Green Chef Review: Is the Healthy Meal Kit Service Worth Trying?

If you eat organic or follow a specific diet like paleo, keto, or vegetarian, you know how difficult it is to find convenient meal options.

To save time and streamline your meals each week, you might be interested in a subscription-based service that offers ready-to-make meals.

Green Chef offers organic ingredients and meal plans for various dietary needs. This Green Chef review can help you decide if the service is right for you.

What Is Green Chef?

Green Chef is a vegetarian meal delivery service that offers organic ingredients. It also offers meals tailored to gluten-free, dairy-free, keto, paleo, and vegan diets.

The company is owned by the HelloFresh brand, which also has two other meal kits:

• HelloFresh: a moderately priced meal plan offering  menu options that are suited to most families
• EveryPlate: offers inexpensive meals for families

GreenChef also boasts that it is a USDA certified organic company.

How Does the Service Work?

To sign up for Green Chef, you’ll start by picking your meal type. This meal kit company offers three options:

• Keto + Paleo: low-carb, high-protein, gluten-free, soy-free, legume-free
• Balanced Living: a variety of recipes including meat, seafood, and plant proteins
• Plant Powered: vegan and vegetarian dinners

Next, you’ll select your box size. For two people, Green Chef offers three or four recipes per week. It also works as a meal kit for one person as you can eat leftovers.

They also offer a family plan for four or six people with two, three, or four meals per week.

After you make these selections, you’ll walk through the rest of the registration process. Once you complete checkout, you will be able to choose your meals for your first shipment.

Each week, every meal plan offers 9-12 Green Chef meals.

Since there are some price differences between meal plans, you can only choose meals from the plan you’ve selected in a given week.

However, you can switch meal plans anytime. You just can’t mix and match between weekly menus in a given week.

After you start your Green Chef subscription, you’ll receive weekly shipments of meals. Be sure to select your meals by the deadline each week or skip the weeks you don’t want to receive meals.

You can also easily cancel your subscription online without speaking directly to customer service.

How Much Does Green Chef Cost?

Green Chef is $10.49 to $12.99 per serving. The price depends on the meal plan you choose and the size of your box.

Keto + Paleo meal plans are more expensive than Plant-Powered or Balanced Living plans.

Shipping is $9.99 per box. You can read our guide on other top keto meal delivery services to identify a more affordable option.

Right now, new Green Chef customers can get ten free meals plus free shipping throughout their first four boxes. Alternatively, Hungryroot is a good alternative if you want to cut costs a bit.  

Read our review of the Hungryroot meals to learn more about that service.

*For a limited time, Frugal Rules readers can take advantage of Green Chef’s Offer and get $250 off across your first five boxes, plus free shipping!

My Experience Using the Service

Like HelloFresh, Green Chef’s packaging is excellent. All of the ingredients and the recipe card for each recipe were each in their own paper bag within the box, with meats underneath.

From what I could tell, nearly every part of the packaging is recyclable. This includes the plastic packets for sauces and seasonings.

Better yet, I enjoyed our meals from Green Chef. In fact, the Moroccan Shrimp Bisque was the best meal kit dish I’ve ever made, hands down.

The dish was fresh, loaded with flavor, and the portion sizes were very filling. I liked it so much that I held on to the recipe card so I can make it again.

We also enjoyed the Creamy Chicken Alfredo dish.

Unfortunately we had a hectic week so by the time I got to the dish, the spaghetti squash had started molding. I had to use regular pasta instead.

The meal was still excellent (just not as healthy as it could have been), so it’s easy to make on-the-fly changes and substitutions as needed.

The last meal I received, Cumin-Garlic Pork Chops, included a sweet and salty cabbage sauté with figs and feta cheese. I was initially skeptical of the combo, but it was delicious.

Although it’s too pricey to be a normal part of our routine, I was impressed with the quality of the food, the recipes, and the whole experience.

How Easy Are Green Chef Meal Kits to Prepare?

I found that the kits contained easy to prepare meals, although making dinner using the kits can be a little time-consuming if you’re not good with a knife.

However, I was able to have dinner ready in about 40 minutes for each of the meals we tried, prep work included.

*Related: Are you looking for vegan meals to make on the go? Read our review of Daily Harvest to see how the service works.

In this Cumin-Garlic Pork Chops dish, I needed to slice the squash, roughly chop the almonds, and trim and chop the figs. However, I received pre-shredded cabbage and pre-crumbled feta.

The recipe cards are also extremely detailed, with some extra hints included to make the cooking process go more smoothly. They have step-by-step, full-color photos as well. You can also use the Green Chef app to help you prepare meals.

If you prefer individual portions, Factor is a suitable alternative at the same price point. Read our review of Factor to learn more.

Is Green Chef Really Healthy?

Based on my experience, I think it is. They largely send fresh organic ingredients that are high in quality.

*Related: Are you looking for a plant-based delivery service? Read our review of the Gobble menu to learn if they will work for your needs.

