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Meal kit delivery services offer a much more comfortable life and allow you to make great chef-designed home-cooked meals using easy recipe card instructions. You will get pre-portioned ingredients without spending any extra time on meal planning or grocery shopping!
When it comes to meal kit delivery services, the options you have are endless, so deciding which one to subscribe to can be overwhelming. This is where the Meal Kit Review can come in handy!
This article will review two of the meal kit industry’s leading services –Home Chef and Blue Apron!
Both Blue Apron and Home Chef have been around for years and have built up a loyal customer base thanks to their delicious recipes and ability to cater to various dietary needs. Both feature reliable, high-quality meals and are excellent options for a date night or a family dinner. On the other hand, there are many differences between the two meal kit delivery services, and we are here to tell you all about it in this Home Chef Vs. Blue Apron Comparison:
Variety of Offered Meal plans:
Home Chef offers flexibility with plans for two, four, or six-people servings per meal. They have a minimum selection requirement of two dishes per week with no maximum requirements.
The home chef also offers a new and exciting fresh and Easy plan. If you are short on time but still want to eat well in the comfort of your home, then the Home Chef Fresh and Easy plan is just for you. The program includes convenient food that requires minimal preparation and clean-up – Grill ready meals, oven-ready meals, fresh salads, and express 15 minutes meals.
Blue Apron offers four meal plan options:
- Two-Person Signature plan – Your choice of two to four recipes in each delivery that are pre-portioned for two people.
- Family Signature plan, perfect for a family of four people. You can choose to receive two or four recipes per week shipping.
- Vegetarian plan for two people, with meat-free vegetarian food options that celebrate the best of seasonal produce. If you select this plan, Blue Apron will automatically default you to vegetarian recipes each week.
- Wellness plan for two people, with balanced and nutritionist-approved recipes designed for better health. This plan includes carb-conscious, low-calorie, and WW Approved meal options.
Variety of Weekly Menu Meals
Home Chef meal delivery service has over 20 meals per week, including 5-minute no-cooking-required salad options, oven-ready, and grill-ready dinner meals. Their meals are designed to cater to many lifestyles, like low-calorie, low-carb and vegetarian options. The company also offers a Fresh & Easy meal plan for super fast and easy to cook meals.
Also, Home Chef includes a new “Customize It” feature for most of their meals. This feature gives you the ability to change, double, or upgrade your selected meals’ protein type.
Blue Apron offers its customers 11 recipes per week in the classic two-person plan and seven dishes in the family plan. Some of these dishes may appear on both menus. You will find vegetarian options among the Blue Apron dishes, including Beyond Meat proteins, low-carb, low-calorie, and Weight Watchers options.
Blue Apron recently started also to offer customized options for the protein of your selected meals.
In terms of diversity, both Home Chef and Blue Apron meal delivery services offer menu options with a great deal of variety in their ingredients. The culinary style of meals is broad – from Mexican or Asian style meals to American classics, Italian, etc.
Blue Apron and Home Chef – Style and Complexity of Meals
Both meal kit delivery services offer recipes that taste great. Everything we tried from their menus was delicious!
In our opinion, Home Chef is trying to focus on family home dinners, so the recipes tend to be quite classic, always with a nice added twist. The Home Chef recipes are never too sophisticated to cook, and all recipes arrive with an easy-to-follow recipe card.
On the other hand, Blue Apron offers many meal options that are a little more upscaled, but usually with easy-to-follow recipes, designed to be ready at 30 minutes, more or less. We would say that blue Apron is really into keeping your dinners interesting. From top-rated favorites with a twist, healthy meal options to Premium dishes – variety can always be found on the Blue Apron menu. If you are looking to put a bit of a gourmet spin on your home-cooked dinners and expand your horizons a bit – you’ll be able to do so with Blue Apron.
