Trying out different meal kit delivery services may be strenuous, especially if you always get disappointed in the end. However, finding the perfect match for your needs and taste could also become a satisfying experience. I am still juggling both. This time, I’m trying out Green Chef to test whether it’s an excellent alternative for my vegan meal adventures.
Check out my Green Chef review below.
What is Green Chef?
Green Chef is a meal delivery service that sends pre-proportioned and pre-prepped ingredients for their ready-to-be-made food options. It delivers premium herbs and delicious recipes and meal plans: vegan, gluten-free, paleo, vegetarian, Keto, and more.
Founded in 2014, Green Chef is also the first USDA-certified organic meal kit company.
Today, Green Chef delivers meal kits across the country and has various offices in three states. This meal-delivery service company also provides chef-crafted recipes and seasonal organic ingredients right to your doorstep.
This company also believes in keeping things clean, so they work diligently with farmers to supply responsibly-grown organic ingredients for all of their recipe options.
Green Chef is also a carbon emissions neutral company since its packaging is 100% compostable, reusable, and recyclable. They even actively offset their emissions.
PROS
- All ingredients are certified organic
- Offers more meat products in larger portion sizes
- Offers plans for specific diets
- Has carnivore and omnivore meal kits
- Ingredients are pre-measured and pre-prepped
CONS
- Some meal plans aren’t as delicious
- Has shipping fee
How Does It Work?
To order, you just have to choose one from Green Chef’s meal kit plan and then choose how many meals/recipes per week you want to order. You may select from their two, three, or four meal plans per week or a family plan. After doing so, you can now choose how many servings per meal plan you want to have. You can choose any of the two, four, or six servings per meal plan they offer for a family plan.
Green Chef offers three main meal kit plans: Balanced Living, Plant-Powered, and Carb Easy. The third meal kit plan offers Keto and paleo-friendly options. Green Chef also offers different pricing for the three plans that you could choose from.
After choosing your meal plans, you can now enter your payment information. Then, carefully select the delivery date for the following week. Each week, your meals/products would arrive in an insulated packing to keep the meals safe and fresh. It also delivers nearly every ZIP code except for Hawaii, Alaska, and some parts of Louisiana.
How’s The Flavor, Freshness & Quality?
For this Green Chef review, I decided to do a taste test to verify the flavor, freshness, and quality of all the meals I have received from Green Chef to avoid being subjective. Generally, every Green Chef meal tastes healthy. They give off this “I’m-organic” vibe in every bite. The sauces and seasonings are all flavorful, giving off a high-quality feel and taste in their every meal.
Green Chef also used flavors that are familiar to most Americans, leaning into a safer side compared to other meal kit delivery services/companies. Their meal kits provide more distinctive flavors that you wouldn’t find in a grocery store.
Quality-wise, the meals provide more high-nutritional value and rich aromatic flavors. Freshness-wise, since the meals come in insulated boxes and are carefully tucked into plastic bags, they stay fresh during delivery.
What’s On the Menu?
Unlike other meal kit delivery services, Green Chef offers three meal types: Keto + Paleo meal plan, Balanced Living, and Plant-Powered meal plan. Each meal plan comprises organic ingredients and savory sauces and spices.
I couldn’t try the Keto + Paleo meal-type since I am one hundred percent vegan. However, one of my friends on a strict keto diet tried Green Chef for a week. She told me that her favorite is the Hoisin-Glazed Salmon. This food has roasted broccoli, sesame seeds, and cabbage slaw with cashews. In just 20 minutes, she could already savor the lusciousness of her food.
On the other hand, I am part of the vegan community. So, my favorite among all the Plant-Powered meals is the Italian White Beans and Creamed Kale with balsamic hazelnut gremolata. It is almost as quick and easy to prepare for a smooth cooking experience. It only took me 30 minutes. This is one of the best comfort foods on my list.
If you are a part of the Balanced Living food group, most online reviews confirm that the Lemon-Butter Tilapia is one of the best meals Green Chef offers. It comprises mashed potatoes with artichokes and roasted brown sugar carrots. It has a savory and citrusy pan sauce that goes along with the tilapia.
“Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not at all.” – Harriet Van Horne, American Newspaper Columnist, and Film/Television Critic
What About the Cooking Process?
If you are a busybody, you might find Green Chef a breath of fresh air compared to other meal delivery services. Their meal kits are mostly too simple to prepare since everything already comes pre-prepared and pre-proportioned. It would usually take you less than 30 minutes to prepare and cook their meals.
Although some meals may require a more lengthy process for family plans, you would never find overly complicated recipes to prepare.
