I love trying new meal kit delivery services. Each one offers something unique that keeps me coming back for more! I recently tried Home Chef for five weeks. Of all the meal kit delivery services I’ve tried, their meals are among the tastiest and easiest to cook.

Read below for my full review of Home Chef. For more information about meal kit delivery services, check out Why You Should Try Meal Kit Delivery Services.

Plans & Cost

Compared to other meal kit delivery services, Home Chef offers much more straightforward plans:

• You have the option to cook 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 meals per week.
• You have the option to get 2, 4, or 6 serving sizes per meal.

Each meal is priced at $9.95. So if you selected the option for 3 meals per week and 2 serving sizes per meal, the cost would be 3 x 2 x $9.95 = $59.70. This is the option I selected.

TIP: Home Chef waives the delivery charge for orders over $45. Orders less than $45 have a $10 delivery charge. If you select the option to cook 2 meals with 2 serving sizes per meal, your cost will be 2 x 2 x $9.95 = $39.80 + $10 delivery charge = $49.80. In that case, it might make sense just to order an extra serving size and freeze any leftovers.

BONUS: You can save $30 off your first order with Home Chef using this discount link.

Selection Options

Of all the meal kit delivery services I’ve tried, Home Chef provides the most selection options. You get the choice of 11 different meal options PLUS two fruit and smoothie options. That’s 13 options!! Some meal kit delivery services only over 6 options!

Within the 11 meal options, Home Chef occasionally offers a premium option that is slightly more expensive than the standard $9.95 fee (like a filet mignon for $19.95). These premium options are clearly marked, so you can stay away from them if you don’t want to pay extra.

The fruit and smoothie options are cheaper at $4.95 each.

When you’re selecting your meals, you have the option to select more or less than your standard meal plan for the week. So if you usually get 3 meals, but love 4 options, Home Chef lets you pick 4. If you only want 2 meals for the week, you can pick 2. You don’t have to revise your meal plan – you just pick what you want for the week and get charged based on your selections.

Wine from Vinebox.

Delivery

In my area, I had the option to choose delivery on Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday. It’s easier for me to schedule my cooking earlier in the week, so I wish Monday or Tuesday had been a delivery option. But a great thing about the Home Chef meals is that it says on the recipe card how long the ingredients are fresh. So if I wasn’t able to cook all the meals right away, I was able to prioritize which ones to cook earlier and which ones I could delay.

All five of my weekly deliveries came before 6PM, which made me extremely happy. With some other meal kit delivery services, I’ve gotten the meals after 9PM. That meant I couldn’t cook those meals on the day I received them. With Home Chef, the timely delivery meant I could cook on the day I got the delivery.

Packaging

I loved the Home Chef packaging compared to some of the other meal kit delivery services. For one, the box was smaller. That meant it took up less room in the recycling bin, which already gets full too fast.

Second, the ingredients for all of the meals were separated into individual bags. With some meal kit delivery services, the ingredients for all the meals are thrown into a box together. It may seem like a minor thing to have to separate the ingredients, but it’s great to just grab the Home Chef bags out of the box and toss them in the refrigerator.

Another nice touch is the binder that came with the first box. Each week, you fill the binder with the recipe cards with your meals for the week. It’s an easy way to keep your recipe cards all organized in the same place.

Difficulty to Prepare

Overall, the meals were very easy to make.

I found the recipe card a little difficult to follow. The instructions were in a narrative format and I have an easier time following recipes that are short bullets.

I was able to prepare and cook the Home Chef meals much faster than some of the other meal kit delivery services. My theory is that there are less ingredients in the Home Chef meals, so you’re not spending 30 minutes cutting up 13 different kinds of fruits and vegetables. I don’t need a ton of ingredients to enjoy a meal, so I was very happy with fewer ingredients and faster meal prep times.

Taste

I would describe the meals as familiar, comforting tastes. You might not be blown away by every meal, but you’ll find the meals have a good, solid taste.

Of the 15 meals I tried, I liked 12 of the meals and loved 3 of the meals. I never had a bad meal with Home Chef. Their recipe for chicken marsala is now my all-time favorite version of chicken marsala.

Portion Size

The portion sizes were very satisfying. I always felt comfortably full after completing a meal. I never had to add a “filler” like rice to make the meal complete – the portions provided were enough to satisfy my appetite.

Wine from Vinebox.

Customer Service

With Home Chef, I never had to contact their customer service. This was a rare, wonderful thing in my meal kit delivery service experience!

For other meal kit delivery services, I had to contact their customer service for late deliveries, missing ingredients, and receiving the wrong meal. That was never the case with Home Chef.

All of Home Chef deliveries were timely. Every meal had the right ingredients. All the ingredients were fresh and arrived in good shape (they weren’t damaged in shipping). All the meals I received were the meals I ordered.

Those may sound like little things, but Home Chef is the first meal kit delivery service I tried where they got everything right from the customer service perspective. And that made me one happy customer!

Overall Notes

I was very happy with my Home Chef experience. I recommend Home Chef to anyone who likes familiar, comforting tastes, likes lots of meal selection options (13 options!!), and appreciates fast cooking times.

Home Chef has been one of my favorite meal kit delivery services so far. If you’d like to try them out, you can use my discount link to save $30 off your first delivery.

Happy cooking!