Home Chef is on a mission to make home cooking simple. They wanna make sure you get the optimal meal kit for your preferences, and thus offer kits suitable for different lifestyles. Whether you fancy low-carb, vegetarian, or feel like trying out new techniques behind the kitchen desk, there's a kit for you!
Home Chef is a meal kit delivery service as flexible as your yoga teacher. Choose between putting together your own recipes each week, or letting the culinary team select for you if decision fatigue hits. Want dinner on the table within 15 minutes? Then the Fresh and Easy will fulfill your wishes with quick and simple dishes!
The company was founded in 2013 and delivered no less than 10 million meals in 2019! In this review, we'll cover all you need to know to decide if Home Chef is the meal kit service for you. Put on your apron, roll up your sleeves, and let's get started!
Take a look at where Home Chef ranks on our meal kit delivery services review.
Home Chef At A Glance
- Best Match For: People looking for a flexible service to help them eat healthily and improve cooking skills without stressing about grocery shopping and meal prepping.
- Commitment Level: Weekly subscription
- Availability: 98% of zip codes in the US
- Value: Starting at $8.99/serving; Minimum weekly order is $49.95
- Type: Fresh meal kits (needs to be cooked)
How Home Chef Works
Home cooking can bring a lot of joy and be a welcome mindfulness activity. After all, there's something special about having a hearty meal that you've cooked on your own!
That said, everyone would probably agree that today's busy lifestyle looks different from the era of housewives with hours to dedicate to cooking. Some days, you just want something quick and easy – without compromising on taste and nutrition. As an answer from above, the meal delivery service Home Chef was born!
Meal delivery services show you a new way of enjoying cooking, without needing to go to the grocery store, engage in meal planning, or being a skilled chef sensing the exact quantity of each ingredient. Each week, there are new recipes to choose from, created by their chefs.
Easy Customization
Home Chef has specialized in offering a lot of customization. When you order from them, simplicity is key. Start by telling what you like and what you don't like. Based on that, you'll receive a list of recommendations that fit your tastes.
You can also look outside of the suggestions and choose freely between the 15+ recipes available each week. The meal types offered are lunch, dinner, and something in between.
Your Home Chef box then arrives at your doorstep – think fresh, high-quality ingredients that can't wait to be prepared by you. You also get instructive recipe cards with pictures and step-by-step instructions.
Number of Servings
Home Chef is one of the top meal services with family meal plans. Many meals come with the possibility of choosing between two, four, or six servings – even up to eight for the bigger family or when you have friends over! Just click the plus sign when ordering to increase the number of portions.
Mobile App
Home Chef has created its own app, letting you order your dishes on the go. The app is simple and straightforward.
On the main page, you find each week’s recipes as a sliding carousel, with options to add or change in the same way you would on the website.
The My Cookbook tab stores recipes that you have cooked or favorited. The My Account tab allowed us to change settings, pause the account, or send a message to customer service.
On the mobile app, you can use the Shopping List feature to create a shopping list, which automatically includes the ingredients you need for a meal.
The perfect option if you wanna make meals at home with ingredients from the grocery store.
You can also rate recipes under My Cookbook. The feedback goes straight to the culinary team. If you rate your favorite meal, chances are it will make a comeback on the menu for Home Chef!
You can also buy Home Chef kits in selected grocery stores across the US.
What You Can Expect From Your Meal
Home Chef offers two main plans: Standard and Fresh and Easy. Standard contains a mix of familiar meals and fresh flavors with a high probability to please your palate.
Fresh and Easy serves you meals with little prep, minimal cleaning, and simple cooking – think salads and oven-ready dishes. Both options come with easy-to-follow recipe cards.
Within the menus, you can filter for other criteria – such as vegetarian or oven-ready.
Nutritional Information
You find nutritional information per serving by simply clicking the recipe on the website, or on the recipe cards in pdf-form.
Calorie Conscious
Home Chef offers special meals in the categories Calorie-Conscious, with less than 625 calories per serving. You can identify these recipes by the heart symbol next to the recipe. Each week, at least three options on the menu are calorie-conscious.
Carb Conscious
Carb-Conscious means meals with less than 35 grams of carbs per serving. Look for the orange toast-shaped symbol next to a recipe. At least three options per week are carb-conscious.
Sometimes Organic
Home Chef works with different suppliers for each week, depending on the ingredients. The focus is on high-quality products. While they choose organic and responsible sources whenever available, not all ingredients are organically sourced.
Oven-Ready
Oven Ready meals are for those days when you're in a rush. They come with fresh pre-portioned ingredients inside an oven-safe tray, meaning dinner is ready in no time, and clean-up is easy as pie!
Customize It
Some recipes come with the feature Customize It, allowing you to substitute the protein source. You can also add more of the protein to an additional cost.
Track Your Macros
If you're interested in tracking your daily nutrient intake, you can upload the recipes to a fitness app. Many Home Chef customers are avid users of these apps, so you'll often find that the recipe has already been uploaded by a fellow customer.
Sample Meals
Though Home Chef is one of the cheapest meal delivery services, premium meals are special meals at a slightly higher price than the standard menu items.
The meat in the premium meals is sourced at market price in limited amounts.
You'll also get some holiday specials which sometimes include multiple sides and one dessert!
