I tried Home Chef & Hello Fresh and this is what I think

With a husband deployed and two kids in baseball, I don’t have time to cook like I normally do.  I take pride in cooking the majority of our meals from scratch, so in an effort to avoid drive-thrus and frozen pizza, I decided to try out some of these meal delivery kit companies that are gaining more and more popularity.  I tried Home Chef & Hello Fresh and this is what I think:

I looked into about six different meal delivery companies and decided on Home Chef and Hello Fresh because they were reasonably priced and had meals that were similar to what I would want to make at home. 

Some of the other companies out there were way too expensive and with a couple, I literally couldn’t find anything on their menu that looked good, so out they went.

How They Work

Both Home Chef and Hello Fresh have great introductory offers that allow you to try them out for pretty cheap.  You do have to sign up and create an account before you can preview their menus. 

Both companies want to know your likes and dislikes so they can tailor a menu to your preferences.   When it’s time to choose your meals, you choose how many days a week you want meals and how many servings you need. 

I would get 3 meals/week with two servings in each meal.  If you’re going out of town or just don’t want any deliveries that week, just skip the delivery!

When the delivery comes, it’s kind of like a big box that’s filled with gifts just for me! Gifts in the form of: menus that I didn’t have to plan, less groceries I had to buy, and the convenience of having all the ingredients pre-measured in a grab-and-go bag with a recipe – all of which save me much needed time. 

The only things you’ll need to supply to prepare your meals are: salt & pepper, cooking spray, olive oil, a baking sheet, and a sauté pan.

The factors that I considered when rating Home Chef and Hello Fresh were:

• Convenience
• Taste
• Quality
• Price – they were both approximately the same price

Home Chef overall rating = 4.5/5

Home Chef was the first of the two companies I tried.  They include a binder in your introductory shipment so you can collect and save the recipe cards for future use.  I thought that was a nice touch.

Home Chef Convenience: 4/5

• I really like the Home Chef website.  I thought the delivery schedule was more user-friendly and the meal selections were easier to navigate.
• Home Chef puts their packages of raw meat in its own bag, which prevents possible contamination and messes.
• I wasn’t a fan of their recipe cards.  The font is too small, the step-by-step sections need greater contrast to make it easier to read and follow, and the pictures were dark and taken too far away.
• Home Chef uses a recyclable, handled plastic bag for each meal kit.  I found them super convenient and impervious to wetness.
• Meals took between 25-45 minutes to make.  In this busy, baseball-is-my-life season that I’m in, I would prefer more 25-30 minute recipes.

Home Chef Taste: 5/5

• We tried about 9 Home Chef meals and absolutely loved all but one of them.
• I found that the majority of Home Chef meals were homemade versions of something you would eat out at a nice restaurant (Goat Cheese Crusted Chicken, White Wine Chicken Scaloppine). 

Home Chef Quality: 5/5

• I didn’t have any issues with food freshness or quality, even with fresh herbs and other produce.  Everything was in great condition.
• I feel like I really got my money’s worth.  The meals were great tasting and generously portioned.  A 2-serving meal would feed me and my two kids with a little leftover.

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Hello Fresh overall rating = 3/5

Hello Fresh has fun, brightly colored packaging and recipe cards.  Their branding stands out and catches your eye, so well done, marketing department!

Hello Fresh Convenience: 3/5

• I found the deliveries part of their website harder to use than Home Chef.  The symbols/colors used to represent deliveries and skipped deliveries should be easier to differentiate.
• Hello Fresh does not put their raw meat in a separate bag; they put it in loose at the bottom of the shipping container.  My very first shipment had blood pooling on the bottom of the package as one of the packages was leaking and I didn’t know which one it was, so I had to toss all of the meat.  Customer Service handled this issue very professionally and did make it right.
• I loved their recipe cards.  The step-by-step directions are very easy to read and were put together a lot better than Home Chef.
• They use recycled brown paper bags for their meal kits.  Although more environmentally friendly, paper bags don’t work well with issues like leaking blood.
• Meals took between 20-40 minutes to make, with the majority in my ideal 30-minute range.

Hello Fresh Taste: 5/5

• While Home Chef seems to be geared more to traditional, classic meals, Hello Fresh is all about adventurous ethnic foods, which is something I cook frequently in my home.  I had Italian, Argentinian, and Mexican meals, in addition to an American classic like meatloaf.  Just about everything we had was delicious and full of flavor.
• A lot of Hello Fresh meals include little packets of “chicken stock concentrate”.  That stuff is a wonderful addition to the recipe and I may start incorporating some in my own recipes.

Hello Fresh Quality: 2.5/5

• In addition to the leaked blood in my first package, I was also disappointed in the produce since what I received was often not very fresh.  I received wilted herbs, less than desirable vegetables, unripe tomatoes…surprising since their name has “fresh” in it.
• Like Home Chef, I was impressed with their 2-serving amounts.  It fed me and my kids with leftovers.

Pros & Cons of Home Delivery Meal Kits:

Pros:

1. I still get to cook for my kids, which = not going through a drive-thru.  Win!
2. I save so much time not planning a menu!  Do you know how much time I spend deciding on what meals to make, what ingredients I need to make them, etc.?
3. I also save time at the grocery store because I don’t need to shop for the meal delivery kit days.  I basically shop for fresh produce, pantry basics, breakfast items, and lunch foods.

Cons:

1. So much packaging!  Inside the delivery boxes of both companies is a TON of packaging that helps insulate the food to keep it fresh, in addition to ice packs, and cardboard.  The good news is that the majority of it is recyclable, but I wonder how many people actually recycle it?
2. You do need to manually “skip” a delivery if you don’t want one.  If you don’t, you’ll automatically get a box.
3. It is a little more expensive than what it would cost to make the same meal with store-bought groceries.  You are paying for convenience.

There’s a saying I have: “Sometimes I have more money than time, sometimes I have more time than money”.  With baseball in season and a deployed husband, I don’t have enough time in a day to get things done, so I find it worthwhile to order these meal kits occasionally. 

I don’t order every week because I do enjoy cooking my own recipes and need to develop new recipes for this blog, but I would highly recommend you give them a shot if you have the need. 

Although I did enjoy many aspects of Hello Fresh, I did end my account with them.  I am keeping my Home Chef account to use in times when I need that convenience. 

I am not getting compensated by Home Chef to promote this post, these are my genuine, unsolicited opinions.  They do offer an introductory offer to everyone, so if you would like to try them out, click HERE and you will get a free $35 credit to try them out and I will also get a $35 credit.

Did you try either of these home delivery meal kits?  Which one is your favorite?  Let me know in the comments below! ♥ 

I also have a fun Facebook group for us foodies to share recipes and talk about food.  I’d love to have you!  Request to join HERE.  Cheers!