A Dietitian’s review of Homechef meal kit delivery. Is it healthy? Is it worth the cost? This review covers the pros & cons of this meal kit service!
You know what the number one question I hear as a Dietitian is? What meal delivery service do I recommend? For many years, I got questions from clients and readers asking which meal kit delivery service I recommended. I couldn’t really make a solid recommendation because I didn’t use any of them. So, I set out in 2020 to start reviewing some of the most popular services, including Sun Basket, HelloFresh, Daily Harvest, Green Chef, EveryPlate, Blue Apron, Smoothiebox, and Hungryroot (my favorite.) Today I’m reviewing a lifestyle blogger favorite: Home Chef
Keep in mind I’m slightly biased when reviewing these companies because, in a way, they do compete with my What to Eat? Weekly Meal Prep Guide & Meal Plans. Transparency is always important to me at Hungry Hobby, and if you came to read this post from a source such as Google or Pinterest, you might not know that. And I think it’s essential that you do.
What I think is interesting is Home Chef is a Chicago based company owned by Kroger. I guess Kroger thought meal kits were a natural extension of the grocery game. I think they were right because, in 2018, they started selling Green Chef meal kits in Kroger grocery stores. As far as my research can tell, they still sell them.
Note this post is not sponsored, but the links are affiliate links.
TOP 3 PROS OF USING HOME CHEF MEAL DELIVERY SERVICE
- Budget-friendly meals with large portion sizes.
- Time conscious meals, some options to buy pre-prepped ready to bake meals.
- A large variety of options, many healthy, delicious options to chose.
TOP 3 CONS OF USING EVERYPLATE MEAL DELIVERY SERVICE
- You must “know what you’re looking for” when picking healthy recipes.
- Limited options for unique dietary concerns.
- Shipping may cost extra for a two-person plan.
CUSTOMIZABLE VARIETY & DIETARY PREFERENCES
There are no meal plans, dietary preference information, and limited, restricted diet options such as vegetarian—only three vegetarian options per week. On the flip side, you’ll get 14 meal options to chose from each week, most of which are “familiar” type meals, nothing weird or exotic here.
NUTRITION
Pros: Good portion sizes. I find most meal kit delivery companies skimp on the portion sizes, but Home Chef did pretty well. They had a solid mix of healthy meals and higher-carb comfort meals to select. What I appreciated was that the portion sizes of even the low-carb meals were decent. For me, definitely, one serving was one serving. For Mr. Hungry, the one serving ran a little low on portion. (For reference, he is 6’2″ and very active, plays basketball and lifts heavy.) I think if you are a less active male, or trying to lose weight, these meals would probably work just fine!
Cons: The majority of the meal options are high-carb, classic comfort foods like enchiladas, mac, and cheese, etc. The healthy meal options were obvious but limited.
Delivery
Pros: Everything was nice and cold, clean, obvious packaging (obvious what goes with what meal.) It didn’t seem like there was a ton of excess packaging to throw away like other companies I’ve tried.
Cons: Again, we are an Amazon Prime household, so extra packaging doesn’t bother us, but you do have to throw away the box and ice packs that are part of the delivery.
CLEAN UP
Pro: The biggest benefit to meal kit delivery services is the quick clean up do to pre-packaged ingredients (no returning 100 spice bottles to their original location.) One of the meals even came with an aluminum tin to bake the recipe in, making clean-up after the meal even easier!
Con: Like any other service, lots of extra plastic trash holding the ingredients.
Cooking
Pro: The meals were fast and efficient. Many times I order meal kits. I think of a hundred ways I could have prepped that meal faster while I’m cooking it. Not the case here! Also, for the first time, I finally got a meal kit from a meal kit delivery company that had a set it and forget it type recipe. You know, the kind that you throw in the oven and can clean up while it cooks without you needing to babysit it every second. Love that.
Con: On the flip side, one of the meals I made had me dirty an enormous amount of dishes. While I don’t think I could have thought of a faster way to do it, I would never make up that kind of meal at my house because I wouldn’t want to do that many dishes.