A few examples of the dishes we tried from Home Chef: Corn and Black Bean Burrito, Salmon Tacos with Queso Fresco and Crispy Jalapeños, or a more classic dish like Steak au Poivre
A few examples of Blue Apron meal options we tried: Curry Chicken & Vegetables, Roasted Fall Vegetable & Farro Salad, or a more classic dish like Parisian Steak Frites.
Some Popular Meal Options From Blue Apron and Home Chef
There are lots of fantastic menu options to try from both services every week. Here are a few popular and highly recommended meals:
Home Chef meal kits we recommend trying:
- Pork Chop with Cranberry Demi-Glace and Roasted Butternut Squash with Goat Cheese
- Flakey Salmon and Classic Citrus Beurre Blanc with roasted green beans and Parmesan red potatoes
- Jalapeño-Popper Chicken with Corn and Zucchini
- Cajun Shrimp and Cheddar Grits with roasted red peppers and mushrooms
- Hoisin Steak Tacos with Asian sesame slaw and mushrooms
- Sweet Teriyaki Pork Lo Mein with broccolini
- Cuban Avocado Black Bean Quinoa Bowl with cilantro vinaigrette
Blue Apron meal kits we recommend trying:
- Seared Scallop & Pancetta Fettuccine with Roasted Vegetables, Ricotta & Pistachios
- Togarashi Chicken & Brown Rice Bowls with Roasted Squash & Miso-Sesame Dressing
- Chipotle Steak & Vegetable Tacos with Orange & Cucumber Salad
- Spanish Lamb & Saffron Rice with Shishito Peppers & Romesco Mayo
- Ahi Tuna Niçoise Salad with Purple Potatoes & Sherry-Dijon Vinaigrette
- Cool Cajun Chicken Lettuce Cups with Pickled Pepper Yogurt & Peanuts
- Garlic Shrimp & Spanish-Style Potatoes with Onion & Bell Pepper
Blue Apron Vs. Home Chef – Quality of Ingredients
After receiving meal kit boxes from both Blue Apron and Home Chef, we can safely say that both companies focus on delivering high-quality ingredients to their customers.
Home Chef has partnered with a selection of well-known quality producers to provide their ingredients. Some of these include Paysan Breton Butter, ‘World Wide farms’ for fresh herbs and vegetables, and ‘Sea to Table’ for sustainably sourced seafood.
When looking at Blue Apron, they guarantee only to use meats without added hormones. All the meals are free of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), and some ingredients are even certified organic. All their vegetables are farm fresh and organic where possible, and all seafood in their meals is sustainably sourced. Some of the supply used for the Blue Apron meals comes from Reeves Farm, Vermont Creamery, and Sun Noodle.
Special Features on the Menu
The Home Chef meal delivery company offers few special features on their menu:
- A diverse selection of meals to cater to many dietary and lifestyle requirements. These range from fast and easy meals, low-calorie and low-carb meals. They also have the optional add-on of protein packs.
- The Home Chef menu indicates any allergens in each recipe (nuts, milk, shellfish, wheat, etc.). It is important to note that even though their ingredients are individually packaged, the facilities are not certified as being allergen-free. Since they cannot guarantee that there might not be minor cross-contamination, we recommend that if you have a severe food allergy or intolerance, it is best NOT to use the service.
- The Home Chef menu has a free “customize it” feature” that takes flexibility to the next level. This feature allows you to select the type and portion of protein in most of their meal selections.
The Blue Apron service offers a few features as well:
- Four meal plan selection – vegetarian diet plan, two-people plan, four-people plan, and a new wellness plan.
- As part of their menu selection, Blue Apron offers WW approved meals, low-calorie meals, diabetic-friendly meals, Mediterranean meals, and more.
- Option to customize the protein in some of your selected meals
- A large selection of wines as a monthly subscription plan, and even provides free recommendations for the right wines to accompany each Blue Apron dish!
- A retail store with cookware and other necessary kitchen supplies.
Website and Ordering Process
Both Blue Apron and Home Chef offer a friendly and well-organized website, making it effortless to navigate and understand how to subscribe and order online.
