Our Family Loves Home Chef – Here’s Why

When you’ve got four mouths to feed, finding something everyone likes can be a challenge. Many times, my husband and I cook for us and let my kids eat a different meal. That helps us avoid always eating chicken nuggets for dinner and gives us more grown-up meals to choose from. It also helps pique the curiosity of the kids and at least gets them to try new foods. So when we decided to try meal kits, we landed on one in particular that was perfect for our family. 

The Perfect Meal Subscription Box for Us

Home Chef has perks that many of the other meal kit delivery services are missing. We were amazed at how easy and convenient it was to get started with Home Chef. 

Customization That Never Ends

With Home Chef, you can swap, upgrade, or even double the recipe protein. They let you choose steak, chicken (both antibiotic-free, organic, and standard), pork, fish, and vegetarian. This gives you 26 weekly options to mix and match with. You can also customize your delivery dates each week (currently, you choose between Tuesday-Friday delivery), skip a week, or even pause or cancel your subscription anytime.  You can also add on smoothies, lunch options, or all-meat packages. It’s pretty fabulous!

Quick, Easy Meals in About 30 Minutes

Probably one of the best things about this meal kit delivery service is that it’s so quick and easy to use. Each meal comes with easy-to-follow recipe cards that tell you everything you need to know about your meal. From nutritional info to the spice level to the difficulty level, you’ll know exactly what you’re getting into. They also give you a little information about the chef who created the meal and tell you exactly how much time the meal will take to prep and cook. 

Another great thing the meal kits offer is a note about the required ‘cook within’ time. This is very helpful for planning purposes. When we’ve hit a snag and needed to wait on a meal, this guides us and allows us to freeze the meal kit until we can use it. Home Chef also has something no other company has, and oven-ready mode. These are meals that are no-prep and come with the pan, too! Just put everything in the pan, pop it in the oven, and boom – dinner’s made. 

More for Your Money

The pricing is pretty flexible because you can choose what you want, and as long as you hit $49, your shipping is free. If you don’t get there, shipping is $10. The standard dinners are $9.95 per person, the 5-minute lunches are $7.99 per person, and the smoothie add-ons are $4.95 per person. There are upcharges for premium meals or specific customizations as well, but those vary. 

Our Favorite Foods

The meals are worth the money. They are easy, but also provide a way to try new things. My husband does complain that the time doesn’t always seem to be accurate, but he loves the meals. They are very flavorful, with sauce and topping options with almost all the recipes, which add even more flavor to the dishes. Here are a few of our favorites that the whole family loved.

  • One-Sheet Pretzel-Crusted Chicken: although we do have to add a side because one side just isn’t enough, the way they have you cook the broccoli and the crunch of the chicken are amazing. My one child that isn’t a chicken fan loves this dish. 
  • Sante Fe Pork and Potato Stew: this is by far one of the best dishes we’ve had. We used the leftovers (sometimes, we do have leftovers even with the meals for two) to create lunch tacos the next day. 
  • Beef Meatloaf Pizzailoa: this cheese-filled meatloaf topped with marinara sauce is delicious. The quality of meat from Home Chef is excellent, and we’ve always enjoyed the steaks as well. This dish comes with a side of mash potatoes. 

How it Works

Signing up for Home Chef is easy. Once you sign up, you can see six weeks of menus in advance, letting you customize up to 5 days until it ships. After you join, you fill out a personal taste profile so they can match you up with selections that meet your preferences. Then, they select your meals based on these preferences, just in case you forget to edit them so that way you still get a shipment, but you can go in and choose and customize your meals anytime. Each week, on your delivery day, you get your box delivered to you, and you’re ready to go! It’s super simple and a great way to add some convenient cooking to your life. 

Their customer service is top-notch too. Anytime we’ve had any issue (from missing recipe cards to missing meat), they’ve solved it right away.

More About Home Chef

Meal subscription box providers have been around since 2011, but Home Chef got its start in 2013. Owner Pat Vihelic partnered with a chef to create delicious, easy-to-follow recipes that would please the palate and the pocketbook. In the last year, they’ve delivered more than 10 million meals and are now available to more than 97% of the US. It was founded because the company believed it would save time, reduce food waste, and bring people together for home-cooked meals.

Extras Worth Noting

Home Chef offers a lot of extras to their customers, including the option to buy gift cards, shop for kitchenware, be an affiliate, or participate in their referral program. They also just partnered with Kroger to bring their meal kits to stores across the US.

Responsible Business Practices

Home Chef makes it easy to go green. They use the freshest ingredients from their community of trusted suppliers, choose partners who have sustainability practices they can trust, and sourced locally whenever possible. All of their meal kits have pre-portioned ingredients to help reduce food waste, and they package the kits in a recyclable box.

Special Considerations

If you’re looking for a special diet plan, Home Chef doesn’t have one, but they do work to include meal plans like Keto or Paleo into their weekly menu so that there are always options for everyone. They also try to get organic products when possible, but getting high-quality items and sourcing responsibly is more important to them. Each week, they also offer at least three calorie-conscious meals, which are less than 625 calories per serving, and at least three carb-conscious meals, which are less than 35 grams per serving. Icons located on the meal card will indicate which these are. As for vegetarian options, they do also offer these, and the variety is pretty good. Those with allergies do still need to be careful, as their facilities are not certified allergen-free.

Try Home Chef Today

If you’d like to try Home Chef as your next meal subscription box, we’ve got HomeChef.com Coupon Codes to help you save.