The new year is fully underway and as part of my “official, unofficial” resolutions, I’m making a commitment to cook at home more often and cut down on eating out. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been bombarded with tons of meal delivery kit ads claiming to be the healthiest option or touting their food option varieties. I finally gave in and I decided to give one a shot!
After reviewing literally dozens of options, we decided to try out Home Chef, first. Here are some quick pros and cons of the meal kits.
The Short…
If you’ve got the time, and money, these kits are great. They offer a variety of meals each week. Even when you order the same protein options, the recipes are so unique with their flavorings that you don’t feel like you’re eating a redundant meal.
The recipes are delicious, and you quickly learn who your fav chefs are (shout out to Chef @nigelandrepalmer) and start to seek out their recipes.
While the meals are enjoyable, there are a few watch-outs. Even though these meal services try to quantify the spend and say it’s almost the same as eating out or buying groceries, it’s really not. It’s quite an expensive habit and you only get two servings (or pay double the money for four), meaning no leftovers the next day. That brings me to my second point which is…
As much as I aspire to be the next Martha Stewart, it’s likely not going to happen anytime soon. It’s can be so hard to work all day, every day and then come home every evening and cook meal after meal after meal.
At the end of the day, it comes down to priorities and what matters most to you. If you don’t mind spending a little extra cash and putting in the hours in the kitchen, these meals in a box might be right for you.
If you’re looking for something that’s fast and doesn’t require much time or effort, you might need to stick with takeout!
Adding Some Color Commentary…
I’d say I jumped head-first into the food delivery, meal service world. After digging and reading tons of reviews online, I landed on Home Chef. There were several reasons Home Chef made sense for us.
For one, the variety of food options were perfect for us. I’ve been on a mini-keto kick this month and Home Chef had more low-carb options than many of the other sites. They site allows you to put in your dietary restrictions – low carb, low calorie, gluten-free, you name it – and then they tailor the food options that display in your queue. I was actually surprised the other services didn’t have healthier options and like these. There were also lots of yummy meals for my fiancé – from fried fish and chips to pasta primavera. So overall, we felt like they had the best meal variety and dietary options for our household.
I can’t say it enough. The meals have just. been. so. so good. I feel like I’m turning into a cooking ninja! And, even though all my meals have been low carb, they haven’t skimped on the flavor, on bit!
Now, deliciousness and flavor aside, let’s get real, people. These meals are not cheap. And, they are not comparable to grocery shopping. In fact, when my fiancé and I did the math, and found that could get double (if not more!) the number of servings that we could get from purchasing the ingredients from the store for the same price it costs per two meal servings with Home Chef!
The question then becomes… well, why don’t you just purchase the ingredients from the grocery store and recreate the meals? I wish it were that simple. As with any dish, the sauces and spices added in can make or break the dish.
To keep you coming back and in on the dark from discovering their trade secret recipes, Home Chef will send you mostly fresh ingredients with a few "pre-packaged" items. Things like sauces or specific seasonal mixes are often times pre-blended or mixed and placed in your package, ready for use. Unless you’re a taste expert, it’s pretty hard to guess some of those flavors.
The last thing that I wasn’t a huge fan of are the estimated cook times. Most of the meals I selected had a prep and cook time of about 20-35 minutes. This turned out to be fairly inaccurate for my household. If a recipe says 30 minutes, I can pretty much count on being in the kitchen for the next hour to 90 minutes. Now, part of that is because these recipes are brand new to me and my chopping skills need some work (am I the only person that can spend 5+ minutes chopping a single onion?!), but still… They’ve got to realize many people buying these meals are novice cookers. Let’s bake in (get it!) some time for us newbies to the kitchen!
Take a look at some of my fav Home Chef meals this month!
So, there you have it folks! Overall, I think we're going to stick with this meal delivery service for a while because the meals are awesome. Home Chef is keeping me honest with my news years resolutions to eat at home more and I'm loving the variety and flavors.
Have you tried Home Chef or another meal delivery service? If so, tell me about it on Twitter, IG or in the comments below!
With Love, From Kay
This is not a Home Chef sponsored post.