Written by Mikayla Morell, Fortune Recommends Writer
Preparing and cooking meals from scratch can be a time-consuming task. According to a government-conducted survey, time commitment is one of the most common barriers to healthy eating. (1) Meal delivery services like Home Chef provide recipes and pre-portioned ingredients to help take the guesswork out of meal planning and meal prep. Ideally, using Home Chef should make eating nutritious meals easier and more convenient.
After testing dozens of the best meal delivery services, we’ve determined that tasty food can be hit or miss when it comes to these platforms. That wasn’t the case for Home Chef. Although it has some flaws, this meal delivery service still proved to deliver some delicious dishes. Here’s what we found when we tested Home Chef for ourselves.
Medical disclaimer: This article is intended for educational and informational purposes only. It is not intended as a substitute for medical advice. For health advice, contact a licensed healthcare provider.
Key product features
What you should know
After testing Home Chef, we feel that the service offers flavorful meals that are relatively easy to cook
- Our testers were impressed by Home Chef’s speedy delivery; they received their packages in about three days.
- A Home Chef serving starts at $6.99, which we found to be affordable compared to other options on the market.
- Home Chef is a great option for people looking to use the convenience of a meal service for both prepared meals and meal kits.
How does Home Chef work?
Home Chef is a meal delivery service that mostly consists of meal kits, with a few prepared meal options thrown in the mix. You choose your meal kits weekly; they come with pre-portioned ingredients and a recipe that can be found on the website.
Home Chef gives you the option to choose two, four, or six servings per meal. You will then choose to receive two, four, or six meals per week. When you sign up for an account, the site asks about your dietary preferences and any foods you would like to avoid. The meals can accommodate vegetarian, keto, low-calorie, and low-carb diets.
It’s worth noting that while Home Chef does offer “gluten-smart” options, the food is not safe for people with celiac disease or gluten intolerance since there is a high risk of cross-contamination in the prepping and cooking facilities.
Choosing meals
When we looked at the menu for the week of writing this review, there were 40 meal kits to choose from and five prepared meals available. If you want meal kits that are quick to prepare, you may have fewer options—only 19 out of 40 of those meal kits take less than 30 minutes to prepare.
“Each week you only have a set amount of meals to choose from. So if you don’t like the meals they provide for that week, you’re kind of out of luck. They also didn’t follow my ‘Taste Profile’ that I filled out in the beginning of signing up so it seemed like a half-hearted effort.”
Team Product Tester
We appreciate that you can view Home Chef menus up to six weeks in advance, which allows you to look ahead to make sure there will be meals coming down the pipeline that fit your needs. You can always choose to skip a week if there aren’t any meals that strike your fancy.
If you have dietary preferences, restrictions, or needs, we would normally recommend reading through the nutrition information before you select your meals, but we were disappointed to see that the ingredients weren’t included in the nutrition information for the meal kits. This may be because the ingredient contents can vary, but we found this not ideal or safe for people who have to follow specific diets.
Changing orders
We like that Home Chef allows you to customize your meals. For the most part, it seems like you can easily customize the protein choice. For instance, you can decide between using ground beef or ground turkey for a burger recipe, or you can choose between regular chicken breast or antibiotic-free chicken breast. There aren’t a ton of options to customize the meals, but we still think it’s a beneficial feature since not all meal kit services offer customization.
Specs
| Starting price | $6.99-$11.99 |
| Shipping cost | $10.99 |
| Shipping area | Most of the continental U.S. |
| Meal type | Prepared meals and meal kits |
| Number of meals per week | Two, four, or six |
| Meal options | Vegetarian, pescatarian, keto-friendly, paleo-friendly, low-carb, low-calorie, high-protein, and gluten-smart |
| Cancellation method | Online |
Our Home Chef experience
After testing Home Chef for ourselves, we gathered a few key takeaways:
Packaging
Home Chef meal kits arrive in a large, heavy box. Our tester was able to carry it by themself, but with some difficulty. Our tester said it was easy to open up the box by cutting through the sealed tape, but once they did, they discovered one of the meals received was incorrect. Not only that, but the meal kit that they received instead also had missing ingredients so they were unable to make it.
“I was supposed to get the Garlic Parmesan Prosciutto Flatbread, but I ended up getting partial ingredients for the Lemon Parmesan Chicken.”
Team Product Tester
Each meal kit was packaged in a separate, easy-to-open plastic bag with a zip top. The protein arrived in vacuum-sealed packages, but our tester found it easy to match each protein to the correct recipe.
Preparing the meals
Home Chef meal kits do not come with printed recipes, unlike other meal kit services like Purple Carrot. Instead, you have to go to the website to find the recipe. This extra step can be inconvenient, but we don’t think many people will find it too large or an obstacle.
Each recipe is broken down into simple steps. Our tester found most of the recipes to be pretty easy to follow, but it’s worth noting that they are a fairly advanced home cook with plenty of background knowledge that’s helpful when following a recipe.
“The risotto meal instructions were not easy to follow unless you had prior experience or knowledge of making risotto. Someone who doesn’t have prior cooking experience or needs more details of each step may not have been able to follow along easily.”
Team Product Tester
For the most part, the recipes were easy to follow and comprehend, even for beginner home chefs, with only a few exceptions like the risotto.
Quality of meals
All of the ingredients our testers received from Home Chef arrived fresh. After a few days, the produce started to go bad, which was a little sooner than expected, but considering that keeping produce fresh is a challenge in general, we can’t entirely fault Home Chef.
