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So, we acquired a free Home Chef box from our former neighbors. They were moving and didn’t want it and asked us if we would like it. Since I never tried a home delivery food box, I was eager to try.
Enter Home Chef.
Home Chef is a meal delivery service that gives you ingredients in a box and you can prepare meals with the recipes that come with. Because we lead such a busy and active lifestyle, I was curious about trying one and was lucky I didn’t have to spend any money to do so.
The meal delivery service, I feel, caters to a few groups: singles, couples without children, and families on the go. If you can stay home and prepare a meal, I don’t think you’ll benefit too much. I prepare just about all of our meals, and I have a few cookbooks showing wear and tear.
I have to admit; when I was single and childless, I hardly cooked because, well, why would I? It was often just me at my apartment. I often bought Lean Cuisines or made straightforward meals. If the meal delivery services were present back then, I definitely would’ve tried them.
The meal delivery service is not something you get and you can just hold onto for whenever you want to cook. You would actually need to cook the meals within a week of receiving the box, which I think is plenty of time.
So, let’s go with the pros:
- You don’t have to go to the store for additional ingredients. Just about everything you need is in the box.
- The boxes come with ice packs and are very well-prepared and tamper-proof.
- The recipes are simple and easy to follow.
- The food, for the most part, was pretty decent.
Of course, with pros, there are some cons:
- It is pretty expensive over time and you might actually save money by going to the store and getting the ingredients yourself.
- Speaking of ingredients, some of them were not fresh.
- The recipes were…meh.
I prepared two meals – Greek Style Salmon cakes and Creamy Tomato and Asparagus Rigatoni.
Let’s start with the tomato and asparagus rigatoni.
The directions were pretty easy to follow. The pasta, to my unfortunate surprise, was spicier than I would’ve liked, and it was too spicy for Bear.
The asparagus that came with the recipe was gross. It was slimy and it slightly smelled. So, that was the definitely the not-so fresh part:
I didn’t use the asparagus. I think if I went to the store and got fresher asparagus, the recipe may not have been so spicy. Even Maks and I couldn’t really enjoy it because it was that spicy and I didn’t even use all the spices included.
The plus was the meal didn’t take very long to prepare, but I just wished it wasn’t so spicy. It did come with ciabatta bread and a garlic/parmesan spread to create a garlic bread.
The next meal, the Greek-inspired salmon cakes were much better, though, they did take longer to prepare, about 90 minutes.
So, overall, I say I have to give this box 3 out of 5 stars. It wasn’t too bad but it wasn’t great. Maybe if I got a better box, I would’ve had a better experience. The recipes were good, but I also think I would’ve made a better version myself.
If you had meal delivery boxes, which ones do you recommend?
