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Home Chef Review

article by Sandra Trentino author March 22, 2020
our score
Home Chef is a meal delivery service where fresh ingredients are delivered to your door on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. Customers can choose Home Chef meals based on their taste preferences, special dietary requirements or budget.
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pros
  • Good choice of meals
  • Easy recipes
  • Flexible subscription
  • Minimize food waste
  • Student discount
cons
  • Can be expensive
  • No regular vegan options
  • Not good for people with severe allergies
we would recommend Home Chef for those that are new to meal delivery services
Sandra Trentino, author
Meal Delivery Services_icons_80x80_Vegetarian Meals Vegetarian Meals
Meal Delivery Services_icons_80x80_Low Calorie Meals-Low Carb Meals Low Calorie Meals/Low Carb Meals
Meal Delivery Services_icons_80x80_Meat-Fish-Shellfish Meals Meat/Fish/Shellfish Meals
Meal Delivery Services_icons_80x80_Allergen-Free Meals Allergen-Free Meals

COVID-19: our readers have quickly understood the benefits and convenience of ordering a meal delivery service during this global coronavirus outbreak. Because of higher-than-usual order volumes due to the quarantine, Home Chef might be experiencing slight delays in delivery. Stay healthy and safe!

Home Chef can take the stress away from meal planning and grocery shopping because everything is ready to go, once your meals have been selected online. Meals are delivered with simple, easy-to-use recipe cards, which also give handy hints and tips on how to prepare your meals. The Home Chef box even includes plating suggestions, so customers can make their meals look totally Instagrammable as well as tasting good. In this Home Chef review, we will look at the services offered, prices, variety and ease of use. Is this the right meal delivery service for you?

Read on to find out…

Ease of Use Ease of Use

The best thing about the Home Chef meal delivery service is that it’s simple to use. How does Home Chef work? The website is easy to navigate and signing up for the Home Chef box is super quick. There’s also a Home Chef app you can use which makes the process even easier. The online meal selection process is easy and gives you a good variety of Home Chef menu options to choose from, based on your preferred tastes, dietary requirements and any allergies you may have. Using simple online tools, you can choose how many people you are cooking for and how many times a week you would like to cook. Remember: the meal delivery subscription is pretty flexible too, so you can choose to opt out of selected days, take a break from the meal plan or cancel if you decide that it’s not for you.

Once you are signed up and have paid for your first delivery, you are ready to go. Meals arrive in a recyclable box with ice packs inside to chill the ingredients. It’s best to be home when the Home Chef delivery arrives or there is a possibility that the ice will melt and ingredients could lose their freshness. The meal ingredients are all individually packaged which makes the cooking process even easier as there is hardly any meal prep involved. Meal packages contain all of the ingredients that you will need but you will need basic store-cupboard items too, such as: salt, pepper and olive oil etc You’ll have a list with your packages telling you if any additional ingredients are needed.

Meals are easy to prepare and take approximately 30 minutes from start to finish. The recipe cards are simple to use and provide helpful tips and plating suggestion so you can make your meals look pretty as well as tasting great. Generally speaking, Home Chef is one of the most basic home delivery services around and meals are generally thought to be high quality, tasty yet simple. Perfect for newbies, not so great for advanced cooks.

Plans Plans

The Home Chef meal delivery service provides a nice variety of meal options each week and you can plan your meals up to five weeks in advance. Every week, Home Chef offers 16 different meal options (18 total choices) based on your meal preferences. When you select your meal preferences you are given a first optional choice to say whether you would prefer meat, seafood or vegetables.

The next (optional) stage is to select whether you would like your meal low carb or low calorie – perfect for those who are trying to stay trim or lose weight. The final stage of the meal selection process is to select from a range of allergens, food ingredients you wish to avoid. These are: pork, soy, red meat, nuts, wheat, milk, mushrooms and shellfish. Please note: Home Chef isn’t a certified allergen-free facility as the food is packaged in the same location. Therefore those with severe allergies may wish to avoid the services of Home Chef.

