Green Chef is a weekly meal delivery subscription service that sends ingredients to make dinner that are fresh, sustainable, and organic.
Check out all of our reviews of Meal Delivery Services to see every meal kit subscription box option!
Green Chef has two plan size options, a 2-person plan (3 dinners for 2 people) and a family plan (2 dinners for 4 people). The 2-person plan has options like vegetarian, omnivore, vegan, carnivore, gluten-free, and paleo. The family plan has the option of omnivore or carnivore. I choose the 2-person omnivore plan because I am interested in adding variety to my diet. As I was signing up, I had the option to select the types of meats I wanted or didn’t want to receive. I don’t love shellfish or game, and I was able to remove them from my profile. I saw my menu shuffle around as soon as I deselected those meats, so I’m glad they offer that option right up front.
My Subscription Addiction paid for this box. (Check out our review process post to learn more about how we review boxes.)
This is a review of the Green Chef Omnivore Plan, $11.99 per meal.
The Subscription Box: Green Chef
The Cost:
2-person Plans:
- Vegetarian $10.49 per meal (3 vegetarian dinners)
- Omnivore $11.99 per meal (3 veggie, meat & seafood dinners)
- Vegan $11.99 per meal (3 vegan dinners)
- Carnivore $13.49 per meal (3 meat & seafood dinners)
- Gluten-free $13.49 per meal (3 veggie, meat & seafood dinners)
- Paleo $14.99 per meal (3 paleo-friendly dinners)
Learn more here!
Family Plans:
- Omnivore - $11.99 per meal (2 veggie, meat or seafood dinners for 4 people)
- Carnivore - $12.99 per meal (2 meat or seafood dinners for 4 people)
COUPON: Get 4 meals free in your first order by using this link!
The Products: Quick, chef-created recipes using organic, sustainable ingredients.
Ships to: Continental U.S. (except for some parts of Louisiana) for &9.99 shipping & handling per box.
Check out all of our Green Chef reviews and the Meals Subscription Box Directory!
Keep Track of Your Subscriptions: Add this box to your subscription list or wishlist!
Meal subscriptions are such a great thing. If you struggle with the “What should we do for dinner?” question, like I do with my fiancé, then you already have a great reason to test one out for yourself. It is so nice to have everything ready to go without a trip to the grocery store. It also makes for an easy choice when you have only 3 meals to choose from. There are so many boxes out there, so how do you pick the best one for you?
One thing I have noticed with meal delivery boxes is the amount of packaging. There is only so much space for freezer packs in my freezer! Green Chef makes a great effort to use recyclable and compostable packaging. They also have a page on their site that walks you through preparing the packaging for recycling. Pretty responsible!
Green Chef also makes sourcing sustainable, organic ingredients top priority and provides options for customization of your meals. They are thorough in the ingredient list and allergy warning on their recipes. The prices per meal are higher than some other competitors, but like eating high-quality, organic food from the grocery store, it costs more. Plus, we found that we spend much less than eating out.
As for shipping, you get to choose from a delivery day of Wednesdays, Thursdays, or Fridays. They say that their box is well insulated and you don’t have to be at home when it is delivered. Your food will stay fresh and cool. They make it very easy to change your delivery schedule or skip a week anytime. You don’t have the option of switching out meals, but you can see your menus a couple of weeks in advance so you can skip whatever weeks you don’t like.
Let’s see these dinners!
Balsamic-Glazed Chicken
Pesto & chive polenta, warm tomato and olive salad
Calories per serving: 610
Total time, according to Green Chef: 30 minutes
Actual time: 45 minutes
The recipe cards that come with these meals are printed in full color on cardstock so they are great to hole punch and put in your recipe book if you want to reference them later.
There is a short description of the dinner, prep + cook time, calorie count, and each meal is color coded to help you organize your ingredients.
On the back, you will find a list of tools you will need from your own kitchen, items from your pantry, and a step-by-step guide on how to prepare your meal. You’ll also find chef’s tips and helpful bits of info to help if you aren’t a seasoned cook.
Right away I noticed that this meal had a lot going on. I ended up improvising on the timing of some things. The recipe instructs you to do certain tasks, like chopping, or boiling water, during other steps and I just ended up waiting until I was done with something before moving on. Thankfully, my fiancé, John was cooking with me and we were able to multi-task a bit. First, we grilled the chicken and cooked the polenta. Then came a bit of chopping and sautéing the veggies. We mixed the salad and added the dressing.
