Thursday, March 20th
2025 Prepared Meal Reviews
Home Chef
- Starting at $9.99 per serving
- Meals for 2, 4, or 6 people
- Individual and family meal plans
- Meal kits and heat-and-eat options
- Add-on choices
- Ships refrigerated, not frozen
- Big discounts on first 6 boxes
Simplicity is at the heart of Home Chef, bringing ready-to-make meals to individuals and families all around the country. As a company, Home Chef has delivered over 320 million meals since their inception in 2013. Their kits are designed for people who want home-cooked meals every night but feel like life is always getting in the way. You'll receive step-by-step instructions to make it easy as can be to put a delicious dish together in the evening with fresh, pre-portioned ingredients.
Do what you have time for
There are a few categories customers can choose from when selecting their weekly meals from Home Chef. Their meal kits are most popular and arrive with ingredients ready to throw together. They take anywhere from 20-50 minutes depending on the dish. Some weekly choices offered to us were chipotle salmon tacos, Japanese steakhouse-style teriyaki steak, and jalapeno popper-stuffed chicken. Their express meals are for those who need a faster assembly time and take under 30 minutes from start to finish. Some tasty dishes here include piri-piri steak strip naan wraps, asiago and spinach-crusted lemon chicken, roasted sesame and broccoli rice bowl, and Italian sausage and potato chowder. The oven-ready meals from Home Chef require very little prep and arrive with pre-chopped ingredients in an oven-safe tin for heating. Similarly, you could go with a "Fast & Fresh” meal that comes ready to heat in the microwave within minutes.
Family plan
There is a Home Chef plan with all the categories listed above or a Family Plan that caters to groups of 4. These meals take between 20 and 50 minutes for assembly and cooking. Some dishes here are one-sheet honey mustard salmon, beef bulgogi burgers, chicken rockefeller risotto, or panko crunchy cheesy chicken.
Specify eating preferences
To get started with Home Chef, you'll select which type of meals you're interested in (express, oven-ready, fast & fresh, meal kits, culinary collection), then provide your zip code and email address. You'll be able to specify how you eat with options that include protein-packed, carb-conscious, keto-friendly, pescatarian, calorie-conscious, Mediterranean, gluten-free, or vegetarian. It's important to note that Home Chef says their gluten-free meals are not suitable for those with celiac or severe gluten intolerance. Home Chef will also ask if there are foods you want to avoid including pork, beef, poultry, fish, shellfish, mushrooms, tree nuts, peanuts, and sesame.
Get "extras” with your box
In addition to dinner choices, there are some lunch items that you could add to your order each week as well. Home Chef also offers "extras” that you can throw into an order so you have tasty snacks throughout the week or fun sides to add to the dishes you're preparing. Some of their popular items are Brew Master pub cheese spread & soft pretzel bites, caesar chopped salad and chicken, chocolate chip cookie skillets, quiche lorraine, roasted garlic artisan batard, smoothies, lemon poppyseed muffins, and the list goes on. Forget grocery shopping! You could get all your food for the week here and you'd barely have to lift a finger.
Get 18 meals free
There is a major promotion that Home Chef offers with your first few boxes. Your first box comes with 40% off + free shipping (shipping is normally $13.99/box for 2 people and 2 meals, or $10.99 for all other plans), then your second, third, and fourth boxes come with a 30% discount. Your fifth and sixth boxes come with 20% off, which all evens out to about 18 free meals.
Starting at $9.99/serving
Customers can customize boxes for 2, 4, or 6 people. After your first few boxes when normal pricing kicks in, you can expect to pay $11.99 per serving at most if you're just getting 2 meals a week for 2 people. If you add more servings to your box or more meals per week, the price per serving drops to $9.99. This applies to the family plan as well as the Home Chef plan for smaller servings.
No guarantees on organic
The ingredients from Home Chef are never guaranteed to be organic. Their menu changes so frequently that they say they order from different suppliers and consider seasonal ingredients, which makes it so they can't always promise a certain type of ingredient. What they can do is give customers the option to upgrade to organic chicken breasts in some of their meals if that is important to them. Using the "Customize It” menu feature, customers can always see if this is an option.
Refrigerated, not frozen
Home Chef ships their meals with biodegradable, insulated boxes with water-soluble, cool gel packs that are designed to keep your food refrigerated, not frozen.
