Green Chef Review: A Dietitian’s Expert Take

Green Chef is a weekly meal kit delivery service that offers a variety of easy-to-follow meal plans.

However, you may wonder how Green Chef compares with other meal kit delivery services.

This article provides a detailed Green Chef review, explaining how it works and its pros and cons to help you can decide if it’s right for you.

How it works

Green Chef offers three meal types:

• Keto and paleo: High-protein, carb-conscious recipes free of gluten, grains, soy, and legumes.
• Balanced living: A variety of options, offering a choice of meat, seafood, and vegetarian recipes.
• Plant-powered: Vegan and vegetarian recipes with wholesome sides.

For the most variety, I selected the balanced living option.

I signed up and ordered Green Chef through their website, but they also have an app where you can make your menu selections and manage your deliveries.

After you select your meal type, you select your box size — the number of people you’re cooking for and the number of meals per week you want.

Green Chef allows you to cook for two, four, or six people, and receive up to four meals per week.

I opted for two servings — since it’s just my wife and me — and three meals per week, which came to $11.99 per serving.

The price per serving decreases slightly with the more meals you order.

Based on your chosen meal plan, you can select which meals you want or allow Green Chef to choose for you.

The box and all the packaging are made from recycled, reusable, and compostable materials.

Unboxing, ingredient quality, and cooking

My box arrived on its scheduled delivery date.

Green Chef offered me more delivery days than other meal kit delivery services like Home Chef.

Depending on your zip code, you may have many or limited delivery day options.

According to Green Chef’s website, the ingredients will typically stay fresh for five days after arrival, but recipes containing seafood should be eating within three days of when your box arrives.

The ingredients in my box all looked and smelled fresh and were at the appropriate temperature.

Each recipe card and kit bag were color-coded so I could easily find what I needed when I was ready to cook.

Unfortunately, my box was missing chicken strips, which were needed for the chicken and veggie pho recipe.

Thankfully, we purchased chicken breasts earlier in the week that we used to replace the missing chicken strips.

I emailed Green Chef about the missing chicken strips, and in fewer than 30 minutes, I received a reply from their customer care team expressing their apologies for the inconvenience and a refund of $15.00.

Understanding that mistakes happen, I was very satisfied with Green Chef’s response time and resolution.

Outside of the missing chicken strips, the recipe cards were easy to follow and the meals required 30–45 minutes to prepare and cook.

Green Chef provides all the ingredients, except for cooking oil, salt, and pepper.

You also need basic cooking equipment, such as pots, baking sheets, bowls, measuring cups and spoons, a strainer, peeler, and thermometer.

Although the meals didn’t turn out to look like the picture from the recipe cards, they offered unique flavor, color, and texture combinations in a generous serving.

Pros

After trying many of their meals and examining everything on their website, Green Chef has a lot to offer.

Here are a few pros that stook out to me:

Organic produce and eggs

All of Green Chef’s produce and eggs are organic unless labeled otherwise.

Although current evidence suggests that organic food is no more nutritious than conventional foods, increasing your intake of organic foods may reduce your exposure to antibiotic-resistant bacteria (1, 2, 3).

According to their website, Green Chef also prioritizes high animal welfare standards and sustainable ingredient sourcing.

Variety of meal plans

Although Green Chef doesn’t offer the variety of meal plans that similar companies offer, they still accommodate different lifestyles, like keto, paleo, and plant-based.

Green Chef also considers your dietary preferences, allowing you to choose from meals that are pork-, poultry-, beef, or seafood-free.

Green Chef also offers plant-based meals, including vegan options — which very few meal kit delivery services offer.

Nutritious meals

Green Chef has a library of recipes that are both delicious and nutritious.

Each recipe uses a variety of different ingredients rich in vitamins, minerals, and fiber to offer a well-balanced, healthy meal.

Beyond ingredients, Green Chef also encourages more home cooking and eating, which is beneficial for weight management.

One study showed that people who ate at least five home-cooked meals per week were 28% less likely to be overweight than people who ate less than three home-cooked meals per week (4).

Green Chef’s use of pre-portioned ingredients also help to keep your calories under control.

An Excellent customer care team

Trying to contact a company about an issue isn’t always easy.

It may take a while to find the company’s contact information, and then once you do, you spend additional time waiting on hold or for an email reply.

Fortunately, Green Chef has an attentive and resolution-minded customer care team to make things right if you happen to be missing an ingredient or experience a different problem.

Cons

Before buying any product or service, you should also consider the cons.

Here are a few cons worth mentioning:

More expensive than other meal kit companies

Ranging between $10.49 and $12.99 per serving, Green Chef is more costly than other meal kit delivery services, including more expensive than its sister brand, HelloFresh.

But as a certified organic company, Green Chef meals will be more expensive than meals prepared from conventional ingredients.

In either case, the added price of Green Chef’s organic produce and eggs may be worth the cost for some people but not others.

No prepared meal options

Unlike Sunbasket, Blue Apron, and a few other competitors, Green Chef doesn’t currently offer fresh or frozen prepared meals.

Fresh or frozen prepared meals take only a few minutes in the microwave or oven before they’re ready to eat.

Although Green Chef’s meals take an average of 30 minutes to make, you may not have the time, and even if you have the time, you just might not feel like cooking.

Not suitable for people with severe food allergies

Green Chef’s ingredients are processed and packaged in the same facility, and cross-contact with major food allergens like wheat, soy, tree nuts, and others, may occur.

That said, Green Chef is not suitable for people with severe food allergies, including celiac disease.

A final look

Green Chef delivers pre-portioned ingredients that you can turn into delicious meals in around 30 minutes.

They offer three main meal plans that you can customize based on your dietary preferences.

Green Chef costs more than some of its competitors due to the use of certified organic produce and eggs.

They also don’t currently offer prepared meals, which may be inconvenient if you regularly lack the time to cook or just want something quick and easy.

Although Green Chef is a weekly meal kit subscription service, you can skip one week or several at no extra cost.

But if try Green Chef and decide it’s not right for you, they make it easy to cancel and deactivate your plan.

The bottom line

Green Chef delivers pre-portioned ingredients and easy-to-follow recipe cards suited for a variety of meal plans.

Although Green Chef doesn’t currently offer prepared meals, you can make most Green Chef recipes in about 30 minutes with basic cooking equipment and kitchen staples.

Green Chef is a weekly subscription service, but you can always skip a week or put your deliveries on hold.

Consider both the pros and cons to determine whether Green Chef is the right meal kit subscription service for you.