Via the website, you can create an account and register to the service, choose and change your meal plan, specify your eating preferences, select your meals for upcoming weeks, etc.
You can also find information regarding future menus for few weeks ahead and other useful information on each meal – like the calorie-count, full ingredient list, the story behind the dish, and nutritional information.
Both Blue Apron and Home Chef offer an easy-to-use app to do all the things listed above.
Home Chef Vs. Blue Apron Packaging and Sustainability
The medium-sized delivery box, with the number of servings you ordered, will arrive at your door every week, both with the Blue Apron and the Home Chef service.
The Blue Apron box has insulated cardboard, and all the food items are packed together, so you will need to sort it out per recipe (but that means much less packaging).
The Blue Apron box has an insulated liner, and each meal food items are packed separately.
With Both, the proteins are located in the bottom of the box with ice-pack to keep it cold during the delivery process. Both services also include user-friendly recipe cards with detailed cooking instructions.
Over 85% of Blue Apron’s packaging by weight is recyclable. That includes rigid plastic cups, trays, lids, metal cans, glass bottles, the delivery box, paper inserts, and molded fiber containers. Full detailed recycling instructions are available on the Blue Aproncompany website.
Blue Apron also works with suppliers that adhere to strict animal welfare standards and partners with over 100 family-run local farms that employ sustainable farming practices.
Like Blue Apron, Home Chef uses mostly recyclable or reusable packaging and provides information on how to dispose of each component online. Home Chef also collaborates with suppliers that follow animal welfare standards as defined by trade associations, including the National Chicken Council.
Customer Support
Both companies offer a detailed FAQ section with answers to most questions that can come to mind. If you have any issues regarding your subscription, both have a customer service support team, as follows:
Home Chef’s customer support:
- Online form to the customer support center
- Home Chef customer support: phone (872)-225-2433 during the standard support hours of Monday-Friday from 9 am to 6 pm CST and Saturday from 10 am to 2 pm CST.
Blue Apron’s customer support:
- You will find a “Get Help” icon in the bottom right of the screen when you enter the Blue Apron help center page.
- You can reach the Blue Apron customer support via phone at (646) 891-4349 or email at contact@blueapron.com.
Flexibility of Subscription
- Both Home Chef and Blue apron offers a “Customize It” feature, where you can swap or upgrade the proteins in most meals. With this feature, you can even make a meat meal to a vegetarian meal.
- Both services provide a subscription service with the flexibility to skip weeks if needed. They also offer the flexibility to pick your delivery day and edit your meal selection for a few weeks ahead.
- With Home Chef, you can cancel your account via the website. When canceling your account with Blue Apron, you need to contact customer support via email, with a same-day quick response.
- Both Blue Apron and Home Chef offers changing promotions for beginners, and there is the option to purchase a subscription as a gift card. We highly recommend it as a Thanksgiving or Christmas gift to your loved ones.
Delivery Area Availability
Both Blue Apron or Home Chef currently delivers to 98% of the United States. To see if the company provides to your area, you can enter your zip code during the sign-up process.
Blue Apron wines are only shipped to select states. You can check the company website to see whether wine delivery is available in your area.
So Which is Better, Blue Apron or Home Chef? Our Winner Is Blue Apron!
Both Home Chef and Blue Apron are fantastic meal kit service options. However, we found Blue Apron to be of favorite service of the two.
Mainly, We just loved the taste of their chef-designed recipes and the variety of restaurant-quality dishes offered every week. -and at a fair price per serving!
Moreover, we loved the portion size of each meal kit we tried and the flexibility that the Customizing feature gives their customers!
Finally, we appreciated that they cater to many different dietary needs like vegetarian,low-calorie, or low-carb diet meals.
Blue Apron is our winner!
Frequently Asked Questions About Home Chef and Blue Apron:
Q: What are the Benefits of Using Home Chef and Blue Apron?
Our world has become fast-paced,, with many expectations placed on people to have successful careers, thriving families, and busy social lives. Often we are so busy that the first thing we overlook is eating well.
