Read our complete comparison between these two leading meal delivery services!
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 extra time on meal planning or grocery shopping!
You have endless options for meal kit delivery services, 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!
A Little About Home Chef and Blue Apron
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.
Home Chef, established in the US in 2013, is made for busy people who want to make delicious dinners at home but know that, sometimes, life can get in the way.
Blue Apron, the first company to operate in the US meal kit industry, is focused on curating Chef-designed meals to cook at home. This service is also best for households with picky eaters.
There are many differences between the two meal kit delivery services, and we are here to tell you all about them.
Main Differences That Make Home Chef Our Winner
- Most Home Chef meal kits have multiple protein options to choose from.
- Home Chef offers a more extensive weekly menu and more add-on options.
- Unlike Blue Apron, Home Chef meals are designed for the most effortless meal prep (and even some no-prep meals!).
- Home Chef’s menu supports a significant number of dietary restrictions – dairy-free-friendly, Mediterranean diet, calorie-conscious, carb-conscious meals, and more.
Here's a quick Blue Apron Vs Home Chef comaprison and deep analysis:
| Home Chef | Blue Apron | |
| Best for | Simple to cook popular meals with a twist. | Upgrading your home dining experience. |
| Ingredient Sourcing |
|
|
| Special diets | Vegetarian, low-calorie, low-carb, oven-ready and grill-ready | Wellness, low-calorie WW approved, some low carb, vegetarian |
| plans | Two, four, or six people. Special Fresh & Easy plan | Two or four people |
| Meal variety | 20+ meals per week | 14 meals per week |
| Add ons | Protein packs, bread, and desserts | Wine club |
Blue Apron Vs. Home Chef – Variety of Offered Meal plans
Home Chef offers flexibility with plans for two, four, or six-people servings per meal. The meal delivery service has 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. This meal plan 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 – You choose two to four pre-portion recipes in each delivery for two people.
- Family Signature plan, perfect for a family of four people. You can choose to receive two or four recipes per week of shipping.
- Vegetarian plan for two people, with meat-free vegetarian food options celebrating the best 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 25 meals per week, including 5-minute no-cooking-required salad options, speedy 15-minute meal kits, oven-ready, and grill-ready dinner meals.
The Home Chef’s delicious 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 fast, easy-to-cook meals.
Also, Home Chef includes a new “Customize It” feature for most of their meals. This feature allows you to change, double, or upgrade your selected meals’ protein types.
Blue Apron offers its customers 20 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 also recently started offering customized options for the protein of some selected meals.
In terms of diversity, both Home Chef and Blue Apron meal delivery services offer menu options with a great deal of variety – with a superior offering from Home Chef!
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 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 in 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. So if you are looking to put a bit of a gourmet spin on your home-cooked dinners and expand your horizons, 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
Our Experience With Home Chef And Blue apron
As part of our review process, we order three weeks of boxes from both meal kit services. In addition, we made sure to include both meal kits and prepared meals in the box to get the complete picture of what each service offers.
Both services pack the pre-measured foods very carefully. We are also glad to report that both services sent products that looked good and were of good quality. But, the Home Chef box was overall more organized.
As for the meals, in most cases, the Home Chef’s healthy and delicious meals were indeed much easier to cook – and still tasted amazing!
Shrimp scampi couscous with parmesan and corn From Home Chef
This was the first time we ordered an oven-ready meal kit from Home Chef Fresh & Easy meal plan – a plan designed for super easy meals to make at home.
The meal-kit bag contained a few high-quality ingredients – shrimp, garlic and herbs cheese spread, pre-cooked couscous, fresh corn, roasted red peppers, cream cheese, parmesan cheese, Italian panko blend, and even an oven-safe tray! We didn’t need to mess up kitchen tools other than one mixing spoon.
To get this recipe ready, we simply mixed all the ingredients inside the tray, place the shrimp on top along with some drizzle of olive oil, salt, and pepper, and bake in a preheated 425 degrees oven for about 20 minutes, then cover with the panko blend for the extra crispy touch. It was easy to prep, yet it was fresh, satisfying, and 100% delicious – perfect for a relaxed wintery dinner.
