Home Chef is a meal in a box subscription – every week, you choose from a variety of recipes and have all the ingredients and preparation instructions delivered to your door. The basic concept is the same as other weekly meal delivery services, but it has its own unique features and recipes.
Home Chef has a huge selection of meal options to choose from each week, including some Asian, Indian, African, and South American inspired dishes among their more traditional American home-style and steakhouse fare, and the portions are the most generous among the meal kit subscriptions we review regularly!
Meal selections are suggested automatically according to a profile you fill out noting your family’s preferences, but you can change your selections any time. Home Chef offers an incredible 10 selections available for 2, 4, or 6 people, a breakfast choice, a smoothie choice, and a fruit basket selection. The portions are huge, and this is currently the least expensive and has the most choice out of any similar major subscriptions (for 2 people) – $9.95 per person per selection (they typically have one meal a week that’s a premium meal).
DEAL: Get $30 of free food when you sign up – just use this link to get the deal!
The food is packed in puffy, padded cooler pads, with each meal packed in a separate bag containing nearly everything needed to make a complete meal. The box is always packed with several ice packs.
The recipe cards display prep time, difficulty, a “best cooked by” time frame, and even a spice level. There is also a list of stuff you may need from your own kitchen such as cookware and salt and pepper. You have to have a basic kitchen set-up (stove/oven, cookware, etc.), but a couple tablespoons of cooking oil and salt and pepper are usually the only ingredients you have to have at home – the even include liquid egg (instead of expecting you to have eggs on hand), and oil for shallow-frying when a recipe calls for more than a few tablespoons worth.
The back of the card has the actual recipe guidance, complete with pictures and bold-facing of ingredients. The recipes are accompanied by pro-tips and explanations of cooking terminology and techniques. The tips appear in a sidebar so they don’t clutter the actual recipe. I love that they include a heads-up for when ingredients are divided and used in different parts of the dish.
The prep is done is a sensible order, with long lead time items first. This helps everything finish cooking close to the same time. The recipe cards have pre-punched holes so you can store them in a recipe binder – we usually prefer to just wait till the recipe is offered again instead of attempting to gather the ingredients to recreate it ourselves.
Each recipe was packed separately, and neatly, in its own bag, except for a few larger items. Unless otherwise noted, each of the pictures of prepared food below shows one of two servings made by each recipe.
Winter Medley Fruit Basket With Blood Orange, Kiwi, Apples, And A Navel Orange. 184 calories per serving. The selection changes throughout the year, with apples, pears, and citrus being quite common. This set had a diverse collection of fruit! It is always firm and superb in quality.
Hawaiian Bbq Pork Medallions With Pineapple-Sriracha Glaze And Sesame Slaw. 30-40 minutes, easy, 433 calories per serving.
The sweet glaze was perfect for serving with pork, and the dish was very easy to make. The pre-cut slaw required no effort other than pouring in a few ingredients. The tenderloin was very tender and delicious.
Thai Turkey Lettuce Wraps With Water Chestnuts And Sesame Dipping Sauce. 25-35 minutes, easy, 576 calories per serving.
I liked how simple these were to make, with only the main filling needing any cooking. Great texture and flavor, making this a light dish that is satisfying, too. The lettuce leaves worked great as cups (I believe they were Boston or Butter Lettuce). Our only issue was the dipping sauce – while it makes a fine dressing for salad, it was wholly unnecessary for this already superbly-flavored dish.
Sirloin Steak With Brown Butter Bordelaise With Brussels Sprouts And Roasted Potatoes. 35-45 minutes, easy, 734 calories per serving.
The steak and sauce was great – tender and flavorful meat with an incredibly luxurious sauce. The Brussels sprouts were good, but we haven’t had tons of luck roasting vegetables lately (I think our convection oven may dry them out a bit instead of just browning). The potatoes were fantastic as prepared, but we didn’t get very much potato – half of our single spud was soft and unusable. This was unusual for Home Chef, as everything is usually in great condition. This dish took a bit of time, as the potatoes required a three-step cooking process, but it was simple to do, so long as you have an oven-safe pan that also can be fitted with a lid.
Altogether, we were pleased with this set of meals. Steak is always great, and we love the Asia-Pacific style sauces, with their great sweet, salt, and umami balance.
Have you tried Home Chef? What did you think of your meals?
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