Home Chef Meal Plan – An Unsponsored Review
Hello all! Sorry I’ve been MIA, Coronavirus threw us for a loop as I’m sure you know all too well. Homeschooling took up a lot of time, but now things have calmed down a bit and I wanted to hop on and continue with my meal delivery service reviews. This month we tried the meal plan Home Chef. Actually, to be honest, we used Home Chef the whole time we’ve been quarantined. In short, we loved it! And, I was surprised at how the boxes kept coming, fully stocked with no issues throughout.
Home Chef First Impressions
I signed up and immediately noticed the app was way better than the other meal delivery services we’ve tried. There were tons of options to choose from. I’ll get more into that in a bit. When the first box arrived, the produce looked great – a big improvement over the last box, Marley Spoon. You can read more about that here.
One of the first things I noticed about Home Chef is that I could pick the number of meals I wanted each week. I could order as many as I wanted and during quarantine this was a very nice option, as some weeks I stuck with three meals but other weeks I ordered four. It was nice to have the flexibility to choose the number of meals I wanted each week and didn’t have to stick to the predetermined amount.
Another thing that Home Chef offers were ad-ons. I actually didn’t have a need for any of these, but they were a nice option. The options were packs of meat or seafood. The seafood sampler included 24 oz of scallops and 24 oz of shrimp for $84.98. The also had an essential protein pack witch consisted of 8 chicken breasts, 4 steaks and 30 oz ground beef for $84.98. There were more options of meat packages like this that you could add on to your weekly boxes. These would have been nice had we not been in quarantine and needed food for a party or barbecue.
Like I mentioned before, there was a ton of options for actual meals. Way more than the other meal delivery services. The had the standard meal kits, meat and veggies – pretty similar to the other plans. In addition they had “culinary options” with a little higher end foods – steak and seafood and that sort of thing. They also had “15 min meal kits” which were a nice option for busy nights. The “oven ready” kits that we tried quite a few of. They were all great and the oven ready meal kits did require a little bit of “putting together”, but I was able to assemble them in the time it took to preheat the oven, so pretty quick. One of our favorites was the “grill-ready” option, but the also had vegetarian options and an “entree salad” option for a cheaper and healthier meal.
The “oven ready” was probably the nicest option for me. As I mentioned in my other reviews, these meals can all take a while to cook. I actually love cooking them but I know that is a big drawback for some and I love having the option of the “oven ready” meals on those nights that get crazy.
Every week they provide an average of 20 meals to choose from, which was a huge difference than the previous meal delivery services we tried. The meals had different price points, which was nice and you could make it a little more flexible. Most meals are $9.95 per serving but some of the meals have a cheaper price point (entree salads for example) and some of the culinary options and fancier meals (scallops and some steaks) were a little more expensive. There were still steak and seafood options in the regularly priced meals.
I also like that they sent a binder so I could hang on to any recipes we loved. and, they are all available on the app if you wanted to remake any.
The produce was much better with Home Chef. Do you remember the last post I did on Marley Spoon and those puny little carrots? Well, that is not a problem anymore. In the 3 months, we had one bell pepper that got some brown spots on it before I used it, but I still used it and that was the only issue we had the whole time.
The remaining meals
Because we ended up doing this meal plan for 3 months, I’m not going to put every meal here, but I will highlight some of my favorites.
Grilled peached BBQ Chicken with Corn and Asparagus – one of the “grill ready” kits and it was very yummy! Everything went on the grill so it was easy and perfect healthy option for a summer night.
Blackened Mahi-Mahi and Homemade Remoulade with Jambalaya Risotto – So.Good. We made this at my in-laws house and it was a big hit with everyone.
Hot Honey Chicken Tacos with Ranch Slaw and Crispy Onions – I loved loved loved this “oven ready” meal kit.
Tortillas Elotes Risotto with Cotija cheese and Jalapeño – I loved this vegetarian option so much I ordered it twice!
Steak and Mushroom Herb Demi with Brussels Sprout Risotto – Yum, yum.
Creamy Mustard Shrimp Cavatappi with Garlic Bread – Such a unique and yummy pasta option.
The Negatives
In case you couldn’t tell, I overall LOVED Home Chef, however, there were a few drawbacks. It was a little more expensive than the other meal delivery services, but I didn’t mind that because it was worth it too me. The kids still didn’t love these meals, so I’m still hoping we find one the kids love as much as we do. Wishful thinking probably.
The only other thing I didn’t like was the recipe cards were a bit confusing. I ordered the 4 person plan but the recipe cards were written for the 2 person plan. I ended up having to double some of the ingredients – the things I had on hand – like it would call for a half cup water and I would have to add a full cup. It was a little confusing and took some time to figure out. Not a big deal, but I do wish the cards had the instructions for the number of meals you ordered.
Cost Breakdown
I’m going to compare the costs of the first 3 boxes we received vs. the first three boxes of the other services. We only did 3 boxes with Marley Spoon since we disliked it so much.
| Box #1 | Box #2 | Box #3 | |
| Every Plate | $56.83 for 3 meals ($18.90 per meal and $4.74 per serving) | $44.87 for 3 meals ($14.96 per meal and $3.74 per serving) | $44.87 for 3 meals ($14.96 per meal and $3.74 per serving) |
| Marley Spoon | $72.77 for 3 meals ($24.26 per meal and $6.06 per serving) | $107.58 for 3 meals ($35.86 per meal and $8.97 per serving) | $107.58 for 3 meals ($35.86 per meal and $8.97 per serving) |
| Home Chef | $94.40 for 3 meals ($31.47 per meal and $7.87 per serving) | $102.40 for 3 meals ($34.13 per meal and $8.53 per serving) | $115.54 for 3 meals ($38.51 per meal and $9.63 per serving) |
The Verdict on Home Chef
Love it. I’m committing to trying the different services, but honestly if I don’t find one I like better I’ll come back to Home Chef. It’s so fun getting to try 3 or 4 new meals a week. And they were delicious. We really loved the taste of the meals.
Super Quick Meal Plan Comparison
| Everyplate | Marley Spoon | Home Chef | |
| Cost | √ | ||
| Food Taste | √ | ||
| Quality of Ingredients | √ | ||
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Ease of Using Recipe Cards | √ | ||
| Customer Service | √ | ||
| Food Choices | √ | ||
| App | √ | ||
| Flexibilty | √ |
I did have to call customer service twice. Once I got a half the ingredients from a recipe I didn’t order. A similar situation happened once with each services we used. I like the way Home Chef handled it the best. They just immediately issued me a refund, were very apologetic and offered more money back than the other two services.
I also called them to see if we could get them to deliver a box to my inlaws house. They were very helpful and we were able to use our Home Chef meals at my inlaws. The folks were very impressed with the quality of the meals as well.
In June I’m trying the Hello Fresh meal plan and I’ll be back to tell you all about it! Have you tried any of these meal delivery services? Have any thoughts? Let me know below!
April
Home Chef Unsponsored Review
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