Home Chef is a meal kit subscription 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 ($39.80) + a smoothie ($4.95 per serving) to equal $49.70 total per week. Delivery is free for orders over $45. Shipping is $10 for orders less than $45.
My Subscription Addiction paid for this box. (Check out the review process post to learn more about how we review boxes.)
About Home Chef
The Subscription Box: Home Chef
The Cost: Meals start at $9.95 per serving, and delivery is free for orders over $45.
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.)
Home Chef April 2018 Review
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, smoothies, or quick lunches that you can choose to include in your box.
On one box flap, you'll find their social media handle, @realhomechef.
The other flap gives a short rundown on how to properly dispose of the various packaging.
After opening the box you'll see instructions on how to recycle the packing material right on it. You can throw the cotton fiber "stuffing" in the trash (or compost, if you are so inclined) and recycle the plastic.
You'll then find all of your ingredients tucked inside. The vegetables and non-meat items will be on top.
Under them, you'll see a cardboard divider that lets you know there is more below.
This is where the ice packs are: with the meat to keep those extra cold. You can choose to toss the packs into your freezer to reuse, or simply cut them open to dump the contents into your normal trash and recycle the plastic.
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).
The bags are labeled as well to cut down on any confusion when you have multiples in your fridge.
Parmesan-Crusted Cod with mozzarella-tomato spinach salad
Calories: 500
Time to Table, According to Home Chef: 30-40 minutes
Actual Time to Table: 40 minutes
Cook within: 3 days
Difficulty: Easy
Spice Level: Not Spicy
I hadn't gotten fish for a little while (esp a non-salmon), so I decided to try a lighter option with this cod.
I've never made a topping like the one in this recipe, so this is something new!
I made the topping for the fish from parmesan, panko, and softened butter. It took the butter a while to be soft enough. I suggest putting it on the stove as it preheats to speed it up. I then placed it on top of the fillets that I had put a bit of pepper on.
After prepping the veggies and putting the cod in the oven, I made the dressing (lemon juice, olive oil, sugar, lemon zest, salt, and pepper). As always, it was easy as pie.
Then I just waited for the cod to cook for a total of 18 minutes. This is how it looked after coming out of the oven. Perfectly golden!
To finish the salad, I tossed the spinach, mozzarella, and cherry tomatoes in the bowl of dressing.
There she is! Garnished with remaining lemon, which I squeezed over the cod. This was one of the easiest recipes I've ever made.
The topping on the cod was so cheesy and delicious. Would definitely make this again on my own when I want to be a little healthy (but not too much).
Provolone-Stuffed Turkey Mini Meatloaves with spicy green beans and peppers
Calories: 567
Time to Table, According to Home Chef: 30-40 minutes
Actual Time to Table: 40 minutes
Cook within: 5 days
Difficulty: Intermediate
Spice Level: Mild
I don't remember ever making meatloaf, but these are similar to some stuffed meatballs I've made in the past. I rarely use turkey, so I took advantage of this recipe.
It's my experience that whenever you have to stuff a meat with cheese or form a ball of meat, it gets bumped up to the "intermediate" difficulty level. So funny to me, because this was still easy.
The first thing I did was mix the ground meat with the ricotta, seasoning, and salt. Looks delicious, right? I'm kidding, I know this looks gross. The ground turkey was a lot mushier than I thought it'd be.
I then divided the meat into 4 balls and made an indent with my thumb to fill with cheese, and cover again by rolling it in my hands. Luckily I had the needed muffin pan on hand to put them in to form the little loaves.
Up next was to cook the peppers and green beans in a pan with oil until slightly browned (4-6 minutes).
Half of my minced garlic was then added and cooked further, for 3-4 minutes.
Once they looked good, I turned off the burner and added about half of the red pepper flakes and set this all aside.
I then put the sauce into the same pan and added olive oil and the remaining garlic with a pinch of salt until warmed.
Here's the plated meal! I'll say that I wish there was more sauce, but I had some extra in my fridge that I was able to add later. I also garnished with remaining parmesan.
Doesn't it look wonderful? It WAS wonderful. The turkey turned out really nice and I wouldn't have batted an eyelash if I didn't know it wasn't beef. The cheese was nice n melty on the inside too, so there was some gooey action when I cut them open. Also- big shout out to the veggies that were cooked perfectly!
Cranberry-Pineapple Smoothie with Greek yogurt
Calories: 305
Time to Table, According to Home Chef: 5-10 minutes
Actual Time to Table: 10 minutes
Cook within: 7 days
Difficulty: Easy
Spice Level: Not Spicy
Like the quick lunches, you can add on smoothies to any order as well (for $4.95 per serving, which will push you over the free shipping threshold)! I like smoothies a lot and always want to make them but somehow never get the ratios down properly and it always ends up being way too thick. Hopefully, this will take the guesswork out for me.
As directed, I plopped all of the ingredients in my blender.
Here's what it looked like after about 3 minutes of blending, before I added ice.
And the finished product! This is pretty much exactly half. I left the rest for my roomie for when he returned from the gym. He loved it and so did I! It was so easy when everything was already pre-portioned out for me and it ended up being a perfect consistency. It was really pineapple-y, but so delicious.
Verdict: I thoroughly enjoyed all three of my Home Chef recipes this month. I stayed a little light with the cod and went heavy with the mini meatloaves which were balanced out by the fresh veggies. The smoothie was awesome and will definitely become a staple of my future orders.
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 $49.70 for this box, each dinner was $9.95 per serving and the smoothie was $4.95 per serving with free shipping.
Check out all of our Home Chef reviews and find other meal kit boxes in the Food Subscription Box Directory!
Keep Track of Your Subscriptions: Add this box to your subscription list or wishlist!
What was your favorite meal from Home Chef this month?
Please do not enter your email address in the Name field or in the comment content. Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *. Remember to post with kindness and respect. Comments with offensive language, cruelness to others, etc will not be approved. See our full comment policy here.