Home Chef Subscription Box Review + Coupon – December 2017

Home Chef is a meal kit subscription 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 plan I customized that includes a mix of beef, fish, poultry, and vegetarian options (starting at $9.95 per serving) for two people, two meals a week ($39.80) + $10 shipping ($49.80 total per week). Delivery is free for orders over $45. Shipping is $10 for orders less than $45.

My Subscription Addiction paid for this box. (Check out the review process post to learn more about how we review boxes.)

About Home Chef

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.)

December 2017 Home Chef Review

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. I'm pretty open to most proteins, so I currently have 10 different options for next week. There are also some "Add On" items like fruit or smoothie picks that you can choose to include in your box. I've also just noticed that they have an option to add a $5 donation to Feeding America. That's a great idea to make giving super simple.

When you open your box and lift open the recyclable insulation, you'll see all of your ingredients tucked inside. The vegetables and non-meat items will be on top.

Under them, you'll see a cardboard divider that lets you know there is more below.

This is where the ice packs are: with the meat to keep those extra cold. You can choose to toss the packs into your freezer to reuse, or simply cut them open to dump the contents into your normal trash and recycle the plastic. Same goes for the insulation, though its recycled fibers so you can throw it in your compost bin instead of into the trash.

Each Home Chef meal comes in a plastic bag, except for the meat, and some ingredients that are too large (such as ears of corn).

The bags are labeled as well to cut down on any confusion when you have multiples in your fridge.

Ranch Chicken with Jalapeno Popper Twice-Baked Potato and Green Beans

Calories: 682

Time to Table, According to Home Chef: 35-45 minutes

Actual Time to Table: 1 hr 30 mins (due to me not having a microwave)

Cook within: 5 days

Difficulty: Intermediate

Spice Level: Mild

Chicken is my go-to meat and potato anything has my heart, especially in the wintertime, so this was an easy choice for me.

Never have I ever made a twice-baked potato, so this was a new task for me. It's not terribly complicated, just a little more involved. What I didn't notice until I read this to embark on dinner, was that they direct you to use your microwave to once bake your potatoes (6-10 minutes). If you've read my past reviews, you'll know that I don't own a microwave, and therefore had to revert to the 45-60 MINUTE oven baking method. Ugh. Note to self: read these recipes before choosing!! There goes my 30-minute meal.

First things first, you gotta poke those po-tates for ventilation. This photo was taken post-50 minutes in the oven.

While those potatoes were once-baking I seared my chicken breasts for 3 minutes per side in my trusty frying pan.

I also made the ranch sour cream which was just mixing ranch flavoring with sour cream and most of the chives I had minced.

When the potatoes came out, I then sliced about a 1/4" off of the top to create a little potato boat I would then immediately carve out.

I put the "potato flesh" (Home Chef's words, NOT mine) into a mixing bowl with minced jalapeno, neufchâtel cheese, half of the shredded cheddar, and some salt and pepper and began slowly adding milk while mashing and stirring.

Then the mixed mash went back into the little potato skin boats on the baking sheet which was joined by the chicken breasts to finish. As you may notice, I totally forgot to add the rest of the shredded cheddar on top before popping into the oven for 8 minutes but remedied that later once I noticed.

While the potatoes and chicken were baking, I cooked the green beans in a frying pan with water until they were tender and the water evaporated (about 8 minutes).

Here we have the whole team together, garnished with jalapeno slices on the potato, ranch sour cream and chives on the chicken, and some sea salt on the green beans.

This is kind of a perfect meal for me. I love potatoes and greens, as well as chicken breasts. Everything turned out really well, despite my previous anger with the potato-timing. Maybe I'll be making twice-baked potatoes more often?

Tex-Mex Turkey Taco Salad with Corn and Tomatoes

Calories: 580

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

Actual Time to Table: 15 minutes?

Cook within: 5 days

Difficulty: Easy

Spice Level: Mild

I think Home Chef auto-picked this one for me and I decided to keep it since I normally don't choose turkey and thought it sounded good.

This recipe rules because it took, like, under 20 minutes total. Cooking turkey took the longest, and my roommate was kind enough to prep the veggies for us!

I expertly halved these heirloom cherry tomatoes myself.

My roomie, Tony, sliced the shallots nice and thin and put them in a bowl with lime juice and a pinch of salt to "pickle".

Then, I crumbled the ground turkey into a pan and mixed it with the included taco seasoning. It seemed a little dry at first but was fine once I mixed it all in.

Tones threw the chopped romaine in a bowl with the rinsed corn, cherry tomatoes, and already made chipotle ranch dressing to mix.

Simply put the salad mix on a plate, and add the turkey, shallots, and sour cream and you have your meal!

This took no time at all and was a tasty salad which could be eaten for lunch or dinner, in my opinion. I think I still prefer beef to turkey with taco seasoning, but the turkey wasn't bad at all!

Verdict: This month's Home Chef meals didn't blow my mind but were both super good. I definitely liked the ranch chicken and twice-baked potato over the Tex-Mex salad, but it's because I am a monster for heavy food in the cold months. Something I learned: read the full recipe when choosing meals so I can skip anything that may use a microwave (rare). The 15-minute salad meal definitely made up for the over-an-hour potato fiasco. 

To Wrap Up:

Can you still get this box if you sign up today? Since Home Chef menus change weekly and you must choose them ahead of time, you won’t be able to order these dishes unless they are offered again in the future.

Coupon – Get $30 off your first box from Home Chef. No coupon required, just use this link.

Value Breakdown: At $49.80 ($9.95 per serving plus $10 shipping) for this box, we actually paid $12.45 per serving.

Check out all of our Home Chef reviews and find other meal kit boxes in the Food Subscription Box Directory!

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What did you make from Home Chef this month?