Home Chef is a subscription meal delivery service that sends a weekly box of “perfectly portioned, premium ingredients, spices & sauces, and easy, step-by-step recipes.
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The Subscription Box: Home Chef
The Cost: Meals start at $9.95 per serving, and delivery is free for orders over $40.
COUPON: Get $30 off your first box from Home Chef. No coupon required, just use this link.
The Products: Fresh ingredients and chef-designed recipes— everything you need to make restaurant-quality meals at home.
Ships to: 90% of the U.S. (You can check to see if Home Chef delivers to your zip code here.)
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When you first sign up for Home Chef, you take a short quiz about your meal preferences and dietary restrictions.
Based on this quiz, Home Chef selects meals for you each week. If you’d rather receive different meals, it’s easy to swap them. You can also skip a week whenever you like.
I think the Home Chef website is very user-friendly, and I like how many meal options they offer. Most weeks, Home Chef offers 10 dinner options, a breakfast, a smoothie, and a fruit basket.
When my box shipped, I received an email with tracking information.
Ingredients for each meal are bundled together in plastic, and meats are always packed separately at the bottom of the box under ice packs to help maintain freshness.
Now, on to the food!
Meal #1- Bangkok Lemongrass-Basil Shrimp Fried Rice with Sugar Snap Peas and Carrots
Calories: 488 per serving
Prep Time: 30-40 minutes
Difficulty: Easy
I love cooking at home, but I’m definitely more comfortable cooking certain types of cuisine over others. Thai food is one type of cuisine that puts me firmly outside of my comfort zone, so I jumped at the opportunity to make this Bangkok-style Fried Rice at home.
After cleaning and prepping my veggies, I cooked the rice and sautéed the provided shrimp in olive oil.
I set the shrimp aside when it was cooked through, and I used the same pot to cook carrots, peas, garlic, and lemongrass puree.
I waited until the veggies started to soften, and then I added in the cooked rice and a little bit of brown stir-fry sauce. When the stir-fry sauce fully absorbed into the rice, I stirred in the cooked shrimp, some sriracha, and Thai basil.
I love sriracha, so I topped each plate with some additional sauce.
This dish was full of flavor and really easy to make! (It even tasted a bit like actual take out!) I loved the layers of salty, spicy flavor, and I appreciated the addition of the sugar snap peas— they added a much needed freshness that kept this dish from being too heavy.
Meal #2- Korean Pork Medallions with Sriracha Marinade and Crunchy Rice Vinegar Slaw
Calories: 614 per serving
Prep Time: 30-40 minutes
Difficulty: Easy
Next, I picked out this recipe for Korean Pork Medallions. (I picked a pork loin dish last month and really loved it, so I was keen to pick this protein again.)
The prep for this dish was really easy. The cabbage came pre-chopped, so I only had to slice the pork loin into medallions, chop green onions, mince some garlic, and slice a Fresno chile.
I tossed the cabbage with a dressing of rice vinegar, sesame oil, and green onions. For the pork, I marinated the medallions in soy sauce, rice vinegar, brown sugar, sriracha, ginger, and garlic, and then cooked them in a nonstick pan over medium heat.
I divided the slaw between two plates, topped each one with chiles and green onions, and plated the medallions on the side.
The pork medallions were delicious, but I didn’t love the slaw. (I never really love slaw, though, so I can’t really blame the recipe.) I also found that I was hungry again pretty soon after dinner. I think a little bit of rice with this dish would have been a nice addition.
Meal #3- Pulled Ranch Chicken Sandwich with Loaded Potato Wedges
Calories: 817 per serving
Prep Time: 30-40 minutes
Difficulty: Easy
My last meal pick this week was this recipe for Pulled Ranch Chicken Sandwiches. Unfortunately, my box arrived without the buns! I reached out to Home Chef about this oversight, and I received a credit of $10. (I picked up some buns from the grocery store to use instead.)
First, I cut a potato into wedges, tossed the wedges with olive oil and seasoning, and roasted them in the oven. While the potatoes cooked, I seared chicken breasts on the stovetop and then finished them in the oven alongside the wedges.
After the chicken cooked and cooled, I shredded it and mixed in some ranch seasoning. I toasted the buns, spread on a mix of sour cream and hot sauce, loaded up the buns with chicken, added a slice of cheddar, and topped the buns with greens.
I plated the sandwiches alongside the potato wedges and garnished them with sour cream and scallions.
These sandwiches were really tasty. My only complaint is that, while the ranch flavor of the chicken was great, the meat was a little messy. (I think pulled meats benefit from a little bit of sauce to help bind everything together. I had a hard time keeping the shredded chicken in my sandwich and not scattered all over the plate.) Still, that’s a minor complaint— the sandwiches were tasty! I liked the wedges, too, and the sour cream and scallions were a nice change from my usual ketchup.
Verdict: Home Chef offers great variety when it comes to meal selection, and I like that the menus often feature classic dishes and comfort foods. I really enjoyed all of my meal picks this week! In terms of value, Home Chef is very competitively priced in the meal box subscription market. Their meals start at $9.95 per serving, which is cheaper than Plated ($12 per serving) and on par with Blue Apron ($9.99 per serving) and Hello Fresh ($9.99 per serving).
Do you subscribe to Home Chef? Which dishes did you pick last week?