Comparing Home Chef’s Meal Plans

If you’ve been searching around for a meal delivery service, you’ve likely considered Home Chef. Home Chef usually finds itself at the top of every ranking list, mostly thanks to its high-quality ingredients, tasty recipes, and wide variety of menu items. But, trying to decide which of their plans is best for you can be a bit tricky. With some careful thought and feature comparison, you’ll be able to confidently select which of their plans will work for you.

Home Chef and Fresh and Easy

Home Chef offers two types of meal plans: Home Chef and Fresh and Easy. Home Chef is a meal plan that offers simple cooking instructions for those who like to get their hands busy in the kitchen.

Fresh and Easy doesn’t involve as much preparation time, so it’s considered a great option for those who have a busy schedule that doesn’t allow much time for cooking.



How They Compare in Cost

Both the Home Chef and Fresh and Easy plans begin at $6.99 per serving. If you’re placing a smaller order, you may face shipping costs as well.

Since you have the ability to customize which ingredients you like and which ones you’d rather skip, your preferences will determine the final price of either plan.

What You Receive

With both the Home Chef and the Fresh and Easy plan, you’ll receive the groceries you need to make your healthy dinner. You’ll also receive the instructions you need to make the meal.

How Each Meal Is Prepared

How much cooking and clean-up you’ll have to do is one of the big differences between these two plans.

The Home Chef plan involves much more cooking than the Fresh and Easy plan. You can expect to spend no more than 30 minutes for each meal you cook using the Home Chef plan. That’s not a huge time commitment for a healthy meal, and the steps involved aren’t overly complicated.

There are different methods you’ll use to cook your meals. You might use the oven one day and the slow cooker the next.

With the Fresh and Easy plan, however, you’ll eliminate that time spent in the kitchen. The meals can all be cooked in just one step and they don’t require any clean-up. That’s a considerable time saver.

Which Plan is Right for You?

Which plan you should choose largely depends on your schedule, dietary needs, and possibly how many people you have in your family. Before deciding, take a close look at your circumstances, including:

Whether you like to cook

If you hate cooking, you run the risk of buying a plan and not using it. For those who hate dabbling in the kitchen, it’s smarter to get the Fresh and Easy plan. But if you enjoy cooking and find it relaxing, you should choose the Home Chef plan.

You don’t have time to clean

If that sounds like you, you’ll likely be happier with the Fresh and Easy plan, which requires little to no clean-up.

You have a demanding career that leaves you feeling tired

If your work schedule leads to some late evenings and feeling drained and low-energy, you might need something that requires little prep work, like the Fresh and Easy plan. So many people turn to fast food for their dinner because they feel too tired after a long day to cook anything. Knowing you have 30 minutes of cooking and clean-up ahead of you each night with the Home Chef plan may be too much for you.

How many people you’re feeding

Cooking for a family of four involves more prep work and time than cooking for one person does. If you have a large family, you might be biting off more than you can chew with the Home Chef plan.

You want a simple bonding activity for your family

f you love the idea of cooking with your family members, the Home Chef plan would be a good choice. You can share stories from your days as you prep the food. It can be a wonderful way for the whole family to bond and offers a low-pressure way for you to teach your children how to cook.

You have specific dietary needs

The Home Chef plan gives you total control over your dietary restrictions. You won’t have the same sense of control with the Fresh and Easy option. The Home Chef plan has a better selection for those who have special dietary needs, like being a vegetarian or following the paleo diet.

Enjoy Your New Plan

Whichever plan you go with, you’ll likely be improving your diet since healthy whole foods are used for both plans. You’ll also get to try some recipes you might not have tried if you weren’t using a meal delivery service.

Just by considering your lifestyle and motivation for using Home Chef, you can correctly choose between the two plans to find the best one for you.