Here are some meals from the Home Chef menu that specifically speaks to our palates:
Home Chef goes out of their way to spice things up in your cooking life by offering new, exciting recipes each week. Let variety set the tone for your everyday dinners through their many meal options – no more being stuck in a cooking rut!
Delivery
With Home Chef, you always get fresh food. Home Chef cares about the packaging – your deliveries come in a biodegradable, insulated box. The insulation is provided by water-soluble, cool gel packs so that your food stays refrigerated, not frozen.
Recycling
Recycling of the cardboard box and other containers is easy!
The cardboard boxes, bottles, and jars are fully recyclable in your curbside bin. Box liners are compostable or recyclable at select facilities.
The plastic meal bags and cooling packs can be recycled at a waste collection facility, where you bring your #4 and #5 plastics.
Ingredients come pre-measured and packed in their own bags to remove the confusion and make it easy for you to match the right foods with the right recipes.
The recipe cards come with information on when each ingredient should be consumed for guaranteed freshness. For storage information for the individual items, throw an eye on the Home Chef website. See where Home Chef ranks on our list of eco friendly meal kit services.
Skip Meals
With Home Chef, it's easy to skip one, two, or multiple week(s) – perfect if you're away on vacation or miss the lines at the grocery store. Simply log in to your account, navigate to Your Upcoming Orders, and scroll to the weeks you'd like to skip. Click the Skip Weeks button.
Alternatively, you can skip an order by clicking Edit Meals, scrolling to the bottom of the menu, and clicking Skip this delivery.
You can also pause your subscription indefinitely by clicking My Account in the upper right corner of your dashboard, then head to the Account Information tab. Under the Delivery Details section, cancel your subscription by selecting Pause Your Subscription. You'll be redirected to a screen where you can choose the reason for your cancellation.
Just make sure to inform Home Chef at the latest on Friday one week prior to your scheduled delivery.
Edit Orders
To edit an order, perform the following steps:
- Visit the Upcoming Orders page on your account.
- Scroll to the delivery you'd like to edit
- Click the button that says Edit Basket. This will redirect you to the page where you edit your meals.
- The meals in your current order will have a green bar under the menu card. To remove a meal, click the Trash Can icon. To add a meal, click the Plus Sign.
- Press the Plus Sign again to add more servings. You can add up to eight servings per meal.
- When you're happy with your modifications, click Save at the top.
Add a Side Dish
Home Chef comes with the possibility to automatically add a side dish whenever available:
- Click on the Account dropdown in the upper right corner of your account dashboard
- Then click Account Information.
- Scroll down to the section titled Manage Your Weekly Side Dish Subscriptions and add your side dish there.
Note that side dishes are not offered every week.
FAQS
This meal kit delivery service is a good deal for the one who wants weekly meal kit delivery suitable for any skill level – the different options cater to all levels of experience, from complete beginners to those looking for a fun and playful kitchen challenge.
Whip up restaurant-worthy meals satisfying your taste profile in as little as 15 minutes, and go for the Fresh and Easy options during those days when cooking isn't a priority.
Yes, Home Chef is easy to cancel – no need to call or email customer service! Simply log in to your account, and click your way to Account Information > Delivery Details > Pause Your Subscription. This puts your account on an indefinite break, and you won't receive any new boxes until you reactivate it.
Like so many other things in life, it depends. In this Home Chef review, we covered some of the pros with Home Chef – such as the possibility of letting you choose your food preferences freely, without being restricted to a number of servings per week or a specific diet.
Yes! Home Chef delivery areas cover 98% of the US population. For everything shipping information, have a look at their website.
Home Chef Costs
Home Chef allows you to order any number of meals and extras you want each week. The prices start at $8.99 per serving, and there is a minimum weekly order of $49.95.
Pros & Cons
Home Chef offers a lot of flexibility when it comes to combining your meals and choosing different types of meal kits: quick, premium, and low-carb, to mention a few.
For some meals, you can swap the type or increase the amount of proteins, to make sure to get a meal pleasing both your taste buds and biceps size.
They are also generous both with portion sizes and the number of portions – order up to eight servings!
You find special recipe categories that you won't find elsewhere, such as Grill-Ready.
These meals are made for endless barbecue nights with family and friends!
Simply assemble the ingredients in a grill-safe bag and throw it on the grill for a quick meal full of flavor.
Each recipe card is perforated so that you can put them into a binder and create your own cookbook with your new favorites to cook over and over!
It is also easy to change delivery frequency and what weekday you will receive your box – something that is not standard for all meal kit delivery companies.
There's also the possibility of earning commissions by becoming a partner and recommending Home Chef to people in your network.
While there are weekly vegetarian options, keep in mind that Home Chef does not guarantee regular vegan options. Also, there are no special kits excluding common allergens. The premium options have higher ingredient quality – but the regular recipes are usually not organic, wild-caught, and antibiotic-free.
Food for Thought
The many meals and customization options, together with easy-to-follow recipes makes Home Chef a favorite among companies delivering meal kits.
Tweak the number of meals per week according to your tastes, and skip the prep work with Fresh and Easy.
This Home Chef review reveals that the company might be the one for you if you're looking to get delivery of meal kits for at least two days per week, for bigger families since it serves up to eight people, and for those wanting simplicity and a pause from the everyday puzzle rather than rocking recipes that are super healthy or of the highest quality.
Home Chef meal kits make it easy to reply to "what's cooking?" with pride (and "parmesan-coated bok choy"!).
Home Chef