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. Their meal options include many great Asian, Indian, African, and South American inspired dishes, along with more traditional American home-style and steakhouse fare.
When you open your box it has the recipe cards on top and special packing to keep it insulated. This is more environmentally friendly than styrofoam and is just shredded cotton clothing wrapped in plastic. You can slit the plastic and throw the contents in the trash or compost and then recycle the plastic. Everything looked good and was cold, the ice packs are doing their job!
Home Chef offers at least 10 selections available for 2, 4, or 6 people, plus a smoothie choice and a fruit basket selection. Meals for your box are suggested based on your preferences, but you can change the selections any time. The portions are large, 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 option a week that’s a premium meal and costs a little more, though).
The raw meat was wrapped separately and placed in its own zipper bag to avoid cross contamination. The rest of the items were packed together depending on which recipe they belong to. I ordered two meals for two, and a smoothie add-on, which means my shipping was free!
DEAL: Get $30 of free food when you sign up – just use this link to get the deal!
Each meal comes with a recipe card that lists cook time, difficulty level, spice level, and ingredients found in the box.
The back of the card lists the instructions and mentions the basic cooking items and pans you will need to provide.
Greek Flatbread with Roasted Red Peppers and Kalamata Olives (40 minutes, Easy, 752 calories per serving) I went with a meatless main dish and chose a flatbread pizza since I was really happy with one I ordered previously. All of the ingredients were in excellent shape.
I started by prepping and then sauteing the red onions.
I added Balsamic vinegar to the tomatoes and sliced the olives.
The onions looked (and smelled) wonderful.
I assembled the pizzas and baked as directed.
Looking good!
Here’s the finished product with the arugula topping. It made two huge servings and tasted so good. I’ve learned to love arugula thanks to this subscription box.
Groovy Ruby Smoothie with Blueberries and Raspberries (10 minutes, Easy, 118 calories per serving) I’ve been getting the smoothie add-on lately and have been impressed with the flavors. Of course, just dumping everything in the blender and letting it do its thing is super easy.
I placed everything in the blender and only needed to add ice from my freezer.
It made two servings, although they were smaller than some of the other smoothies I’ve made from this sub.
Steak Au Poivre With Roasted Onion Mashed Potatoes (50 minutes, Intermediate, 696 calories per serving) I picked a nice steak dinner to share with my husband. I received an email saying that Home Chef was replacing the cremini mushrooms with white mushrooms but that preparation and flavor would be the same, so I was surprised to see cremini mushrooms in the bag.
I started by cleaning and prepping the veggies.
I placed the onions on one side of a baking sheet, mushrooms on the other. I was supposed to line the pan with foil but I ran out midweek and just knew I might have to soak the pan afterwards.
I patted the steaks dry before sprinkling with pepper and cooking it in olive oil. Drying the meat helps it develop a good crust.
My steaks were very thick so halfway through I decided to butterfly them to help them cook faster.
Some of my onions got a little too brown, I should have stirred them earlier. I also made the mashed potatoes and skillet sauce.
I decided to slice my steak to help it look better before plating. The sauce was so good, I’ve never used demi-glace before but it sure gave some deep flavor quickly. My potatoes were a little chunky but then I usually mash them with a hand mixer so it wasn’t quite as smooth as my go-to recipe. The servings were huge and I decided it needed something green and served a salad on the side.
I really enjoyed the meals I made with the help of Home Chef! I like that there is a wide variety of foods to choose from and now they can be customized even more due to recent changes on the Home Chef website. Switch ground beef for ground turkey, or swap chicken breasts for pork chops. Everything else will remain the same, but you can now switch up the protein in some recipes. Look for items with the “Customize It” symbol. I paid $49.70 for the two meals and smoothie ingredients in my November box.
Have you tried Home Chef? What did you think of your meals?
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