Meal kit delivery companies such as Blue Apron, Home Chef, Hello Fresh, Sun Basket, and Green Chef, have been designed to combat the sense of overwhelm and have you eating better than ever before! They do this by providing meal kits filled with tasty and healthy pre-portioned ingredients combined with easy-to-follow recipes.
Using a meal kit service like Home Chef or Blue Apron will mean that your dining horizons will expand, and you will be able to enjoy new flavors, spices, and culinary styles. Using a meal delivery service, you can go on a culinary trip around the world – with Asian-style meals, American classics, Italian meals, Mexican-style meals, and more.
Meal kit delivery services are all about convenience. Not only will you be eating well with meals that have are nutritionally well-balanced, but you will also be saving a significant amount of time and money. Because meal kit service companies do the meal planning, recipe writing, grocery shopping, and portion control for you, your life will become significantly easier and healthier!
There are countless extra benefits to using meal kit delivery companies, especially in these frantically busy times. All you need to do is pick the meals that appeal, receive your delivery, unpack and store your ingredients, and start cooking! Then you can relax and enjoy your meal knowing that you have eaten well without all the effort.
Q: What to Look for When Choosing a Meal Kit Service Like Home Chef and Blue Apron?
When deciding which meal kit delivery service is best for you, there are many things to consider. If the cost is a priority, then firstly look at the bottom line. You might prioritize a flexible service that allows you to change plans, swap meals, and skip weeks whenever required.
If you love cooking and don’t mind spending time in the kitchen, it is good to assess the styles of meals that are on offer. Some people would rather do anything else than be in the kitchen, so a meal kit company that offers easy-to-follow recipes would be more suited to you. We recommend you do your homework and first work out your prioritieswhen it comes to meal kits.
Q: Is Home Chef owned by Hello Fresh?
The simple answer is NO.
Hello Fresh is one of the biggest names in the meal delivery industry right now. The company is top-rated due to its wide meal selection and outstanding fresh produce. Home Chef is a bit smaller operation based in Chicago, promising its customers an effortless home cooking experience.
While Hello Fresh focuses on bringing classics to the table, Home Chef offers the option to order six servings per recipe, which may better suit larger families and households. Moreover, the Home Chef meal selection includes various express meal kits to cook in 15 minutes and dishes that require little to no preparation.
Q: Does Blue Apron Have Healthy Meals?
The answer to that is YES!
Generally speaking, Blue Apron, like many other meal kits, is dedicated to creating delicious recipes that are also balanced and full of fresh veggies. The company was always committed to sending high-quality ingredients and support farmers who use sustainable farming practices.
On top of that, Blue Apron created a new meal plan named ‘wellness meal plan for two’, dedicated to supplying balanced and nutritious recipes designed for healthy eating. This plan includes carb-conscious meals, low-calorie, and Weight Watchers Approved meal options.
Q: Why Use our Home Chef vs. Blue Apron comparison?
The meal-kit industry is one that has countless companies, all offering different specialties and services. Because of that, it can be hard to know where to start. That is why we recommend using our comparisons and company reviews.
At the Meal Kit Review, we have done all the hard work for you, and you will be able to find all the information you need in one friendly place.
Our website has in-depth company profiles, meal kit comparisons like this one, and lists of companies that are best suited for different requirements – like ‘best gluten-free meal kits’, ‘Best meal kits for vegetarian meals’, ‘Best meal kits for couples’, and more.
Our team at the Meal Kit Review undertakes a thorough review process for every meal kit company that we review. This includes subscribing to the service, managing our online account, assessing the recipes per week and variety and style of meals offered, receiving deliveries, cooking the recipes, and eating a range of meals.
Our team spent a significant amount of time looking and experiencing both the Home Chef and Blue Apron service, so we recommend reading our honest review. This is where you will find up-to-date, relevant information gathered from first-hand experience, and we are sure it can help you make a better decision.
