Green Chef is a meal delivery service with its headquarters in the United States. The company delivers meal kits throughout the US. The only exceptions being Alaska, Hawaii, and some areas in Louisiana. You can set up deliveries to take place on your chosen day of the week, Monday through Saturday. The time of day really depends on the carrier. We received our box via UPS in the middle of the afternoon.
Company Info
Green Chef hosts it’s main office in Boulder, Colorado. The company was originally backed by venture capital. In 2018, Green Chef was acquired by HelloFresh. The Berlin based company has grown into the largest meal kit company in the US. Green Chef was a nice acquisition with their focus on GMO free, USDA-certified organic ingredients. They helped HelloFresh add a menu of organic vegan and gluten-free dishes.
Green Chef Menu and Pricing
When you sign up for Green Chef the first choice is the number of people you are cooking for. Select between 1 and 4 servings per meal. You can change the plan and meal preferences anytime so don’t worry if you’re not sure in the beginning. Next you will let Green Chef know what you like to eat. Remember that they are focused on healthy meals. You can select from keto, paleo, balanced living, and plant-powered menus.
The price of Green Chef starts at $9.99 a meal for 2 servings. This would assume 3 meals per week with 2 servings each. Want to feed a family of 4? If so select the family plan. In this case you can purchase 2 meals a week for 4 people served family style for $10.99 a serving. These prices include shipping.
Green Chef Promo
As with all meal delivery services, keep an eye out for promotions. When we signed up for Green Chef they were offering $25 off per order for the first 3 orders. That brought our price to $49.88 for 3 meals to serve 2 people. That’s under $50 for 6 servings along with free shipping. This was available to all new customers to give you a chance to try the meal kits.
Customer Service
If you have questions about your Green Chef account the best place to start is their website. They offer a support page with help managing your subscription. This includes membership and plan information, safe food handling, shipping and delivery, eco-friendly packaging, recipes and ingredients, billing ,and gifting. You can also reach them by email at help@greenchef.com or by phone at 888-236-7295. Support is available Monday-Friday 9am to 10pm EST, and Saturday-Sunday 10am to 6pm EST excluding major holidays.
Hands-On Review of Green Chef
We signed up for HelloFresh on Sunday, September 15th and received our first meal kit on Wednesday, September 25th. Take note of the gap as you may have a similar delay depending on which day of the week you place your first order and the day of the week you set the delivery. You need to select the menu by 11:59 p.m. PST within 7 days prior to your next scheduled delivery. Since we ordered on Sunday it meant that our menu locked in the next day to be shipped the following Monday.
Green Chef provides you with a number of payment options. You can use any major credit card including Visa, MasterCard, American Express, or Discover. You can also take care of the payment using PayPal. This was out choice as we like to manage all of our online subscription through PayPal. Either way you will be charged a few days before the package is shipped.
Next we made our recipe selections for the first week.
As we mentioned earlier in our Green Chef review. you can change your meno options at anytime. Simply go into the account preferences and select between the following menu options:
- Keto ($12.99) – low-bard, gluten-free
- Paleo ($12.99) – gluten, grain, dairy, and soy free
- Balanced living ($11.99) – omnivore, pescatarian (seafood), or no preference
- Plant powered ($11.99) – vegetarian and vegan dishes
- Family carnivore ($10.99) – meat and seafood dinners
- Family omnivore ($10.99) – meat, seafood, and vegetarian
We received our first Green Chef meal kit around 3:30pm on the delivery date via UPS.
When you open up the Green Chef box the first thing you will see is the recipes and an advertisement for the gift of the week. This time around the free gift was a probiotics lemon poppy seed organic oat bar. When you lift the packing you will notice bags for each recipe along with any other items that are more fragile. There is a piece of cardboard separating the meal bags from the meat which is located right above ice bags to keep cold.
As you can see the ingredients for each meal are individually bagged. The exception being the rainbow chard which is a more fragile item. The chicken and fish are individually sealed. The chicken had a stamp to use within 7 days. The fish did not have a date listed on it. The bags are fully recyclable. The meals had a strong odor which carried throughout our fridge. For this reason we decided to fix the recipes as soon as possible.
Meal Kit #1 – Roasted Red Curry Chicken
The chicken for this dish was sealed and included a use by date. All of the other ingredients were individually packaged in the meal kit bag as you can see with the sauces. We emptied the rest into small bowls. The recipe card for the roasted red curry chicken outlines the cook time (30 minutes) along with calories and a message to let you know the dish is gluten free. It also let’s you know what cookware you will need to complete the dish.
The recipe tells you to chop the mushrooms. We found it easier to break them to the size you want. This made it quite easy. Most of the ingredients were cut to the size you need for the recipe. Exceptions were the bell pepper and of course the chicken. The onions came diced. Make sure to stir the rice every so often while preparing the rest of the dish. Otherwise it will stick to the pan. Green Chef provides hints to help you out. For example, it recommending piercing the chicken with a fork to help it absorb the marinate. The recipe was spot on for the time it took to fry and bake the chicken.
Meal Kit #2 – Cheesy Pasta with Pesto
The next meal on our list was the cheesy pasta with pesto. Once again the ingredients came individually packed in the meal kit bag (other than the shard). Green Chef even sent the exact amount of garlic that you would need for the dish. They even sent butter. All we needed from our pantry for any of the dishes was oil, salt, and pepper. The cook time for this dish was 35 minutes. The recipe card provides you with step by step instructions for completing the pasta.
This dish was quite tasty. The only difference between the recipe and our experience was the time that it took to cook the pasta shells. The recipe calls for about 10 minutes but it actually took closer to 20 minutes. Even so the meal was still ready in about half an hour. Otherwise the instructions were very simple and spot on. Green Chef even provides you with the milk and butter. The white cheddar cheese was nice an fresh.
Meal Kit #3 – Apricot Glazed Salmon
Our final dinner was the apricot glazed salmon. The salmon was sealed but did not display a use by date. We went ahead and prepared it within 2 days of receiving the meal box. The zucchini was huge. They sent the exact amount of garlic needed. All of the ingredients were fresh. We didn’t have to discard anything. We had more than enough Greek yogurt to garnish the dish. The recipe card outlined the cook time which was 30 minutes. Each card also points out any allergens like soy, wheat, milk, fish, or tree nut.
The salmon took a little longer to bake than the recipe called for but the dish was still completed in the same amount of time. They want you to have an oven safe saute pan for the salmon to finish. You will fry it and then place it in the oven. As an alternative you can use a baking pan. A thermometer is helpful to ensure the salmon is fully cooked. The zucchini was quite large which made for generous portions. The Greek yogurt added an interesting flavor.
Conclusion
Green Chef is a good meal delivery service for health conscious customers who want a menu of organic vegan and gluten free dishes. They offer more options but those are the areas they shine in. We personally prefer their parent company, HelloFresh for our meal preferences. Even so we enjoyed trying Green Chef and feel confident recommending the service to those who are looking for a healthy alternative to eating out. Their meals start at $9.99 a serving with support for 1-4 servings per meal. Remember to take advantage of any discounts to save on your first order.
