Home Chef Has Dinner Covered – and It’s Delicious!

A huge thank you to Home Chef for providing my family with the opportunity to try their meal delivery service.  As always, all thoughts and opinions are my own.When I started this blog over 5 years ago, I wrote a post describing dinner time as “My Nemesis”.  As much as I’d love to tell you that in the 5 years since that post, we’ve mended our relationship and dinner and I are now friends…alas, I cannot.  Dinner and I are still very much at odds.  Most of the time it’s because my family wants to eat dinner and I have no idea what to make, and other times, it’s because I finally figure out what to make, but don’t have the ingredients on hand to make it happen.  Either way, it ends in expensive take out or microwave meals.  And while I’m not a mom to knock either of those options, they aren’t a long-term solution.

So when I saw friends of mine posting pictures of beautiful, restaurant-style meals that they made at home using meal delivery services, I was intrigued.  After researching the many meal delivery services available I finally landed on Home Chef and quickly fell in love.  Unlike other meal delivery options, Home Chef boasts 30 minute meals in 2 person, 4 person, and family quantities for just $9.95 per serving, making them a great option for busy moms like me who have about 30 minutes after getting home from work to get dinner on the table before all hell breaks loose.

Every week 11 new meal options are added for subscribers to choose from, with each meal’s time to prepare, degree of difficulty, and nutritional information is clearly spelled out on their website.  They even post the ingredients and step by step illustrated instructions on their website, so you know what you’re in for if you select that dish.  With comfort food, vegetarian, and breakfast options available, there’s really something for everyone.  They even have add-ons for smoothies and fresh fruit that can be delivered (prices vary).

To order, simply click on the “Our Menu” tab at the top of the Home Chef website, select the meals you’d like to make, set your delivery date, and you’re on your way to a delicious dinner.  You will need to subscribe to order meals, but it’s extremely easy to skip a week or pause your subscription, and there are no penalties for doing so.

Home Chef looked perfect for me, but having never tried a meal delivery service before, I was on the fence.  What would it look like when it arrived?  Would the ingredients stay fresh and cold during shipping?  Would the meals really be that good?  I had a lot of questions.  So needless to say, I jumped at the chance to try Home Chef when someone from their marketing team reached out to me.  Turns out, this is what Home Chef looks like when it arrives:

It might look like a brown box to you, but it’s so much more than that.  Because that brown box was filled with 3 meals, which meant that my meal planning for most of the week was done.  Oh, and the grocery shopping for those days?  Also done.  No frantic last minute stops at the grocery store before daycare closed.  No 9pm calls to the takeout place before they close.  That box was a huge sigh of relief for me.  And inside?

Fresh, pre-measured ingredients for each individual meal, along with instructions (with pictures!), all in one place.  And those ingredients were plenty cold, thanks to the multiple ice packs in the packaging.  My first box even came with a 3-ring binder to store all my recipes.With delivery taken care of, it was now up to me to make the meals inside, but surprisingly, they were very easy to make.  Night after night for 2 weeks we had delicious, restaurant-style meals on the table.  It was really quite amazing.  We took this opportunity to try things that we’d never tried before like – Chicken Adobos Tacos, Brussels sprouts, meatballs seared on the stove top (I always bake mine), and Flat Iron Steaks and were beyond impressed. We stretched our normal boundaries for dinner and loved each and every meal we ate…and now have a wee bit of an addition to Flat Iron Steaks…

To say I’m a true fan of Home Chef would be an understatement.  The ingredients are fresh and delivered right to your door.  The instruction cards are thorough and walk you though the recipe step by step by step, with the pictures being a huge help.  The finished product is every bit as delicious as it looks in the picture when you order.  And yes, there’s plenty of food.  We even had leftovers one or two nights!

The only think I’d change about Home Chef is my delivery day.  Unfortunately, the only delivery day for my area is Friday, and with me working Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, I’d much prefer a Monday delivery option.  Despite that, the meals were all sealed and labeled to stay good until I needed them, so it worked out.  Hopefully, more delivery days are available in the future.

So are Home Chef meals really 30 minute meals?  Well, yes and no.  Yes, if you’re familiar with the recipe, it would probably take you 30 minutes to complete.  Maybe a little more or a little less, but in that general ball park.  But if you’re like me and find new recipes a little intimidating, then probably not.  Most of the Home Chef meals took me around 40-55 minutes to complete, although I found that doing my chopping and prep early, helped me save lots of time.

Many of the Home Chef ingredients come prepackaged in the proper portion, but some (like veggies, for example) do not.  I found to make the recipe work within my desired 30 minute time frame, I needed to pre-cut my veggies the morning of to save time.  I also needed to be careful which recipes I selected because some do take longer than 30 minutes, and although it’s spelled out on the menu selection page, I just missed it for my first order and ended up with some longer recipes.  While I think it’s worth mentioning that Home Chef recipes might take a little longer, I think it’s also worth mentioning that the extra time is totally worth it.  I’m happy to spend a little more time if I’m going to get a great meal out of it.

Right now my subscription is paused due to soccer practice, softball games, gymnastics, and dance, since I’m not home in the evening to cook (I had cereal last night for dinner and a cheese stick the night before…the struggle is real), but in a few weeks I’m looking forward to those extracurriculars winding down so we can get back on our Home Chef routine.  This experience definitely made me a Home Chef customer!

Have you tried Home Chef or another meal delivery service?  Who did you use and what did you think?