Green Chef (owned by HelloFresh) is a great meal kit subscription for beginners. I said as much in our Meal Kit Buying Guide. The recipe cards are full of helpful pictures, and the intuitively grouped instructions don’t skip important steps. I’ve spent weeks testing meal kit subscriptions during my tenure at WIRED, but we’re testing them again in order to give them individual reviews. Green Chef has been an honorable mention in our guide since I first tested it, and I still think it’s a good option for anyone looking to build up their culinary prowess.
Green Chef has a few plans available. You can get three meals with two servings per meal (which works out to $13.49/serving), or you can go all the way up to four meals with six servings per meal (which works out to $11.99/serving). Different lifestyle and dietary filter options include plant-based, low-calorie, high-protein, keto, and gluten-free (among others). Note that Green Chef’s pricing is higher than similarly styled meal kits—that’s because nearly every ingredient is organic.
Usually there are introductory offers to make your first week(s) cheaper. Each week you’ll select your dishes from the weekly menu and make any customizations, such as swapping proteins or adding extra portions. You can pause or cancel your subscription anytime so long as you do it at least five days before your order ships. Most of the packaging is made from recycled materials and is recyclable itself.
An Emotional Rollercoaster
During my week of testing Green Chef, I experienced the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. My Steak & Shrimp With Creamy Truffle Sauce was a brown, oversalted disaster—partially due to my heavy hand with the Maldon flakes, and (I think) partially due to the instructions telling me to salt my dish six separate times. For context, there wasn’t any particular kind of salt to use—most meal kit services have you provide your own, so I just used the flaky sea salt that I always season with. I was so absorbed in following each step thoroughly that I didn’t stop to think, “Hmmm. I’ve already salted and peppered this four times.” Instead, with reckless abandon, I enthusiastically seasoned, and at the end I cried, threw it away, and sadly DoorDashed myself chicken nuggets at 10:30 pm. And for what it’s worth, even outside of the salty sauce, I didn’t love the accompanying green bean and tomato side. I didn’t love the ratio of shrimp to steak. I just didn’t love this dish!
Photograph: Louryn Strampe
On the flip side, my Chicken With Maple-Dijon Sauce was delicious. Possibly one of my favorite dishes I’ve ever made. The chard, sweet potato, and apple hash could have been a meal in and of itself, and the maple-glazed chicken was divine. I realized it reminded me of my favorite dish from Sweetgreen (the Harvest Bowl), and after trying the finished dish thoroughly enough to be able to review it, I went rogue from the recipe and added a chunk of goat cheese to further emulate the Harvest Bowl. It was perfect. So good that I didn’t want to share it. I loved this dish so much that I saved the recipe card.
And I had a similar experience with the third dish—Buttery Lemon-Garlic Shrimp. The star of the meal was the sun-dried tomatoes that had soaked in a lemon juice and vegetable broth mixture. They were bright and tangy, a true delight that brightened up the otherwise heavy, shrimpy pasta. I’ve cooked with lemon juice, sun-dried tomatoes, and vegetable broth individually hundreds of times. Why did I never think to combine them before?
Overall, I found that the recipes’ time estimates were a bit short. I think all recipe kits have this flaw. If you’re Ina Garten or one of the wonderful Bon Appetit food editors, maybe you’d nail the timing. But for the average person, it’s safe to give yourself a 20-minute buffer on top of the estimated prep time shown on the recipe card.