Whether you’re a professional chef or a home chef, you can now add Green Chef to your title.
Green Chef is one of thebest meal kits and delivery services I’ve tried over the last four years, but wanted to dive in deeper to give you an up-close and personal look at the box, recipes and most importantly, the food served up by the team at Green Chef.
I also wrote an overview of the service here, should you want a brief refresher before taking a bite out of the review.
How Green Chef works
The traditional meal kit service sends fresh, pre-measured and prepped ingredients to your door, delivered on a weekly cadence depending on your subscription.
Choose from a rotating weekly menu, with options to mix and match vegan, vegetarian, Keto, paleo, gluten-free and more.
This meal kit isn’t just for super healthy folks, as the flavor of the meals is worth the kit alone, as well as the ease of cooking, freshness of ingredients and not having to go to the grocery store. The kit is great for those who enjoy chopping and slicing, as many of the recipes involve a decent amount of cooking, but nothing more complex than a dice or sauté.
Green Chef price
Green Chef is pretty average when it comes to pricing, as compared to other meal kits.
Each meal, no matter how many you order or for how many portions, comes to $11.99 per serving.
You can opt for meals that serve either two or four people, at a frequency of three or four meals per week. Shipping costs a flat rate of $9.99.
Green Chef meals
Yes, Green Chef meals are health-focused, but they are also so much more than that.
The produce is always fresh and they pride themselves on using only organic produce, cage-free eggs, antibiotic-and-hormone-free chicken and sustainably sourced seafood in each recipe.
They offer a bunch of different meal options, including Mediterranean, Keto, protein-packed, calorie smart, plant based, quick and easy, gluten free, and even those focused on gut and brain health. These can also be seen on the weekly menu, or while signing up for your account.
Our review of Green Chef:
Pros:
- Great for those with allergies in the house, as the cards indicate allergens in each basket ingredient
- Super fresh-tasting fish that comes on ice in the box
- Each meal takes six steps to complete, usually under about 35 minutes, perfect for quick lunches and dinners
- Organic, cage-free, antibiotic-free and hormone-free produce and animal products
- Easy-to-follow directions and packaging
Cons:
- Not the most sustainable, as there are many items individually wrapped in plastic or paper.
I really do love traditional meal kits such as these. When I say traditional, I mean an easy-to-use weekly menu of options, pre-portioned bags of ingredients and a great recipe that yields exactly what it says it will. Green Chef is all of the above.
For my weekly meals, I wanted to choose a variety, opting for some things out of my usual diet comfort zone like vegan Moroccan-Style Green Pea Fritters as well as a comforting Creamy Italian Pork Soup and an indulgent-yet-wholesome Shrimp and Steak Salad with Schug Sauce from their Chef Select premium choices. The menu has options for a whole array of preferences, like vegetarian, vegan, Keto and more, making it more fun than just munching on veggies and calling it “healthy.”
The recipe cards were easy as ever to follow, with photos every step of the way as well as bolded items that showed each ingredient. All you need is to be sure to have pots and pans at the ready, in addition to cooking oil, salt and pepper for most meals.
Since Green Chef limits trips to the grocery store, I was able to devote that time to cooking. While not super time-consuming, I would say that each meal took an average of 30 to 45 minutes to fully prep and cook, which is how I would spend a normal dinner anyway. That being said, do take note of the estimated cook-times on each recipe, should you be choosing meals to fit a busier day.
For 2024, I saw many of my favorite meals again, but also the additions of even more options for lunch and easy meals. I chose a Greek Salad as part of their line of 15-Minute Lunches and sure enough, it took exactly 15 minutes to cook and yielded far more salad than I could eat on my own— hoorah for leftovers!
The final verdict:
At the end of the day, Green Chef is a great option for fresh looking and tasting ingredients, creative recipes and unique flavors that are made to entertain your tastebuds. I even learned some new tricks in the kitchen from these recipes, helping me to step up my cooking game even after the subscription ended — Who knew I would love green pea falafel fritters so much?!
This is a kit for those who want to spice up their weekly cooking, while incorporating more organic, health-forward ingredients and new skills into their lives.
How we tested
- Ease of ordering: When looking at the menu, Green Chef is simple to set up and order for each week. I always take into consideration how to customize the order, make changes and pause a membership when testing.
- Prep, cook and cleanup time: A major selling point of meal kits is that they save time. Green Chef takes between 15 and 45 minutes per meal, sticking very closely to what the recipe estimates. I still noted how long it took me to have a complete meal from unpackaging to cooking, eating and recycling afterward.
- Flavor and fullness: Meal kits are meant to remove all the guesswork from cooking, including seasoning. When testing Green Chef I took into account if any of the dishes I ordered needed to be seasoned or altered to become more palpable. I also considered how satisfied they left me and for how long.
- Sustainability: Not all meal kits are eco-friendly or use sustainable practices. To determine where Green Chef stood on the eco-conscious scale, I reviewed its production policy and looked into how it sourced its ingredients. Other things I took into account were its packaging and whether it could be recycled.
- Price: Meal kits typically run between $7 and $15 per serving, and so Green Chef sits in the middle at $11.99 per serving. I also take into account how many meals per week and how many servings you get for the price.
FAQ: What to look for when choosing a meal kit
Diet: Pay attention to the dietary options each service caters to, from vegetarian and vegan to Keto and paleo.
Household Size: Count the number of people in your family and then account for how much they eat to best calculate how many servings you need to feed everyone. Some kits detailed above have larger portions, while others are single-serve only.
Budget: Meal kits and services have a wide range of prices. Some offer free shipping, while others have a minimum spend, and other specialty or health-related plans may cost more.
Time: Think about how long you want to be cooking for each night. Some meals require 30 or more minutes to cook, not including cleaning up. Others are microwavable and thus don’t require clean-up time, either.
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