Green Chef
I have wanted to try a meal delivery service for quite some time. My problem has been the overall cost, lack meal options that both Brad and I both like, and delivery day. Ideally I would like something that could delivery on a Monday so we can eat on it all week, but that has been near impossible to find. One day while listening to a podcast, I heard about Green Chef. The meal option sounded good, and they delivered on Wednesdays. Price was not great, but I did have a decent discount to at least make it reasonable to try.
I ordered my first box on August 25th. I decided to do the 3 meals for 2 people plan. It normally costs $82 a week for said plan, but with the discount code I had, the first box was only $37. Each week, I had until one week before the delivery date to pick my meals or delay/cancel my delivery. If you do not pick your meals, the system will pick for you. So my first box was scheduled to be delivered September 1st.
So right out of the gate, the box was late. This is super disappointing when you are meal planning and expect it on a certain date. I know that is beyond Green Chef and goes back to the shipping company they use. However, I know this is common with other meal delivery companies too. And when you are shipping something like food, I think it should have a guarantee or, if it is common, ship it sooner or don’t have Wednesday as an option. It is shipped via FedEx which usually arrives around 1-2 at our house. So it is not unthinkable that we could plan to eat a meal from the box on the day it is delivered. However, if it is late, it throws all of that off. Technically they do have until 8 pm to delivery it. But even with that logic, and it is still delivered late, you still can’t eat it on the day you expected to. I suspect you always have to assume it is always late for planning purposes.
So my box arrived in pretty good shape. As soon as you open it, you will find your recipes. In my first box, I also got an envelope full of deals. I threw them away because none of them really applied to us. Underneath the recipes is a makeshift cooler. Once you open it, there are the individual meal bags with all of your vegetables and ingredients that are not meats. In this box, some of these were not still super cold. And later you will see that some of the vegetables were actually not very good. It is hard for me to believe this was solely due to it being late. I feel like they were bordering on going bad when they shipped them. Then underneath the bags, there are some large ice packs that are cover the meats. Luckily all of my meats were nice and cold still.
That evening, I opted to try the spicy chicken and veggie stir fry. I did this one first to try and use up some of the deteriorating vegetables. The recipes themselves are easy to follow. But I was surprised at how much prepping I still had to do. I guess I expected most of this to be done for me, and I was just assembling and cooking. So some of the broccoli was already going bad. I had to be sure and thoroughly look through and throw out a lot as you can see in the trash. I was also sure to really wash it to make sure it was clean of any that was going bad. The .bell pepper was slightly mushy and going bad as well. I was careful when cutting it too. And then my last complaint on this one was the cabbage was going brown. The meal itself was easy to cook, however, it did make quite the mess from oil splatter. This was my favorite meal of all of them I have tried so far. The seasoning on the chicken was delicious, and the stir fry paired really well with the chicken. I liked that it was a one bowl kind of dish. It was slightly spicy and very flavorful. My biggest issue when comparing the final dish to their picture is how lack luster the vegetables were. Maybe it was because I had to throw so many out. But even on future dishes I had, I felt this stood true when I didn’t have to throw out any.
The second dish I had was cuban spiced barramundi. So I had to make this dish for lunch one day before leaving to visit my parents since my box was late. I really didn’t know much about barramundi, but it was their fish option other than salmon, so I gave it a try. Unfortunately, I found out I do not like it. I am not a skin on fish kind of person. And even with the skin on, the fish fell apart. The vegetables were still good at least. Well by good, I mean they were not going bad. Taste wise, the almond broccoli was awful. How do you mess up broccoli? Well they called for way too much oil. Oil is all tasted. The slaw was disappointing because it came with green cabbage instead of purple. I didn’t know they you get a random color cabbage. They DO taste different, and the green did not go well with this dish. The final dish did not even compare picture wise or taste wise. The cuban spices were too much, the oil was overbearing, and the cabbage was disappointing.
I did not get to try my third dish. Since the box was late, and I was going to visit my parents, I was unable to eat it before it went bad. I did keep the recipe card and some of the ingredients that did not expire. It was chicken with peanut sauce. Overall this box was disappointing mostly because it was late. One bad dish (the fish) isn’t totally unexpected. But since it was late, I was unable to change my meals for the next week and remove the barramundi. That was frustrating to know I was receiving a dish I knew I would not like.
So once again, my second box was also late. It was already scheduled to be delivered on Thursday because of the Labor Day holiday. Then it did not arrive until Friday. Add the fact I was getting a dish I knew I would not use made it worse. Then the box came like this. By some miracle all the things were fresh and good, even the vegetables. Hence why I think my bad vegetables in the first box were not due to it being a day late.
The first meal I tried in my second box was the orange sesame chicken salad. A lot of prep went into this meal, but the only thing to cook was the chicken itself. The kale was actually really good to my surprise. The vinaigrette was delicious and really made this dish.
The other dish I tried was the mustard herb bavette steak. By the time I made this dish, Brad was home. So this worked out perfectly as far not having to split the servings between dinner and lunch. So this dish did require more work than the others so far, and it took the longest to make. But even 5 days after the scheduled delivery day, the food was still really good. The steak was actually a decent steak, and the gravy was decent. I would not make the gravy again, but it was something decent to try. The broccoli and potatoes gratin were really good, and I will likely remake it again at home. It was really easy. Overall this was really good, and Brad really liked it too.
After the two boxes, I decided to cancel Green Chef. The future meals were not ideal for Brad’s taste and mine combined. Then the fact both of my first boxes were delayed and did not arrive until Thursday and Friday was not ideal. Wednesday was pushing it, but later does not work with the way I meal plan. It was also making meal planning much harder because I could not rely on it being delivered on time. Then the food was always salty and extremely full of flavor. And that just isn’t for everyone. My heartburn was extreme from all of these meals. Plus it was also not worth the full price cost of nearly $90.