Hit or miss
Home Chef has a profile with the Better Business Bureau, but not a rating. They have average reviews from customers and after we read through many of them, we decided that this company can be really hit or miss. People say that some meals are amazing and others are overwhelming and even sometimes missing ingredients. It's a common theme for customers to say that they appreciate the convenience that Home Chef adds to their life and the consistency of deliveries. However, some feel like after being subscribers for a long time, the quality is going downhill recently. Again, it seems really hit or miss here for some reason.
A lot to like
We like that Home Chef takes a lot of dietary preferences into account. There are such a wide variety of likes/dislikes, intolerances, and allergies these days, so it's important to find a service that can cater to everyone in your family. They have an extensive FAQ section that we appreciate because it ensures customers know everything about the service before signing up. We really like what we see here, especially since there are meal kits as well as heat-and-eat options for people who want to do minimal prep and cooking. If it weren't for their mediocre reviews, Home Chef would earn one of our highest ratings among prepared meal services.
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There are so many reasons you might find a prepared meal delivery service a huge benefit to your life. Maybe you're facing an illness or had a major life event that has left you feeling like cooking is the last thing you want to do. Or maybe you're trying to eat healthier, but you love the convenience of eating out and want to bridge the gap.
Prepared meals are the perfect solution for busy parents who still want the benefit of home cooked meals around the table with their family or for those who just can't get the hang of cooking and have decided they're sick of burning all their food (we aren't judging!). No matter your situation or reasons, prepared meals are a modern convenience that should be taken advantage of.
Prepared Meal FAQ
Continued from above...
If you're concerned about a prepared meal delivery service because you're a picky eater, have allergies or serious food intolerances, fear not. One reason prepared meals have become so popular is because they can cater to anyone's preferences and needs. If you need to avoid gluten, dairy, eggs, nuts, or any other specific ingredient, many companies will let you specify this and will adjust your meal options accordingly. You can choose vegetarian meals, paleo meals, calorie-conscious meals, or mostly order meals from your favorite cuisine.
Depending on the prepared meal service, some meal selections may cost more than others. If you want gourmet meals that give you a high-end restaurant experience for your taste buds at home, you might pay a bit more (worth it!) but if you're on a budget, there are still mouth-watering, nutritious options that shouldn't stretch the amount of money you've allotted yourself for meals. Whether or not the ingredients in your prepared meal are organic, locally sourced, or come with other specialty labels may affect the overall cost, so pay attention to this as well.
Some companies will deliver meals to your door that are practically ready to open up and eat on the spot, while others require a little prep on your part. Even the meals you have to assemble yourself are made to be as simple as can be. Ingredients come perfectly measured out with step-by-step instructions that can give confidence to even the most inept home chef. Useful tip: you could save the instructions and ingredient information if you want to make the meal again in the future and give it a go on your own!
We've made ourselves very hungry with all the research we've done about the top prepared meal services available to customers. In the end, we've narrowed down a few things that are important to look at when you're considering signing up with one of these companies:
- Menu options. Everyone has specific food preferences and needs. Identify what yours are and quickly identify whether or not the prepared meals offered by the company will cater to them. Ideally you'll want as many menu options as possible so that if you continue using the service long-term, you won't have to keep repeating the same type of meals over and over. You may also want to see if there is a variety as far as preparation complexity. Some nights you may have 5 minutes to prepare a meal and other nights you might have hours. Are you able to order a mix of meals that will work when you're in a pinch or if you want something more fancy and closer to homemade?
- Cost. You'll usually get the most bang for your buck if you sign up for a subscription with a prepared meal service. Sometimes this includes free delivery, other times it means you may save 10-15% on repeat orders rather than one-offs. Are you able to set your delivery schedule however you want? Is it easy to cancel or reschedule if you need to?
- Ingredient quality. Have you ever ordered a meal with meat that turns out to be rubbery? Or gotten a salad with wilted lettuce? Real, quality ingredients are important and make all the difference. Some people prioritize eating organic or buying fresh food from local farms. Services that offer non-GMO, organic food with sustainable sourcing practices are usually going to provide some of the highest-quality meals.
- Reputation. What do other customers say about their experience with the prepared meals from a company? Are deliveries fresh, on time, and tasty? If you have to work with customer service, hopefully they're accommodating and swift in their communication. Listening to what others have to say will give you key insights into this before you have to deal with it yourself.
To give you the best, most convenient experience with ordering prepared meals, the experts at Top Consumer Reviews have pored over all the details of popular companies available to you. We hope this information helps you find simple, enjoyable meals that you'll look forward to eating every day.
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