The next step, making the balsamic glaze, was a little tricky. I have reduced balsamic before and it took me much longer than the 2-3 minutes this recipe suggests. In the end, it turned out well with a few instances of adding water and reducing again. Here is the balsamic vinegar starting to simmer. I would recommend using a smaller pan so your balsamic covers the bottom.
This meal was good and incorporated a lot of flavors that I like. The balsamic vinegar with dijon mustard dressing mixed with tomatoes and olives was punchy and very flavorful, I loved it. I love olives in general! The pesto polenta was subdued but was kicked up with the balsamic glaze and grilled chicken. This is the first time I’ve worked with polenta, but now I know that it is an approachable dish similar to grits. And, I think I’ll keep some pre-made balsamic glaze around to add to anything that needs a little flavor punch.
Chermoula Beef Kebabs
Bulgur wheat, chard, artichoke & snap peas, mint
Calories per serving: 630
Total time, according to Green Chef: 35 minutes
Actual time: 30 minutes
Kebabs just in time for summer grilling season! And a fresh salad using an ingredient from last month, bulgur wheat.
This meal was pretty easy to prepare and had minimal prep. We had to remove the stem from the rainbow chard, de-string some snap peas, and grate a carrot. We seasoned the meat and rolled it into oblong pieces to place onto the skewers. While those were cooking we cooked the bulgur and blanched the snap peas (an easy, quick way of cooking veggies). We tossed some ingredients together for the salad and plated. Each step was laid out and easy to follow. We lost a skewer somewhere in the cooking process because the meat did not want to stick together, but it still ended up like the rest just no stick.
Our skewers grilling. This was so messy! I would recommend using a splatter screen or better yet, cook on a grill.
This meal’s flavors kind of reminded me of a gyro and the info card says it has a North African flair. It is nice to be able to experience and associate flavors from other countries. The kebabs were spicy and garlicky and the flavors were enhanced by the acidic chermoula sauce. Our sauce did look different than the sauce in Green Chef’s pictures but tasted great. The salad had some great textures with the crunchy chard, soft bulgur, and grated carrot but we were a bit surprised that the flavor was not more complex with all of those different ingredients. It was still refreshing and I felt like I was getting a great serving of vegetables. Also, I am glad to have had a step-by-step on how to blanch veggies. I’ve come across recipes that call for that and have always just taken the wing-it approach.
Zucchini Fritters
Sweet potato, spinach & black bean salad
Calories per serving: 740
Total time, according to Green Chef: 30 minutes
Actual time: 35 minutes
It seems like Green Chef is going to give us a meatless meal each week which I am fine with considering that the meatless meal was our favorite last time. And, can you go wrong with fritters? They even sound fun!
I’ve never made fritters before and I am glad that the instructions are so clear with Green Chef. It’s not intimidating at all. We grated up the zucchini and squeezed out the moisture but otherwise, the prep was done for us. We mixed in some egg, flour, and cheese and patted them up to fry. We made half with the included pepper jack cheese and half with some lactose-free cheese (John is lactose intolerant) and both sets turned out great. The black bean and sweet potatoes got a quick roast and were tossed in with some tomato and spinach for a hearty salad. That’s it! So easy!
The roasted black beans and sweet potatoes.
I am always surprised that the meatless meals have more calories than the meat based meals but the flavors are always spot on. This was our favorite meal this week and we could easily replicate it. The salad had excellent taste and texture and the cilantro-apple cider vinaigrette was a perfect contrast to the warm, rich flavors of the beans and sweet potatoes. The zucchini fritters were crispy on the outside and soft and gooey inside. I didn’t even miss the meat in this meal and was left feeling full and satisfied.
Verdict: Green Chef did a great job again this time. We enjoyed all of the meals and felt great about eating organic, sustainable ingredients. The meals were quick and easy to make. Now that I have had a couple of boxes, I feel more comfortable with changing the order of the instructions a bit. I am more of a prep everything before I start cooking kind of cook and next time I’ll try that instead of prepping while other things are going on. It may take a few more minutes but I would be ok with dinner taking a little bit more time. Both John and I had plenty to eat with each meal and I can see taking a leftover serving for lunch the next day if you cook for one. In terms of cost, we save money by using Green Chef. A meal for both of us breaks down to about $24. If we were to go out we would definitely spend more than that and to purchase all of the ingredients (at the quality level of Green Chef) would probably be more too. I’m looking forward to my next box because the menu looks good!
Do you subscribe to Green Chef? What dinners have you made?
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