In fact, one of my meals contained a conventionally-grown tomato, and there was a sticker on it letting me know about this along with a card in the bag explaining what it meant.

For people who eat all organic, this makes it easy to discard and replace the conventionally-grown ingredient.

Additionally, Green Chef meals are exceptionally balanced between carbs, fat, and protein. Of course, the Keto + Paleo plan is higher in protein and fat and lower in carbs.

However, when you browse the menu, you can see that all of the meal options feature an assortment of veggies and/or healthy grains along with some kind of protein source.

They also offer an assortment of lifestyle meals for people on special diets (like gluten-free, keto, paleo, vegan, and vegetarian) that feature fresh ingredients and flavorful recipes.

Read our analysis of other services that offer vegan meal delivery if Green Chef doesn’t fit your needs.

Who Should Use Green Chef?

If you fall into one of the categories below, Green Chef could be a great fit for you.

Healthy Eaters

Green Chef is an excellent meal kit company for people who are fans of healthy living. They offer organic ingredients and balanced meals that highlight fresh veggies.

For general healthy meals, choose the Balanced Living plan. If hormone-free and sustainably sourced meat is important you, Porter Road might also be a good solution to look at.

Read our Porter Road review to learn more.

Specialized Diets

If you have specific dietary needs or preferences, Green Chef is one of the best meal delivery services to try.

*Related: Are you looking for an alternative that also caters to specialty diets? Read our review of the Trifecta meals to see what they offer.

Their three plans (Keto + Paleo, Plant Powered, and Balanced Living) provide options for people who follow keto, paleo, gluten-free, dairy-free, vegetarian, vegan, and organic diets.

Read our review of the best paleo meal delivery services to find a better fit if you need to follow the caveman diet.

Adventurous Cooks

Finally, Green Chef is a good meal delivery service for adventurous cooks. Their recipes feature exciting flavors with lots of room for customization and adding your own twists.

If you’re interested in expanding your tastes and cooking some new types of home-cooked meals, you’ll like Green Chef.

Who Shouldn’t Use the Service?

On the other hand, Green Chef may not be a great fit for people who are picky or follow low-fat diets.

Picky Eaters

Green Chef may not be the best choice for families with picky eaters because some of the flavors and ingredients can be unique.

However, the other meal kit brands owned by HelloFresh (HelloFresh and EveryPlate) offer more broadly appealing and kid-friendly flavors.

*For a limited time only, Frugal Rules readers can get Free Breakfast for life + 16 Free Meals! (One free breakfast item per box as long as subscription is active, and free meals are applied as a discount across 9 boxes, new subscriptions only, and varies by plan.)

Low-Fat Diets

Additionally, Green Chef may not be a great fit for people on low-fat diets, with the exception of the vegan meals on the Plant Powered plan.

Otherwise, the Green Chef menu doesn’t shy away from the use of healthy, whole-food fats, such as olive oil, red meats, nuts, seeds, and cheese.

Fresh n’ Lean may be a better solution for low-fat diets. Read our review of the Fresh n’ Lean meals to learn more.

Pros and Cons

Like any service, Green Chef has its benefits and downsides.

Pros:

• 9-12 recipes per week on each plan
• Certified organic company
• Eco-friendly materials that can all be recycled
• Options for specific dietary needs

Cons:

• More expensive than other meal kits
• Can’t choose meals from different plans
• Shipping is extra

Overall, if you want a healthy meal delivery service, Green Chef is worth trying.

The Competition

Here’s how Green Chef compares to other meal delivery subscription services.

Sunbasket

Sunbasket and Green Chef are fairly similar in regards to the types of meals they offer.

Both meal delivery kits focus on the use of high-quality, organic ingredients and offer weekly meal options for a variety of special diets like gluten-free, paleo, and vegan.

Based on my experience, I’d say that Sunbasket requires a bit less prep time because they often send pre-made sauces, pre-prepared produce, and simple recipes.

They are also similarly priced.

Read our review of the Sunbasket menu to learn more.

Purple Carrot

Purple Carrot is similar to Green Chef but offers only plant-based meals. All of their ingredients are 100 percent vegan, so Purple Carrot stands out from other meal kits for that reason.

This meal kit delivery service also offers breakfast and lunch meal choices, along with add-ons from their “Plantry” each week.

Purple Carrot is slightly less expensive than Green Chef.

Read our review of the Purple Carrot menu to learn more.

Home Chef

Home Chef is another similar meal kit company, but it’s less expensive than Green Chef. They don’t offer exclusively organic ingredients, nor do they cater to specific dietary restrictions.

However, they offer a number of convenient menu options to save time on the cooking process, like Oven Ready or Grill Ready meal selections.

Read our review of the Home Chef menu to learn more.

Bottom Line

Green Chef is a great option for people who eat organic or follow a specific diet and want to save time on meal planning each week.

They are one of the more expensive meal kit services available, but they offer high-quality ingredients and unique recipes for special diets.

For people who need or want to eat this way, Green Chef could be worth the price.

What do you look for when considering a meal delivery service?