Generally speaking, we found that the meal menu options were varied enough during the month and provided a nice variety of ingredients. Obviously, this is minimized should your dietary requirements be extensive. For example, if you wanted to avoid wheat, dairy, nuts and fish then your options are going to be less extensive. We also found that there weren’t enough vegan options at Home Chef.

Meal Delivery Services_icons_80x80_Tasty Taste

How does the Home Chef menu taste? Probably the most important question regarding this home delivery service and something that will determine whether you choose to try the Home Chef box or not. The Home Chef menu isn’t the most adventurous meal delivery service available, but this isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

For cooking novices and wannabe chefs the Home Chef menu is perfect, as you will get to learn cooking basics and play around with new ingredients without having to employ complicated techniques. It’s also good for families as the recipes tend to include the type of homely meals that children would also enjoy eating and preparing.

While the menu is homely, it isn’t bland. Home Chef offers quirky options such as cauliflower “scampi” and Korean tacos as well as favourites such as chicken chowder and caesar salad. All in all, if you’re planning on trying a home delivery service for the first time then Home Chef is a pretty good option to start with. There is even “add-on” extras you can include to your plan, which range from breakfasts, smoothie ingredients, fresh fruit or premium meals, if you fancy something a little special on a particular day or week. If it’s not to your taste you’re able to cancel at any given time. Which is always a bonus!

Meal Delivery Services_icons_80x80_Convenience Convenience

While the notion of home chef services is one of convenience there are certain aspects of this particular plan that aren’t perfect. Depending on which area you live in the delivery options will differ but generally, delivery is available from Tues-Fri, which we found pretty limiting. Deliveries can be edited or you have the option to skip a delivery but this must be amended on the Friday prior to your scheduled delivery day. Shipping tends to be punctual and you also don’t need to be home to sign for the delivery.

However, we found this to be a little risky in certain areas where you don’t want a package left on your doorstep. It also could greatly reduce the freshness of the ingredients the longer the package is left outside. If your Home Chef box arrives damaged or the ingredients aren’t to a high-standard then the company is pretty good with refunding the cost of the meal. Individually packaged ingredients, easy-to-follow recipe cards and a simple Home Chef app means that this is one of the most convenient meal delivery services currently on the market.

Pricing Pricing

Meal delivery services aren’t cheap and while many people tell you that you can save money using a service such as this, we believe that buying your own ingredients and cooking your own meals is a cheaper option in the long-run. That, however, isn’t the point of this. Meal delivery services such as Home Chef are convenient and enable you to try meals that you might not have cooked before.

The shopping is done for you and delivered right to your door and the meals can be ready in as little as 30 minutes. If you were to compare the cost against a takeaway or meal out at a restaurant then Home Chef is good value for money as you’ll be getting high-quality ingredients at a lower price. Standard meal plans start from $19.90 for two servings to $39.80 for four servings. Lunches, fruit and premium meal options are charged extra.

Bottom Line Conclusion

If you’re looking for a better work/life balance, then using the Home Chef delivery service is guaranteed to make your life just that little bit easier. This meal delivery service is a good option for those that are looking for the following: convenience, new cooking experiences and more time. The Home Chef menu provides a good variety of meal options for those that eat fish, seafood and meat but might be a bit too limiting for vegetarians and vegans. Those that have severe allergies should also avoid the service as Home Chef isn’t a certified anti-allergen facility. The Home Chef meals are homely and simple to prepare. We also liked that when you were selecting your meal choices you can create a Taste Profile, so there is a permanent profile of the type of food you like to eat. While you’re not going to learn any highly-technical skills preparing these meals, you will get to prepare and eat dishes that you might have not created otherwise. The price points seemed pretty average for a meal delivery service but we did find that the additional fruit and smoothie option seemed very overpriced. In conclusion, we would recommend Home Chef for those that are new to meal delivery services and would like to try something different.