Home Chef is a subscription meal delivery service that delivers you a weekly box of the pre-portioned ingredients you need to make two to six meals that feed two, four, or six people. Home Chef advertises easy recipes that can be made in about 30 minutes. They say their ingredients are fresh (though they don't provide a lot of information about their sourcing practices), and they offer vegetarian, gluten-free, and calorie/carb-conscious recipes.
This is a review of the plan I customized that includes a mix of beef, fish, poultry, and vegetarian options (starting at $9.95 per serving) for two people, two meals a week + $10 shipping ($49.80 total per week). Delivery is free for orders over $45. Shipping is $10 for orders less than $45.
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The Subscription Box: Home Chef
The Cost: Meals start at $9.95 per serving, and delivery is free for orders over $40.
The Products: Fresh ingredients and chef-designed recipes— everything you need to make restaurant-quality meals at home.
Ships to: 90% of the U.S. (You can check to see if Home Chef delivers to your zip code here.)
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When you first sign up for Home Chef, you take a short quiz about your meal preferences and dietary restrictions. I like that they ask what you like to eat, as well a what you like to avoid. Based on your answers, Home Chef will choose recipes for you to get each week. As is the case with most meal kit services, you can log in and hand-select the recipes you'd like to receive. Note though, that the more particular you are with your diet, the fewer options you'll have. I'm pretty open to most proteins, so I currently have 10 different options for next week. There are also some "Add On" items like fruit or smoothie picks that you can choose to include in your box.
Each Home Chef meal comes in a plastic bag, except for the meat, and some ingredients that are too large (such as ears of corn).
Steak Moutarde with roasted sweet potato wedges and mustard cream
Calories: 590
Time to Table, According to Home Chef: 30-40 minutes
Actual Time to Table: 35 minutes
Cook within: 6 days
Difficulty: Easy
Spice Level: Not Spicy
The front of the recipe card has nutrition, prep and cook time, spice level, difficulty level, and a unique stat: how many days you have to prepare this meal for optimum quality and freshness.
I somehow missed that the side for this recipe was sweet potato, which I am not a huge fan of, but here we are. Everyone I know is obsessed with sweet potato fries (I feel like I've said this before), so I'm going into it with an open mind. My Dad was in for a visit from Ohio and doesn't eat a lot of red meat, but indulged me.
The sweet potato I received was gosh darn HUGE, so it made a lot of wedges. I cooked them in a pan for a total of 6 minutes or so, then tossed them with fresh chopped garlic, salt, and pepper after removing from the heat.
They then went onto a baking sheet to roast in the oven for 10 minutes.
While the wedges roasted, I seasoned the steaks and added them to the same pan I used for the sweet potato. Dad doesn't like his steak as bloody as I do, so I cooked them for a minute longer than I normally would (3 minutes).
After cooking on only one side, I transferred the steaks to a plate and topped them with 1/2 a teaspoon of mustard and some parsley.
By this time, the wedges came out of the oven, and I added the meat to the baking sheet. Back in they all go for another 8 minutes (again, a bit longer than I normally would have).
Now it's time to make the sauce. In the same pan still, I added half of the included cream and stirred until it thickened.
Following the directions, I removed the pan from the heat and added the butter with some salt and pepper.
Then I added the rest of the mustard.
Voila. The sauce.
Another really excellent meal, complete! It wasn't totally clear to me whether the sauce was to put on the steak or to dip the wedges into, but I "went ham" on it, then garnished with the rest of the parsley.
Even after pouring the sauce over the meat, there was plenty left for dipping and BOY, was it good. Potatoes just aren't meant to be sweet in my opinion, so I didn't eat too many, but they came out pretty good. Definitely could have been cooked even longer to crisp up. My Dad was also really into it, even though he eats like a bird and couldn't finish it. Clearly, my wolfing-down-food ability comes from my Mother.
Hickory-Smoked Salmon with everything bagel-seasoned cauliflower
Calories: 618
Time to Table According to Home Chef: 25-35 minutes
Actual Time to Table: About 30 minutes
Cook within: 3 days
Difficulty: Easy
Spice Level: Not Spicy
This dinner looked amazing to me when I saw it as a choice on the website. Salmon rules and I had had a different recipe long ago that used everything bagel seasoning on the actual salmon and I loved it. This one uses it on the cauliflower, but I had to try it. Also- you can't go wrong with liquid smoke.
Looking over the recipe, nothing jumped out as being too difficult. All things I've done before.
The first step was to marinate the salmon with the liquid smoke, sugar, and of course salt and pepper. These were placed flesh side down and popped in the fridge for 10 minutes.
My roomie, Tony, was kind enough to help me this time, and did a bang-up job prepping the other ingredients.
We had to make sure the pan we used was oven-safe because after the cauliflower cooked in oil on the stovetop for 3-4 minutes, they went into the oven to roast for another 12.
While the cauliflower roasted, the fully marinated salmon went flesh-down into a pan with olive oil to cook (undisturbed) for 4 minutes. These, too, will then be flipped and transferred to the oven for another 12 minutes. But before that, they got leftover marinade spooned on top.
Gahhh- look how perfect those babies look! So golden!
Once the cauliflower was roasted, we took it out and tossed it in a bowl with the everything bagel mix, some salt, and half of the parsley. It looks so pretty!
It was also time to make the vinaigrette. We took the garlic, lemon juice, lemon zest, the rest of the parsley, olive oil, and salt and pepper and mixed it all together.
I let Tony do the plating this time. Didn't he do a great job? The vinaigrette was drizzled over the gorgeous salmon, next to the everything bagel seasoned cauliflower.
This has got to be one of my favorite meals in recent memory! The marinade and vinaigrette were the perfect flavors, the salmon was cooked to perfection, and the everything bagel seasoning on the cauliflower was outstanding! A+, would make again!
Verdict: This week's Home Chef meals were my favorite so far this month! I've been craving red meat non-stop, so I'm glad I got some in and was able to balance it out with a healthier choice of salmon. Both recipes were super duper easy and had amazing flavor.
To Wrap Up:
Can you still get this box if you sign up today? Since Home Chef menus change weekly and you must choose them ahead of time, you won’t be able to order these dishes unless they are offered again in the future.
Coupon – Get $30 off your first box from Home Chef. No coupon required, just use this link.
Value Breakdown: At $59.70 ($9.95 per serving plus $10 shipping) for this box, you're actually paying $12.45 per serving.
What did you think of my Home Chef meals this week?
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