One of my most favorite and easiest-to-prepare meals is the Acho-lime sweet potato bowl. This plant-based meal kit added lime zest to the white rice, adding that extraordinaire trick to my normal rice-cooking routine. Nobody would find this in a grocery store.
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Green Chef Extra Feature - Recipe Cards
Green Chef meal delivery boxes come with full-color recipe cards containing helpful step-by-step photos. The addition of images made it more effortless for people to see how small or big things needed to be diced. Each recipe card also reveals what the meals should look like when they were finished cooking.
Although the cards didn’t exactly list the items or cookware needed to prepare each food, the instructions are pretty easy for people to understand. Unlike other meal delivery services, you can only see the calorie count in each recipe card. However, you can see the full nutrition information on their official website. And in case you misplaced your cards, you can also check out the recipes on their website.
Shipping, Packaging, & Delivery
Green Chef uses eco-friendly packaging. Expect to receive your meal kits in a recyclable cardboard box and ice packs. The company also uses ClimaCell, a plant-based, curbside-recyclable insulation that protects controlled room temperature (CRT) and refrigerated/frozen pack-outs for up to 36 hours. [1]
If there’s one thing that most people didn’t like about Green Chef, it must be how they charge a flat fee/price of almost $10 per box for all the shipping and handling of your orders. This fee/price is added to your box’s total cost.
Before any meal planning, you may also want to check whether Green Chef delivers to your place or not. Although Green Chef delivers to almost every ZIP code across the country, they don’t deliver to Hawaii, Alaska, and some parts of Louisiana. They also deliver through Monday through Saturday and arrive between 8 am and 8 pm on your scheduled delivery day. For any inquiries, you may contact their customer service hotline.
Are There Green Chef Drawbacks?
Based on my extensive research, some people find Green Chef’s recipes more challenging to choose, especially when they want to switch from one plan to another.
They also didn’t like how the company charges a flat rate for the handling and shipping their orders. And another thing is, the shipping fee is even calculated per box. Some customers also find the sauces and seasonings subpar and don’t fit their standards in taste even if world-famous chefs made them.
What Customers Say About Green Chef
Most customers find the Green Chef an easy alternative to cooking all their meals for lunch and dinner. These eaters also like how the meal kit delivery service uses guaranteed organic ingredients. Most people find eating gluten-free and organic food healthy and necessary.
They also have diverse menu options where customers could choose from. They even have a menu for specific dietary meals such as Keto and paleo.
Customers also like how Green Chef goes big on their servings, especially on their portions of vegetables. They even offer meals that are low on saturated fat. The meals are also easy, simple, and fast to prepare, saving more time and effort.
FAQs
Green Chef stands out because it offers organic ingredients that are non-GMO and has no pesticides or antibiotics. These ingredients come pre-prepped and pre-measured along with their pre-made sauces, spice blends, and marinades.
Each food comes with more flavor with less time of preparation. The recipes are quick and easy to organize and even come with Green Chef’s tips, step-by-step instructions, and photos. In just about 30 minutes, your meals are already done
Yes, it is easy to cancel your Green Chef orders. There is no commitment, so you can always skip when you want and cancel any time. You can even skip weeks in advance if you suddenly have to go out of town. Just log into your account, then toggle on the dropdown menu. Click the Cancel Subscription button and follow the prompts.
In every box, you will get your ordered meals in a fresh and excellent state. You will most like to get authentic organic ingredients that are pre-proportioned and pre-prepared. You’ll also have recipe cards for each recipe you chose. Packed in individual plastic bags would be your spices, sauces, and marinades.
As mentioned above, there is no commitment to the Green Chef delivery service. You can order any time, choose your weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly subscriptions, and cancel them anytime you want. You may also decide to skip a week if you have something urgent to do or go to.
Final Thoughts on Green Chef Meal Delivery
Green Chef is an excellent way to help us cope with our demanding work and life schedules. This meal kit delivery service offers organic and fresh components. These components could also provide us the precise amount of nutrients our body needs without sacrificing the meal’s quality.
It also offers a quick and easy cancellation option if you decided not to continue subscribing to their meal plans anymore. Each plant-based meal kit also comes with recipe cards with step-by-step instructions and pictures that could help you prepare your meals perfectly.
The ingredients also come pre-prepared and pre-proportioned, so you can always save time. Unlike other meal kit services/companies, it provides various meal kits and recipes fit for specific dietary needs.
We Recommend
Green Chef
- Uses certified organic ingredients
- Offers more meat products in larger portion sizes
- Offers plans for specific diets
- Has omnivore options
About Author
Hi! My name is Kathy, I am a retired high school English teacher & vegan enthusiast and blogger. My entire blog is fully plant-based vegan. I truly believe what we eat & how we live determines our health & the preservation of our planet! 🙂
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