads, cookies, water, is an insult. chicken on bone also looks bad. salmon, salmon salmon, broccoli, orzo in yellow gentle spice with lentil. Will def complain to UNITED as we did in the past. happy to be your food plan tester at my comfy home for honest review.
What’s it like in El Al economy jfk-tlv?
I was served Stogel from CDG to the USA, and it was soggy, vile, and looked like a child’s meal. A black and white cookie and some fruit compote. United couldn’t care less!
Write to United?
I did – I complained to united.com/feedback
I had on Etihad Airways outstanding food in Economy
The whole concept of airline serving meals makes little sense
I really wish Fresco catered all the airlines leaving Newark I don’t fly United anymore even locally in the u s since they stopped being a reliable airline in an out of TLV international I’ll stick with el Al and within the US I’ll look around
El Al will never use any caterer other than Borenstein out of NY/NJ because they own it.
On a swiss air flight ZRH-JFK recently, they served a piece of cake which multiple passengers complained was moldy. I even got a picture of the cake- it was completely inedible. The head FA claimed it was “blueberry” which accounted for the color- completely not true. Can we get compensation for that?
No. Only ask to change dessert to a cjocj chip cookie. Yes , blueberry muffin has a short life in my kitchen too. Not everything gets you $. Be a mensch
Overall I’d rate Hermolis the best quality kosher airline food
Though, recently I flew LH First out of FRA, and they served an outstanding restaurant quality meal, unlike anything experienced before. (It was catered by an Amsterdam catering)
Hi Dan Please updated the links to send a complaint to more airlines Air Canada, El Al, LHG is the worst off all or mabey lets send the complaint to stogel itself?
The world’s best Kosher Meals, with the hechsher of Kedassia in London, one of the world’s strictest hechsherim,, are those of Hermolis. The Hermolis Economy meals make the offerings from United look very lower class.
Maybe I’m just not a feinshmecker, but the food on ElAl in and out of Boston recently was delicious.
Problem with food coming out of Chicago is that most likely all rolls/pitas/sandwiches are hamotzi, because the cRc doesn’t believe in “Mezonos bread”. Unlike NYC which is world-renown for its plethora of mezonos breads.
Now, go figure every time a meal comes every Yid has to get up and wash (in the WC no less)?! a bit ridiculous if you asked me.
Hopefully fresh halal is next!
To the best of my knowledge Glatt kosher is halal as well
All airlines do a pretty good job of keeping us hydrated with water. Why do most kosher meals also include water rather than another food selection?