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 vegetarian plan (starting at $9.95 per serving) for two people, twice a week ($39.80 per week + shipping). 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. For instance, it looks like there are only around 3 veggie meals each week. So the ability to customize things kind of disappears.
That said, there are usually about 10 items on the menu, total, and some "Add On" items like fruit or breakfast picks that you can choose to include in your box.
Included in the box, which is all insulated and nestled atop big ice packs, is a coupon for Bright Cellars wine. The recipe cards are all three-hole punched, so that they fit inside the plastic binder they send in your first box!
Crispy Tofy with Chimichurri Aioli
Calories: 559
Time to Table, According to Home Chef: 30-40 minutes
Actual Time to Table: About 30 minutes
Difficulty: Easy
I didn't have any experience with chimichurri before this recipe, so I was eager to try it. This is, surprisingly, one of the few vegetarian recipes I've gotten from a subscription box that's featured tofu—most recipes have beans as their protein, but I love tofu and am glad to learn a new way to cook it.
The process for this recipe is essentially roasting veggies, making rice, and then whipping up the aioli topping. The seasoning for the roasted veggies was pre-made, so all I had to do was wash and cut the veggies and toss them in olive oil in the pan. The rice is pre-seasoned, too. I'm awful at cooking rice on the stove, but I managed to cook it with a... minimal amount of rice burnt to the bottom of the pot, haha!
The flavors in this dish are so rich and savory! It's a bit on the salty side, but I loved the tofu (just browned, not too soft, not to dry) and the aioli was awesome! This made for a hearty dinner and a deliciously satisfying lunch the next day (it reheats really nicely). Also, I've realized that I am a huge fan of roasted shallot. It gets perfectly tender, a bit charred, and is deliciously sweet.
Marsala Mushroom Gemelli Bake
Calories: 632
Time to Table According to Home Chef: 30-40 minutes
Actual Time to Table: About 35 minutes
Difficulty: Easy
Pasta is my favorite food, and while I'm not crazy about mushrooms, I can't say no to them when they're doused in cheese and buttery pasta.
I wouldn't have thought a dish this delicious was so easy to make, but it's pretty darn simple. Apart from the pasta, everything happens in one big pan (fewer dishes to do, hooray!). The sizzle that the marsala wine makes as it reduces over the simmering mushrooms is also super satisfying to an amateur cook like me—I felt like I was on a cooking show or something!
Voila! This dish was soooooo good. The buttery, savory sauce coating the twisting noodles tastes like a creamy umami dream. Even the mushrooms were divine, and I am not a mushroom gal! I could've used a bit more spinach to balance out all the carbs, but otherwise, this dish was pretty perfect. It was tasty on a summer day, but I bet this would be amazing on a cozy fall night.
Verdict: I was happy with my first experience with Home Chef. These recipes were easy to make, didn't take all that long, and were all really tasty. The cost of the meals is fair compared to other services—meals start at $9.95 per serving, which is cheaper than Plated ($12 per serving) and on par with Blue Apron ($9.99 per serving) and Hello Fresh ($9.99 per serving). I felt like I was getting a fair share of nutrition from these veggie-centric recipes, too! All in all, this box was a win!
Do either of these Home Chef recipes have your mouth watering?
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