Are Meal Delivery Services Worth It? My Home Chef Review

Home Chef has a clear, three-step process on its website that will walk you through how everything works, alongside a number of different meal categories to help you choose what you’d like. 

The full menu for that week is available to browse, and each comes with an estimated prep time, difficulty level, spice and allergen information, and a description from the chef that prepared the meal, which is a nice touch. 

The Home Chef app is a trimmed-down version of its web-based cousin but is still very intuitive to use. You can manage orders, cancel a delivery and even speak to customer service from your mobile device. The app is available for both Android and iOS.

It only takes a few minutes to sign up, but if you already have a grocery account with the Kroger retail company, you can sign up instantly as Home Chef is now part of the Kroger group. 

Whichever meals you choose, you’ll need to decide how many you’d like delivered each week. Dishes can be ordered for 2, 4 or 6 people and you can opt to have between 2-6 dishes per person, per week.  Home Chef offers fully customizable packages so there are no specific boxes to choose from. However, recipes can be broken down into the following categories to help you decide:

Home Chef goes all out to provide a huge variety of dishes from across the globe each week. Current favorites include:

Meat lovers can even order additional protein packs and surf & turf options to boost those gym gains. The basic booster pack nets you six chicken breasts and 30 oz of ground beef.

There are usually between 20 – 30 recipes to choose from each week, and it’s entirely up to you which ones you’d like. You can opt to pay a little extra for some of the premium dishes, and there are options for those counting the calories too. 

Each meal is priced individually, so how much you’ll be charged will depend on which meals you choose and how many people you’re cooking for. Shipping is free on all orders above $45, and shipping costs for cheaper orders will vary by state and location.

If you use the average cost of $6.99 per meal you can expect the following charges:

Home Chef doesn’t offer any meals for specific diets like keto or vegan, but you can find some calorie counter options if you’re looking to lose weight. However, you’ll need to manage your intake yourself and there are no accompanying diet plans.

You can filter meals on certain allergens, like nuts and shellfish, but if you have severe allergies there isn’t enough information in the ingredients list to be fully confident it’s completely safe. As the menu is always changing there could be trace amounts of certain ingredients that remain.

The home page for the website for Home Chef is clean and clear, with simple instructions. Once you click ‘Pick Your Meals’, a questionnaire pops up to understand your food preferences and possible dietary restrictions. 

The options included the standard ‘home chef’ package and the ‘fresh and easy’ package, which includes easy to make meals. You can also choose ‘calorie conscious’ or ‘carb conscious’ meals, and what proteins you prefer. 

Home Chef does not have any specific pantry boxes for keto, paleo, or vegan diets. When it comes to servings and recipes, you can choose 2,4, or 6 portions for 2,3,4,5, or 6 recipes a week. Home Chef is best for couples and larger families. With the option of ordering 6 recipes a week, the maximum number of recipes would be nearly one per day of the week. This makes quick, pre-planned meals for the family easy. Each week has around 13 recipes to choose from and for the most part, the menu is made up of classic American dishes. The two recipes I chose came out to $49.95 with shipping and tax, which is somewhat expensive for homemade meals. It may still be worth it for the ease of not having to grocery shop and plan meals.

I ordered my meal delivery box on Wednesday, September 1st, and the earliest delivery possible was Monday, September 6th. Even though Monday was Labor Day, the meal surprisingly arrived on time. I even received a few texts about the delivery before it arrived. It had an ETA of about 10:05am, and it arrived at the exact time it was estimated to arrive.

This box was well put together, and all of the ingredients were extremely well organized. It arrived without any damages, and the recipes were at the very top of the box so they would not get soggy. The ingredients were all packaged together by recipe making it easy to gather the ingredients. The proteins of each meal were frozen and packaged separately from the other ingredients. It was labeled and obvious which meat belonged to which recipe.

Each ingredient seemed to be high quality. I do not have any complaints since everything was packaged nicely and the produce looked very fresh. I also liked that they send recognizable brands such as Kraft mayonnaise and Shamrock butter. I read on their website that while most of their ingredients are not organic, they will occasionally have organic ingredients depending on the recipe. The lack of organic foods does not bother me, but Home Chef may not be for you if you only eat organic.

Both of the dishes I ordered were delicious. The rice was buttery and had a robust dill flavor, and the fish was soft, flakey, and incredible. The panko-crusted fish and the provolone chicken sandwich are now two new recipes that I would have never thought to cook at home.

The produce was incredibly fresh. In fact, the vegetables did not have any marks, bruises, or damages from shipping. The chicken breast and tilapia filets were also well cleaned and vacuum-sealed for maximum freshness.

I particularly liked the recipe cards from Home Chef and the small white binder that came with the meal box. It keeps all of the recipes together in one place and is very organized and easy to find. The recipe cards could also be found online.

Provolone Chicken Sandwich

The provolone chicken sandwich was considered an intermediate-level recipe, and it was not too difficult at all.

Panko-Crusted Tilapia

The panko-crusted tilapia was considered an expert-level recipe. It had many steps to follow and more ingredients to worry about than the provolone chicken sandwich recipe. To make the tilapia recipe, I had to use my grater to zest the lemon, but people who do not typically cook would most likely not have a grater. It would be wise to thoroughly check each recipe on the website before picking one to ensure you have all of the cooking supplies necessary for each dish.

Customers can choose to add smoothies to their orders at a cost of $4.95 per serving. Plus, Home Chef provides dozens of its smoothie recipes completely free of charge if you’d like to try making them yourself. 

Home Chef was awarded the number one spot in the meal kit delivery service category in a 2020 US grocery benchmark study. Customers are able to raise an email ticket on the website, in the app, or by calling the helpful service agents at the contact center.

In addition, you’ll find dozens of useful FAQs on the website alongside a light-hearted collection of blogs with cooking tips and extra recipes.

You can cancel your subscription at any time but you’ll need to do it in advance of your next order being processed. The deadline for cancellations is 12 PM Central time each Friday.