Green Chef is a weekly meal delivery subscription service that sends ingredients to make dinner that are fresh, sustainable, and organic.
Check out all of our reviews of Meal Delivery Services to see every meal kit subscription box option!
Green Chef has two plan size options, a 2-person plan (3 dinners for 2 people) and a family plan (2 dinners for 4 people). The 2-person plan has options like vegetarian, omnivore, vegan, carnivore, gluten-free, and paleo. The family plan has the option of omnivore or carnivore. I choose the 2-person omnivore plan because I am interested in adding variety to my diet. As I was signing up, I had the option to select the types of meats I wanted or didn’t want to receive. I don’t love shellfish or game, and I was able to remove them from my profile. I saw my menu shuffle around as soon as I deselected those meats, so I’m glad they offer that option right up front.
My Subscription Addiction paid for this box. (Check out our review process post to learn more about how we review boxes.)
This is a review of the Green Chef Omnivore Plan, $11.99 per meal.
The Subscription Box: Green Chef
The Cost:
2-person Plans:
- Vegetarian $10.49 per meal (3 vegetarian dinners)
- Omnivore $11.99 per meal (3 veggie, meat & seafood dinners)
- Vegan $11.99 per meal (3 vegan dinners)
- Carnivore $13.49 per meal (3 meat & seafood dinners)
- Gluten-free $13.49 per meal (3 veggie, meat & seafood dinners)
- Paleo $14.99 per meal (3 paleo-friendly dinners)
Learn more here!
Family Plans:
- Omnivore - $11.99 per meal (2 veggie, meat or seafood dinners for 4 people)
- Carnivore - $12.99 per meal (2 meat or seafood dinners for 4 people)
COUPON: Get 4 meals free in your first order by using this link!
The Products: Quick, chef-created recipes using organic, sustainable ingredients.
Ships to: Continental U.S. (except for some parts of Louisiana) for &9.99 shipping & handling per box.
Check out all of our Green Chef reviews and the Meals Subscription Box Directory!
Keep Track of Your Subscriptions: Add this box to your subscription list or wishlist!
Meal subscriptions are such a great thing. If you struggle with the “What should we do for dinner?” question, like I do with my fiancé, then you already have a great reason to test one out for yourself. It is so nice to have everything ready to go without a trip to the grocery store. It also makes for an easy choice when you have only 3 meals to choose from. There are so many boxes out there, so how do you pick the best one for you?
One thing I have noticed with meal delivery boxes is the amount of packaging. There is only so much space for freezer packs in my freezer! Green Chef makes a great effort to use recyclable and compostable packaging. They also have a page on their site that walks you through preparing the packaging for recycling. Pretty responsible!
Green Chef also makes sourcing sustainable, organic ingredients top priority and provides options for customization of your meals. They are thorough in the ingredient list and allergy warning on their recipes. The prices per meal are higher than some other competitors, but like eating high-quality, organic food from the grocery store, it costs more. Plus, we found that we spend much less than eating out.
As for shipping, you get to choose from a delivery day of Wednesdays, Thursdays, or Fridays. They say that their box is well insulated and you don’t have to be at home when it is delivered. Your food will stay fresh and cool. They make it very easy to change your delivery schedule or skip a week anytime. You don’t have the option of switching out meals, but you can see your menus a couple of weeks in advance so you can skip whatever weeks you don’t like.
Green Chef gives you three cards for free boxes that you can give out to your friends. They are good for one meal each.
Let’s see these dinners!
Grilled Lemon Chicken
Bulgur, red beets, olives, red peppers, feta
Calories per serving: 600
Total time, according to Green Chef: 40 minutes
Actual time: 45 minutes
The recipe cards that come with these meals are printed in full color on cardstock so they are great to hole punch and put in your recipe book if you want to reference them later. Mine got a little damp in the delivery box so they have a little wave to them, everything is still readable.
There is a short description of the dinner, prep + cook time, calorie count, and each meal is color coded to help you organize your ingredients.
On the back, you will find a list of tools you will need from your own kitchen, items from your pantry, and a step-by-step guide on how to prepare your meal.
This meal was really easy to make because it had minimal prep. The beets were already cut and bulgur is a grain cooked a lot like rice. One complaint was that the chicken breasts were so different in size that we had to cook one much longer than the other. The cards include chef’s tips – this recipe’s tip was how to get crosshatch sear marks on chicken. The cooking method was to grill the chicken but the card directed you to a link for alternative instructions. That is a thoughtful touch considering not everyone has access to a grill.
