Home Chef Subscription Box Review + Coupon – June 2018

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, with two meals a week ($39.80) + a smoothie  ($4.95 per serving) for a $49.70 total. 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 June 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.

Jerk Salmon and Caribbean Slaw

Calories: 514

Time to Table, According to Home Chef: 30-40 minutes

Actual Time to Table: 35 minutes

Cook within: 3 days

Difficulty: Easy

Spice Level: Medium

Y'all know I love salmon and even though I'm not a fan of jerks, I thought I'd try this style.

This may be the easiest recipe I've ever had?

After chopping all the produce, I put the fishes skin-side up in a pan of hot oil for 5 minutes.

Then I flipped them and let them cook for another 5.

While that was happening, I added the slaw ingredients in a bowl. The cabbage was pre-shredded and the mango was in a container already in chunks, but I chopped them further, as directed. The Fresno chile and green onion were chopped by yours truly and I added a tablespoon of lime juice, some olive oil, and some salt + pepper.

Here it is all slawed up. I only used about half the green onions because I don't love them.

Once the salmon was done, I set it on a plate to slather in jerk sauce. It rested for 5 minutes.

Time to eat! I added more jerk sauce to the top after plating even though it's not my best artistic work.

This meal was incredible. If I had to do it again, I'd omit all of the green onion, but my friend Charles who came for dinner said it wasn't as overpowering as I thought it was. I'm just sensitive. The salmon was bonkers good! I never thought I'd love jerk sauce so much on salmon, but here we are. Cooked perfectly and just totally yummy.

Steak Wellington with roasted carrots and mushroom demi-glace

Calories: 637

Time to Table, According to Home Chef: 45-55 minutes

Actual Time to Table: 55 minutes

Cook within: 4 days

Difficulty: Intermediate

Spice Level: Not Spicy

I don't think I've ever even had Steak Wellington let alone made it, so when I saw this recipe I thought it'd be a fun one to make.

I have no experience with puff pastry, but this recip wasn't hard at all.

The steaks cooked in a pan of oil for a little over 2 minutes on each side. They were then transferred to a plate.

The sliced mushrooms went right into the same pan and I cooked them for about 5 minutes, then seasoned with salt + pepper.

While the shrooms were cooking, I took the puff pastry out of the fridge and did a little crosshatch action on them with the back side of a knife. Looks nice!

The steaks went onto a prepped baking sheet and were topped with 1/3 of the mushrooms. Basically, I just tried to get as many as I could fit on there.

I then gently wrapped the puff pastry around the top, stretching it slightly to tuck underneath the steak. Don't they look so sweet? Shhhh. They went into the oven for about 10 minutes.

SURPRISE! I had cooked up some sliced carrots in a pan before the steaks and they were in the oven this whole time (18 minutes). When Itook them out, I added some thyme and salt + pepper. I was actually impressed with how well-timed it all was because they were set to come out at the same time as the puff-pastried steaks.

Ahhh they look so good!!

The final step was to add the demi-glace to the leftover mushrooms and let it cook down, then turn off the heat and add the chopped thyme and butter. I mixed it up after this photo, don't worry.

Here's the finished meal. It kind of looks like mushrooms are exploding out of an over-stuffed wellington.

I am not the biggest cooked carrot fan but these were really tasty! The meat was cooked nicely but I personally thought it was a little tough. My roomie didn't agree but to each their own. Very delicious. Another dish I can check off my list!

Strawberry Colada Smoothie with coconut milk and honey

Calories: 271

Time to Table, According to Home Chef: 5-10 minutes

Actual Time to Table: 5 minutes

Cook within: 7 days

Difficulty: Easy

Spice Level: Not Spicy

I love getting these smoothie recipes with my Home Chef meals because everything is prepped already.

It all just goes into the blender until thoroughly mixed. After this, I added 2 cups of ice.

Here's the finished smoothie hanging out on my porch on a nice day. The recipe made 2 servings this size. The greek yogurt makes it really creamy and the coconut and strawberries gave it such a sweet yummy flavor!

Verdict: Home Chef ruled again this month but I have to say that the Jerk Salmon was by far the best. It also happened to be a ridiculously easy recipe! The Steak Wellington took a long time but it didn't really seem like it because I was busy the whole time. Everything tasted fresh and the directions were really simple to follow. 

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!

Did you try the Jerk Salmon from Home Chef this month?