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.
DEAL: Get $30 of free food when you sign up – just use this link to get the deal!
LIMITED TIME: Get $20 off your first 4 boxes when you sign up – that’s $80 in total! Just use coupon code MARCH80 and use this link to subscribe. Offer expires 03/03.
Let’s get cooking!
My items were kept nice and cold with this special insulation. 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).
More ice packs were under the bags and above the raw meat.
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!
Everything in my box! One product leaked a bit and everything smelled like pineapple! Luckily the pineapple juice just ended up on the plastic bags.
There was a promo for Grove Collaborative.
Coq Au Vin With Bone-In Chicken (50 minutes, Intermediate, 607 calories per serving) Each meal comes with a recipe card with all of the info you need to complete your meal.
The instructions are helpful and there is an approximate time given for each meal so you can plan ahead.
Everything arrived in perfect order. I just had to do some cleaning and prep.
I got the potatoes on to cook and then chopped some mushrooms and stripped thyme leaves off the stems.
I browned the breasts, which finished cooking in the oven.
While the breasts were baking I sauteed the mushrooms and onions before sticking them on the same roasting sheet as the chicken.
I made the wine sauce. Turn up that heat to cook out the liquid.
Add butter and thyme to give it a wonderfully rich flavor and mouthfeel.
Ta-da! I poured a little pool of sauce on the plate, topped with a breast and vegetables, and served the mashed potatoes on the side. Throw some of the thyme on top for a pretty touch. The chicken was juicy and the sauce helped the flavors pop. The potatoes were mashed in the pot with a hand held masher but if you want them smooth then I would suggest using a hand mixer.
Avocado & Beet Poke Bowl (40 minutes, Easy, 734 calories per serving) Next is a meatless meal. Please note that I have never tried an authentic raw fish poke bowl so I can’t really compare the two.
I read through the instructions, although I forgot to remove the avocado to check for ripeness. Luckily I had a ripe one on hand.
Everything looks good. I started the rice first.
Then I chopped the veggies and separated them as the card directed. The red stuff on the board is from where I trimmed the beets.
The beets took a little longer to cook than I thought they would, but that could be because I made them too big, or used the wrong temperature, or whatever. When they were done they were good.
I tossed the salad ingredients. I also made the Yum Yum sauce, but it looked weird. The mayo didn’t emulsify, maybe there was too much ponzu. I just added extra mayo, placed it in a bigger bowl, and whipped it with a whisk. No problem!
Here’s the whole shebang but without the Yum Yum sauce, which I drizzled over the top after this picture was shot. Oh my gosh, this was so good! I love beets and the ginger added a nice touch. The avocado made it all creamy while the salad added crunch and the rice added warmth. So tasty and so much food, I couldn’t finish all of my serving!
Blue Hawaii Smoothie with Blueberries and Pineapple (5-10 minutes, Easy, 221 calories per serving) I added a smoothie pack to my order, which means my shipping was free!
This is a no-brainer: just open it all up and throw in the blender with ice and give it a whirl.
Yum! Don’t you love these cute glasses? They were in the February CatLadyBox! The smoothie was a little on the tart side but was refreshing and made for a good meal replacement when I didn’t want a heavy dinner since I had a big, late lunch.
Home Chef always provides tasty meals and I feel like the value is always there. The ingredients were fresh, the items were still cold, and the recipes easy to follow and tasty. I like that some of the recipes can sit in the fridge for a while, I made the poke bowl almost a week after receiving the box and it was all in perfect condition. I paid $49.70 for this shipment, and my shipping was free thanks to the added smoothie pack.
Have you tried Home Chef? What did you think of your meals?
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