Buenos Aires Beef Empanadas From Blue Apron
This classic Argentinian-style recipe was delicious but took quite a while to cook, and the cooking steps were quite complicated, even with the detailed recipe card! Overall, we loved the taste and thought this was a great dish from the Blue Apron culinary team!
The ingredients were of very high quality, and the portion size of this dish was good for two people. This was reassuring, as we have had problems with small portion sizes from Blue Apron before.
The meat was tender, and we loved the addition of olives to the filling. The empanada dough had a lovely texture and was easy to use. We received eight dough rounds but only used six for this dish since we needed more filling.
We enjoyed the lovely fresh zucchini salad with herbs and yogurt on the side. It was a light and refreshing addition to the meal.
Other Popular Meal Options From Blue Apron and Home Chef
There are many fantastic menu options from both services every week. Here are a few popular and highly recommended meals:
Home Chef Meal Kits We Tried
- Oven-Ready Cheesy Rockefeller Chicken Breast with bacon, Parmesan zucchini, and corn
- Brisket Fajitas with sweet peppers, chipotle crema, and cheese
- Express Chicken Banh Mi-Style Lettuce Wraps with Sriracha mayo
- Crispy Onion-Crusted Chicken with creamy mushroom sauce and green beans
Blue Apron Recipes We Tried
- Chicken & Dijon Pan Sauce with Green Beans & Apple Rice
- Smoky Chicken & Spicy Carrot Farro with Creamy Cilantro Sauce
- Five Cheese Ravioli & Pancetta-Tomato Sauce with Arugula & Orange Salad
- Sweet Chili Tilapia & Sesame Breadcrumbs with Garlic Rice & Broccoli
Blue Apron Vs. Home Chef – The Quality of Ingredients
After receiving meal kit boxes from 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. 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, both guarantee only to use meats without added hormones. All the meals are free of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), and some ingredients are certified organic.
All their vegetables are farm fresh and organic where possible, and all seafood in their meals is sustainably sourced. Some of the supplies used for the Blue Apron meals come from Reeves Farm, Vermont Creamery, and Sun Noodle.
Special Features on the Menu
The Home Chef meal delivery company offers a few special features on the 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.
- Special Fresh & easy meal plan, with meals designed for easy and fuss-free cooking!
- 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 the company can’t 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.
Some add-ons are available weekly, including proteins, desserts, easy breakfasts, salad bundles, and more.
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 and spices blends.
The 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 for 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 a few weeks ahead and other helpful information on each meal – like the calorie-count, complete 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-packs to keep it cold during 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 defined by trade associations, including the National Chicken Council.
Home Chef Vs. Blue Apron- 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 contact Blue Apron customer support via phone at (646) 891-4349 or at [email protected].
Home Chef Vs. Blue Apron- Flexibility of Subscription
- Home Chef and Blue Apron offer a “Customize It” feature, where you can swap or upgrade the proteins in most meals. With this feature, you can make a meat meal into 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 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 offer 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 Of Both Meal Kit Services
Both Blue Apron and Home Chef currently deliver 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.
Meal Kit Pricing
The pricing of both meal kits is very similar, around $11 per serving. The price might vary based on the number of meals and servings you order every week. Note that both services charge a delivery fee after the first shipment.
Our Methodology – Why Trust us?
At the Meal Kit review, We have a clear mission – doing honest reviews that can aid in making informed decisions when purchasing subscriptions from meal kit services.
We are buying and tasting at least ten meals and three boxes from each meal delivery service and provide inputs on meal taste, the number of menu options per week, the delivery process, diet support like dairy-free or vegetarian meals, price range, and more.
Read more about our review process here.
Our Final Verdict – Try Home Chef!
Both Home Chef and Blue Apron are fantastic meal kit service options. However, we found Home Chef to be the better meal kit delivery service out of the two.
Mainly, We just loved the taste of their recipes and the variety of restaurant-quality dishes offered every week – and at a fair price per serving!
Moreover, we loved the simple-cooking focus. We could notice that the menu offers a large variety of simple and quick-to-cook recipes, and even some pre-made and oven-ready meals.
We also fancy the flexibility of Customizing your meals to your taste and needs.
Finally, we appreciated that the Home Chef meal kit service caters to many different dietary needs like vegetarian, low-calorie, and low-carb diet.
