Home Chef Subscription Box Vegetarian Review + Coupon – August 2017

Home Chef is a subscription meal delivery service that delivers you a weekly box of the pre-portioned ingredients you need to make two to six meals that feed two, four, or six people. Home Chef advertises easy recipes that can be made in about 30 minutes. They say their ingredients are fresh (though they don't provide a lot of information about their sourcing practices), and they offer vegetarian, gluten-free, and calorie/carb-conscious recipes.

This is a review of the vegetarian plan (starting at $9.95 per serving) for two people, twice a week ($39.80 per week + shipping). Delivery is free for orders over $45. Shipping is $10 for orders less than $45.

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The Subscription Box: Home Chef

The Cost: Meals start at $9.95 per serving, and delivery is free for orders over $40.

The Products: Fresh ingredients and chef-designed recipes— everything you need to make restaurant-quality meals at home.

Ships to: 90% of the U.S. (You can check to see if Home Chef delivers to your zip code here.)

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When you first sign up for Home Chef, you take a short quiz about your meal preferences and dietary restrictions. I like that they ask what you like to eat, as well a what you like to avoid. Based on your answers, Home Chef will choose recipes for you to get each week. As is the case with most meal kit services, you can log in and hand-select the recipes you'd like to receive. Note though, that the more particular you are with your diet, the fewer options you'll have. For instance, it looks like there are only around 3 veggie meals each week. So the ability to customize things kind of disappears.

That said, there are usually about 10 items on the menu, total, and some "Add On" items like fruit or breakfast picks that you can choose to include in your box.

Each meal's ingredients are packaged in a handy zip-shut bag. If there are bigger items, such as the bread for one of this month's recipes, they arrive loose in the box. Inside those bags, each ingredient is individually wrapped and of course, pre-portioned so that there's no waste.

Wild Mushroom and Pesto Linguini

Calories: 689

Time to Table, According to Home Chef: 20-30 minutes

Actual Time to Table: About 20 minutes

Difficulty: Easy

This dish was the easiest thing I've made from a subscription box ever. The process is essentially cooking pasta, cooking up some veggies on the stove, and then mixing it all together into a colorful, tasty dish. It smells awesome, too—I was shocked by how deliciously fragrant the pasta, of all things, was. You could smell the savory, bready scent of the flour filling the kitchen as it cooked. Yum! I also love that this dish is also vegan if you skip the pesto and sprinkle of cheese at the end. If you swapped in just a swirl of olive oil and a pinch of fresh basil, I feel like you'd get essentially the same experience.

I will say that this plate of pasta didn't feel all that wow-worthy. Don't get me wrong, it was really tasty, and I loved the fact that there seemed to be a balance of veggies and pasta (lots of these kinds of recipes seem to be bogged down by too many noodles). But it was missing a certain... something... that other meal kit recipes have. It's not that it wasn't good, but it wasn't surprising or special in the way others are. That being said, I'd gladly trade complex, unique flavors for the ability to whip up a meal in a mere 20 minutes!

Charred Caprese Tartines

Calories: 623

Time to Table According to Home Chef: 25-35 minutes

Actual Time to Table: About 30 minutes

Difficulty: Easy

I took to describing this recipe as "fancy pizza boats" to friends. (Anyone else out there know what I'm talking about? Some of you might know 'em as French bread pizzas, hehe.) This is another super simple recipe that's made more sophisticated in the way individual ingredients are prepared. For instance, the bread isn't just bread—it's grilled. The tomatoes are grilled until charred, then slightly crushed to enhance their flavor and make them feel more savory than refreshing. One issue—I don't have a grill nor a grill pan to turn to, so I "grilled" my ingredients in a regular pan. It seemed to work okay, actually. I think if anything, you just have to pay close attention to how quickly these ingredients char—you don't want them to burn!

There's also a very simple salad to pair with the pizza boa—oh, sorry—the tartines. It's a refreshing side dish that's a nice complement to the salty, starchy main.

I love this idea for a dinner (or lunch)! These pictures are of one serving by the way—each person gets one loaf of bread sliced in two. It's... a lot... but that means there's plenty to nibble on later (though I wouldn't leave this longer than a day in the fridge). It's a bit clumsy to eat since the cheeses and tomatoes roll off the bread really easily. But these are the flavors I love the most (yummy Italian-inspired goodness), so I'm very likely to make this quick recipe again!

Verdict: I liked this order from Home Chef. Neither recipe felt quite as outside-the-ordinary as others I've tried (Home Chef tends to be less of a foodie subscription, but they still do some playful flavor combinations), but I liked the opportunity to learn some easy recipes that can become staples in my amateur menu. Price-wise, Home Chef meals start at $9.95 per serving, which is cheaper than Plated ($12 per serving) and on par with Blue Apron ($9.99 per serving) and Hello Fresh ($9.99 per serving).

Would you want to try either of these Home Chef recipes? And if you have tried them, what did you think?