Green Chef - My 1st Meal Delivery Service Experienc

After a very long hesitation I finally decided to try a meal delivery service. I know I might be not the fastest adapter of the newest trends, but I had my reasons for it. I have been having hard time choosing a company to subscribe. This was mainly because I had some concerns with how this service would fit into my regular diet and schedule. Here they are:

1. Dietary restrictions / preferences
I avoid gluten, dairy and refined sugar in home cooking,. And I want the delivered meals to meet these criteria. I haven't seen any service yet that is flexible enough for that. I've seen Paleo options, but Paleo eliminates a lot of other food groups besides gluten and dairy, such as all grains and legumes, which I wanted to keep.

2. Schedules, meal planning and control over our menus
I really love my weekly farm vegetable deliveries. With that, I get a pretty big box of veggies that I need to use within a week. I do quite some meal prep on Sundays, such as soups, sheet pan roasted veggies, stuffed vegetables, etc. Given that most meal delivery services have a minimum of 3 meals per week, I was worried that with such subscription I wouldn't be able to use all the vegetables.

MY GREEN CHEF EXPERIMENT

While I still haven't been able to find a service with less than 3 meals per week and full flexibility over a meal plan (i.e. only exclude gluten and dairy), I decided to give it a try. I identified 3 companies that were closest to what I was looking for - Green Chef, Purple Carrot (TB12 meal plan) and Sun Basket. I started with the Green Chef and signed up for Paleo meal plan for 2 people, 3 meals a week. I've tried it for 2 weeks (6 meals) so far and here is what I think.

1. Why I chose Green Chef
First of all, Green Chef's Paleo menu looked quite attractive. I also liked the flexibility of skipping any week's delivery or cancelling all together at any point (before each week's deadline date.) And it's offer for a free full first week of delivery was unbeatable.

2. How it works
Green Chef delivers a full week of meals in one box to your door steps on a specific day of a week. Deliveries happen between 8 pm the night before and 8 am the morning of your assigned delivery day (at least in our area). All ingredients are pre-measured and neatly packed in individual containers or Ziploc bags. The food is guaranteed to stay fresh and cool as it is surrounded by the gel ice packs, especially when it comes to meat, chicken or seafood. All ingredients can be easily categorized to which meal they belong to by the color-coded labels placed on the packaging. So you don't need to go through the entire menu for each meal and figure out which ingredient belongs where.

3. What I like about the service

Diversity of meals. Even though I do like to cook and most of the time cook quite diverse meals, I found Green Chef's menu very versatile and different from my cooking. So far we already had Italian, Mexican, Cajun, Asian, BBQ, Moroccan and Latin American meals. And it is especially impressive how diverse these meals are given that we have a Paleo plan, which solely relies on protein, vegetables, nuts, seeds, spices and herbs.
Overall taste of the meals. So far my family and I really enjoyed the meals we've been getting with Green Chef. They have been really fresh, flavorful, diverse and nutritional. Out of 6 meals we had, to my taste, 4 were excellent and I would definitely eat them again. The other 2 were good and I would eat them again if modified. One of them had sweet potatoes that were already cut up too small and burned a bit in the oven even though I fully followed the instructions. And the second one was yummy overall but it had chicken drumsticks, which I don't like very much. If the same meal was with chicken thighs instead I am sure I would enjoy it much more.
Full range of textures. I really love complex meals with a spectrum of flavors and textures in it. And Green Chef's meals are right up my alley. With every meal you'll have at least 3 different "islands" of food on your plate, including protein, cold vegetables and warm vegetable creations. And you are pretty much guaranteed to get some crunchy, smooth and chewy textures there.
Diversity of flavors. Green Chef's meals use an incredible variety of flavorful sauces. Each meal comes with at least 2 little jars with sauces, dressings, vinegars, broth or other mixtures that add beautiful flavors to the dish. Beware - if you are not used to very flavored food, you might want to use only a portion of the sauces provided.
Food quality and freshness. So far, all the produce, chicken, meat and poultry we received have been very fresh. Green Chef does a very good job with packaging to ensure freshness of their food.
Portion size. I'll be honest with you - when I first saw all individually packaged ingredients, I was very skeptical about the amount of food. However, once cooked and served on the plates, it appears to be a very good amount of food. In fact, we actually had my vegetarian father-in-law staying with us during those 2 weeks. We shared the vegetarian part of the meal between 3 of us every time and we still had enough. Sometime I would make a bit more veggies or side of potatoes just for the guys, but most of the time it was just the right amount for me. And those who know me would admit that I'm not a light eater. Even though I can just eat a piece of protein and veggies and be happy, my portions can be pretty sizable.
Nutritional value. All meals come out within 450-600 calorie range and have a good balance of proteins, carbs and fat, which is important to me. There was one meal that had 740 calories in it, mainly because of sweet potatoes, but you can always put less of something on your plate.
Instructions. Green Chef has beautifully designed colorful instructions that have step-by-step pictures, clearly explain sequence of tasks in an optimal order to minimize total cooking time (30-35 min.)
Ease of preparation. All ingredients come pre-measured in exact amounts. Some items are already cut up and the rest requires minimal cutting. All of this makes cooking process much smoother and stress-free.
Convenience. The meal delivery service definitely saves some time and nerves as it saves you from thinking about what to cook after a long work day. You are coming home to a meal kit that is easy to prepare and is pretty much guaranteed to be ready in 30-35 minutes.

4. What would make it better for me

Price. Green Chef is on the higher end of the price range compared to other services: $15 per meal per person, compared to $11-13 with some other companies.
The secret sauce. As I mentioned earlier, a part of the reason Green Chef's meals are so tasty and flavorful is in the sauces and dressings they use. While I really like their flavors, I wish the instructions included sauces' recipes and ingredient list. I hear some people saying that after starting meal delivery service they have added quite some number of meals to their staples list. I am not sure I could fully replicate any of the Green Chef's meals without the recipes of their sauces.
Flexibility on the number of meals per week. One the one hand, I liked that I didn't have to think about dinner 3 night a week when we had meal deliveries. However, I would like to have an option of getting only 2 meals a week for the weeks when we have some plans to eat out, travel, etc. Also, that way I wouldn't be much worried about using all the vegetables that I get with the farm vegetable delivery.
Meal plan flexibility. It would be really great if I had more flexibility on the food groups that I would like to exclude / include in my plan. Specifically, I would like to only exclude gluten and dairy, but keep legumes and grains. Also, it would be nice to be able to exclude specific foods from the menu. For example, I am really not a big fan of chicken drumsticks. It would be convenient if I could say that I never want to get them in my box.

So what's next?

Am I hooked yet? At a minimum I'm intrigued. I am surprised how much I've liked it so far, both in terms of meals and convenience. It is undeniable that it eliminates a lot of thinking about what to cook for dinner at least 3 days a week and you are guaranteed a delicious meal cooked within 30-35 minutes. Plus, it's organic, fresh and completely gluten- and dairy-free (wiht my selected plan.)

Will I continue using Green Chef? It is very possible as I am very satisfied with it so far. But I have decided that I will try a couple other services first before I chose my favorite. So I have just signed up for Purple Carrot TB12 meal plan. Once I get it and try it, I'll share more about what it is and how I like it. Stay tuned!