You can see the size difference here. We made use of a cast iron grill pan and it worked fabulously in place of a grill.
This meal was ok. We rated it a 7/10 in taste. The beets looked different than the ones in Green Chef’s images. Ours were not as bright and may have been a little dehydrated, but they didn’t have an off flavor. The bulgar was somewhere between quinoa and rice in texture and was tasty. The feta, olives, and capers add a nice sharp flavor that contrasts the beets and chicken. But the flavor that conquered them all was the celery – too much celery.
I know that Green Chef keeps the prep time for the meals to a minimum, but I think the chicken could have used more than 10 minutes to marinate because the flavor just didn’t shine through. Also, we had to take turns fanning the smoke detector due to lots of smoke from the grill pan, but, it is not the first time that has happened.
Barbecue Chickpea Bowl
Blistered corn, avocado, spinach, ranch slaw
Calories per serving: 640
Total time, according to Green Chef: 35 minutes
Actual time: 40 minutes
I love barbecue and I love bowls, so I was very excited about this one. Then I noticed that there was no meat and instead there were chickpeas. My excitement wavered a bit. But, I told myself that I would go with it and expand my thoughts on food and I am so glad I did.
The prep on this meal was easy and quick. We seasoned the chickpeas and sautéed them on the stove. Then we put them in the oven to roast. There was a little chopping of onions and scooping out an avocado before blistering the corn. Then we mixed the yogurt ranch dressing into the pre-cut slaw mix (I was already eating this before we even got to plating, so good!) We then pulled the chickpeas out and drizzled them with barbecue sauce and plated everything.
Sautéeing the chickpeas. We had to use this smaller pan because it was the only one with a metal handle that could go from stovetop to oven without fear of melting.
This was by far the best dish in this box. 10/10 in taste. The flavors were warm with a bit of spice and were enhanced by the tangy-ness of the slaw. We made a few pieces of our own chicken on the side thinking we might need them to fill us up, but we didn’t even remember them after digging into our meal. There was more than enough food for the two of us to feel satisfied and the flavor of the barbecue chickpeas was so good, I wouldn’t have even noticed that it wasn’t meat if I had this at a restaurant. This meal will be replicated and made again I’m sure.
Fajita Burger
Chimichurri sauce, sweet potatoes, bell peppers
Calories per serving: 810
Total time, according to Green Chef: 30 minutes
Actual time: 40 minutes
Doesn’t this just sound perfect? Mexican food is one of my favorite comfort foods so I was happy to see “fajita” in the name. I have to admit, I don’t much like sweet potatoes but the cumin-chili spice mix gave me hope.
Another easy prep meal with some minimal chopping on our end. We seasoned the pre-cut potatoes with the spice mix and tossed them onto a baking sheet in the oven. While those were roasting we seasoned the meat and shaped the patties. The recipe had us cook the patties on the stovetop and then transfer them to the oven to melt the cheese and finish cooking. We grilled up some sliced bell peppers and toasted the buns. It really came together easily.
We got a good blister on the bell peppers making use of a skill we learned from Green Chef the night before!
As wonderful as it sounded this meal just didn’t turn out as tasty as I thought. 6/10 in taste. The potatoes charred very quickly (again maybe due to them being dehydrated) but were redeemed by the roasted red pepper ketchup we will be trying to find a version of in the store. It was robust and much more savory than plain ketchup. The burger was nothing special, although the meat was high-quality, grass-fed beef (thumb’s up), and the whole-wheat buns reminded me why I don’t buy whole-wheat buns. When I eat bread, I’m going to make sure it is delicious. One big bonus, I got to use all of the cheese on my burger because my fiancé is lactose intolerant.
Verdict: Green Chef is a wonderful meal subscription box. The convenience of having everything you need for creative, diverse meals delivered to your door relieves a lot of stress for people like me who don’t particularly love going grocery shopping. The meals were tasty overall, and I feel good about using sustainable, organic ingredients. The recipes were simple, quick, and laid out step-by-step with images. I think they are great for a beginner in the kitchen and would help build confidence about trying new foods. I liked that I walked away from this week able to say I learned how to use 3 ingredients that I hadn’t used before: bulgur, chickpeas, and chimichurri sauce. There was also plenty of food for two adults and there would be great leftovers if you were cooking for one. I do wish they had the option of choosing from meals each week, but for this week I would have stuck with the options they gave me anyway and, to be honest, everything in my upcoming weeks looks delicious as well.
Do you subscribe to Green Chef? What dinners have you made?
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