Taste can be very subjective. What one person likes another may dislike. Out of the three meals that our tester prepared, two of them tasted really great. They were impressed with the taste of the Sweet & Savory Butternut Squash Risotto and the Mango Jalapeno Pork Chop. The tester felt that the third meal, the One-Pan Chimichurri Salmon, could use more flavor and didn’t feel like the ingredients went well together.
Additionally, some of the Home Chef meals our tester tried were fairly high in sodium. The One-Pan Chimichurri Salmon contained 1,600 milligrams of sodium which is 70% of the daily recommended amount of sodium in one meal. (2) Consuming a high amount of sodium isn’t ideal for any diet, especially for older adults with high blood pressure.
Serving sizes
Home Chef allows you to choose meal plans for two, four, or six people. Our tester chose the two-person meal plan to cook for two people and often found the serving sizes to be inconsistent. Some meals left them feeling full and satiated while other meals left them feeling hungry. There were no leftovers from any of the meals.
If you are cooking for one, you would likely have enough food with the two-person meal plan, with a small chance of having leftovers. But if you’re cooking for multiple people, we don’t anticipate the serving sizes would serve enough food, unless you purchase a meal plan that’s intended for more people than you’re actually cooking for.
We’ve Featured Home Chef in:
- Best meal delivery services
- Best meal delivery services for weight loss
- Best healthy meal delivery services
- Best vegetarian meal delivery services
- Best keto meal delivery services
- Best weight loss programs for men
How we test meal delivery services
For people who want a healthy, balanced meal and don’t have time to cook, meal delivery can be a huge help. Our team of nutrition experts tested Home Chef to assess the service’s quality and help you decide whether it’s right for your lifestyle.
Not every meal delivery service is a great fit for every person or scenario. That’s why Fortune Recommends™ aims to personally test every meal delivery service we review. Our goal is to provide unbiased, honest feedback to help you pick the right service for you.
Here’s why you can trust our organic meal delivery reviews.
Every Fortune meal delivery review features:
- In-depth analysis by testers and/or authors who are certified nutritionists and/or registered dietitians
- Testing for portion/ingredient accuracy, taste, and freshness
- Fact-checking and reviewing by qualified experts
At times, we may feature meal delivery services we haven’t yet tested. Until we can try them, we examine each service’s cost, meal variety, nutrition breakdown, and customization options. As soon as we have tested a product, we update our reviews to highlight what we’ve found.
Learn how we test meal delivery services here.
Testing criteria
Meal choices—30%
A meal delivery service should provide a variety of healthy, nutritious options for every meal of the day. Here’s what we take into account when considering meal choices:
- Multiple options
- Substitutions
- Guidance
- Label transparency
Food quality—30%
We aim to match you with meal delivery services that use tasty, nutritious recipes that can help you meet your health goals. Here’s what goes into our quality rating:
- Flavor
- Healthiness
- Freshness
Value—20%
While meal delivery services vary in price, what you receive should feel reasonable for what you’re paying. Here’s what we factor into a service’s value rating:
- Fair price
- Multiple quantity options
- Customization
Customer experience—20%
- Packaging
- Ease of preparation
- Reviews
- Customer service
Compare Home Chef
|
|
|
|
|
| Home Chef | HelloFresh | Blue Apron | CookUnity | |
| Rating | ||||
| Starting cost per serving | $6.99 | $9.99 | $7.99 | $11 |
| Shipping cost | $10.99 | $10.99 | $10.99 | Varies |
| Shipping area | Most of the continental U.S. | Continental U.S. and select areas in Hawaii and Alaska | Continental U.S. | Most states |
| Diet of food allergy options | Keto, vegetarian, carb-conscious, and calorie-conscious | Vegetarian, pescatarian | Vegetarian, fast and easy, family-friendly, wellness, chef’s favorites, keto-friendly, low-calorie, high-protein, low-carb | Vegetarian, vegan, keto, paleo, gluten-free, low-calorie, low-carb, low-sodium, high-protein, dairy-free |
FAQs
How easy are Home Chef meal kits to prepare?
Some of the Home Chef meals we tested were easy and straightforward, but others required a little more detail and attention. Many of the meals took 30 minutes or longer to complete.
How much does Home Chef cost?
Home Chef costs $6.99–$11.99 per serving; the delivery fee is $10.99.
Can Home Chef meals be frozen?
The Home Chef oven-ready meals are delivered fresh, not frozen, as are the meal kit ingredients. Home Chef doesn’t recommend freezing the meals.
These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any diseases.
Our experts
Lily Moe
Lily is a Brooklyn-based writer and editor with over seven years of experience in health media. As a former Fitness Coach, Lily’s editorial prowess has largely focused on fitness, nutrition, and weight management. She has also spent a fair share of time in testing labs, analyzing everything from protein powders to yoga mats. Her work has appeared in Verywell Fit, Verywell Mind, Health, and more.
Chris Kacyon, MS
Chris Kacyon, MS, has been a full-time practicing physiologist since 2008. Since then he has focused his efforts on discovering safe, efficient ways to help clients who are suffering with obesity. He currently serves as a department head and physiology professor at Wake Technical Community College in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Mikayla Morell
Fortune Recommends Writer
About Author
Mikayla Morell is a health and wellness writer who is passionate about spreading reliable, accessible, and informative health information to people of all backgrounds and identities.
Mikayla has an extensive background in healthcare as a home health aide, medical scribe, and phlebotomist. In these roles, she recognized that her patients were eager to learn more about their health but they didn’t always have the information, education, or resources to do so.