INGREDIENTS
Pros: There is an evident emphasis on cuts and types of meat that most people are familiar with purchasing and eating. While it’s fun to try exotic, it’s also nice to get dinner on the table on a busy weeknight without the adventure.
Cons: Anything organic, wild-caught, or premium meat is an upcharge. Some servings can get up to $19.95 per serving, basically restaurant prices, but you still have to cook it yourself.
Home Chef Cost
Pros: Meals cost 9.95 per serving across the board. Not bad.
Cons: They charge for shipping if you don’t order over 40 dollars. Also, as mentioned earlier, some meals cost an upcharge that could cost up to 19.95/serving.
1 Week of Home Chef Meals
Meal 1: Pecan Crusted Chicken
From the ease of cooking standpoint, this was my favorite meal. It came with a disposable dish to make clean up even easier. The chicken had a delicious honey crust, and the barbecue seasoning that went with the green beans was smokey peppery deliciousness. I don’t love meat seasoned with sweet flavors like honey, but it was surprisingly good. Mr. Hungry LOVED it, so that was good. I loved that it was healthy, nutritious, and tasty!
Meal 2: Chicken with Red Pepper Cream Sauce and Roasted Broccoli
I loved the efficiency of this meal – pan-frying the chicken while the broccoli roasts up. It was on the table within 30 minutes, my kind of meal. The roasted red pepper cream sauce was surprisingly easy to make, something I’ll definitely be trying again soon. Honestly, we are fine eating chicken and broccoli, but for some people, this meal might not be interesting enough. For me, it’s exactly what we were looking for in terms of healthy, flavorful, and filling.
Meal 2: Scallops with Bacon & Corn Cream Sauce
Scallops were an upcharge, so we decided to get this meal with chicken. Unfortunately, the still charged me for the scallops, but sent the chicken. I have not followed up on that and decided to eat the 7 dollars because my guess is they would have just credited my account. I don’t intend to order again any time soon (not because I don’t like them but because I have other services to review for y’all), so I figured it wasn’t worth the trouble.
As far as the meal goes, this was my least favorite to cook because so many dishes were required to complete it. However, it ended up being worth it because Mr. Hungry LOVED it. It was more of a comfort food meal, but made with clean ingredients so I can get on board with that!
HOME CHEF: IS IT GOOD FOR YOU? IS IT WORTH IT?
I think if you are looking for a mix of healthy options and comfort food options to serve your family weekly, Home Chef is a good option. The meals aren’t fancy, but that’s kind of what I liked about them. I don’t want to be adventurous on a Tuesday at 7 pm when I’m starving and just want to eat.
I want to eat something I know will taste good, and that my kid and husband won’t complain (too much) about. I’ll be adventurous on my own time, like when I’m developing recipes for the blog, a cookbook, or cooking for fun, not the weekend, not at the eleventh hour. The instructions were easy to follow, efficient, and you have the choice of ordering meals that are ready to bake.
I appreciated the added touch of clear recipe directions with photos, a binder from the company to store my recipes in, and on-time delivery on the date I selected. When I envision who Home Chef might be useful for, I think the bigger the family, the more likely they are to benefit. It’s evident to me that Home Chef was designed with families in mind since you can feed up to 6 people in a meal, that’s more than any other service I’ve tried.
I do think that unlike other “healthy” focused services, you’ll have to be informed on what a healthy meal looks like to pick good choices. That being said, if you hunt around and read the nutrition facts of the recipes, you’ll find the more balanced recipes and get more per serving than you would with more health-conscious meal kit delivery services. And, as a Dietitian, I don’t think comfort food should be cut out of your diet, so I ordered one of those a week too! It’s all about balance and you get that with Home Chef.
Let me know if you have other meal kit delivery services you want me to review! Or if you’ve tried Home Chef we would love to hear your opinion, leave a comment and let us know what you thought! With that, I’m off and I’ll catch you guys manana.
I would like to clarify that all home chef packaging is recyclable 😉
That’s awesome!