Home Chef has long been my top pick for a great meal kit for beginner chefs. I first tested the service back in 2020, when meal kits surged in popularity due to the pandemic. And after another week of trying it out, I still think it's an excellent option for anyone looking to get cookin' with a little bit of guidance.

The first thing you'll notice when opening a Home Chef delivery is how easy it is to put everything away. Every meal is packaged in its own zippered plastic bag, with proteins arriving sealed in their own package. I filled up my refrigerator door with three dinners' worth of ingredients. When it was time to try a recipe, I simply grabbed the bag and the corresponding protein. I have a shared refrigerator that's chaotic even at the best of times, so I appreciated being able to quickly grab everything and set it on my counter rather than rifling through leftovers to try to find a rogue vegetable or sauce packet.

What really sets Home Chef apart from the many other meal kits are its recipe cards, which are some of the most detailed I've seen. On the front, there's a list of the ingredients you should have, plus a list of what you'll need to supply. Typically that's olive oil, salt, pepper, and perhaps some aluminum foil. There's also a list of the kitchen items you'll need. It's not exhaustive—for example, you still might need to grab a measuring cup or cooking utensils—but it is a nice starting-off point. And I really appreciate the “Cook Within …” section with suggested cook- or freeze-by dates, which will help you prioritize the dishes that arrive so you don't run the risk of ingredients going bad. There's also a chart with reminders about safe internal temperatures for meat, plus a difficulty level and a spice level.

Home Chef's weekly menus have filters for preferences and dietary needs like carb-conscious, calorie-conscious, and vegetarian meals. The meals are arranged into categories, like Oven-Ready (meals that come with a tray and are made in the oven), Culinary Collection (meals with more adventurous ingredients and cooking techniques), Express (meals that take 30 minutes or less to make), and more. There are optional add-ons and extras, like breakfast muffins, dinner rolls, or desserts. Some dishes are customizable, allowing you to choose different proteins, double up on proteins, or upgrade proteins.

The lowest subscription cost is $47 for two meals per week with two servings each. The highest subscription cost is $360 for six meals per week with six servings each. The lowest cost per serving is $10 and ranges up to $12 for the two-meal, two-person plan. (Your price per serving varies depending on the size of your order.) It's easy to modify your plan, pause your plan, skip a delivery, or cancel your subscription from your account settings.

What’s Cooking?

For this round of testing, I made Petite Scallops and Asparagus Risotto, Sesame-Crusted Chicken, and Barbacoa Steak Tacos. And all of them were pretty good! One notable feature that I appreciate is that Home Chef tends to send premade sauces and concentrates premeasured. You won't usually have to whip up a pan sauce or meticulously measure your garlic powder. Instead, you'll dump in a packet of concentrate or pour in a bottle of sauce. This saves time and dishes and it also helps you build basic skills in the kitchen without needing to worry about the finer details of a meal. However, this does make it a bit more difficult to replicate some Home Chef recipes, since you won't have exact measurements for the sauces or concentrates.

The scallops and risotto dish was a Culinary Collection meal. It wasn't something I'd usually make at home, but I was proud of how it turned out. Despite my never having made risotto before, it turned out nearly perfect. I wish I would have been braver and let the water cook out a tiny bit more, but that's my fault, not Home Chef's. The primary flavors of this dish were onion and garlic. And while I love an allium as much as the next gal, I think this could have benefitted from a tiny bit more flavor. If I wasn't a reviewer beholden to try the food as instructed, I would've added some chili crisp or even just more butter. My experience might've been different if I had it with more strongly flavored shrimp or chicken—which are two protein swaps customers can choose—rather than delicate, subtle scallops. But regardless, the asparagus provided a nice bit of texture to break up the otherwise creamy and soft meal.

The Sesame-Crusted Chicken was great. It's an Oven-Ready meal, so it comes with a tray. It was so easy to make! I seasoned my broccoli right inside the tray, cooked it for 10 minutes, added my chicken breasts to the tray, topped them with the included sauce and sesame seeds, and cooked it for 10 minutes longer. The last step was adding the delicious, umami-packed miso butter to the broccoli. This dish was simple but tasty, especially when garnished with the crunchy crispy onions before serving. It was really nice being able to serve up a hot, nutritious meal without spending a ton of time in the kitchen.

The Barbacoa Steak Tacos was a standard meal kit and probably the most involved recipe I made for this round of testing. I prepped and marinated my veggies, warmed my tortillas, and cooked up a steak strip mixture. That's where I ran into a bit of an issue. According to the instructions, the minimum cooking time for the steak was six minutes on medium-high heat. Even if I didn't have a gas-powered Viking range, common sense dictates that that would be too much time to cook delicate, small steak strips if I wanted a result that wasn't tough. I'm not a Mexican food connoisseur because I don't love the taste of cumin. But even I know that barbacoa is supposed to be tender and juicy. I gritted my teeth and endured, and the resulting meat was on the well side of medium. And stirring in just a quarter cup of water, then cooking until it evaporated per the instructions, resulted in a texture that was too dry to be what I would consider “barbacoa.”

The proportions were a bit strange, too. There wasn't enough sour cream, cheese, or vegetables to generously top each taco—especially not as pictured on the Home Chef website. Imagine the average shallot. Divide it into six. That's how much you'd be able to top your taco with. I don't think I'm crazy for wanting more veggies! I'm used to getting spoiled by my household's taco night, where succulent meat and toppings abound. But even Ortega taco sauce couldn't make these tacos pop. They weren't bad. But they definitely weren't great.

Of course, Home Chef has so many recipes to choose from each week that it's unfair to judge the service by just one not-great experience. I'd still eat those tacos again. I just wouldn't reach for this recipe. The labor-to-result ratio was not my favorite.

Wiggle Room

Sometimes the recipe cards are a little too detailed, which isn't an issue that I've run into very frequently in all my years of testing meal kits. For example, in one recipe, I was instructed in Step 1 to “halve the lime and juice.” The photo showed a little bowl of lime juice next to all the other little bowls of ingredients, TV-chef style. The first instruction in Step 2 was to combine the lime juice with a few other ingredients into a mixing bowl. Why wouldn't I just juice the lime directly into the bowl? I'll say it at every opportunity: Read the instructions more than you think you need to. And that goes for every service. It's my job to test meal kit instructions exactly as they're laid out, but don't let them override your common sense.

Home Chef's convenient packaging system also makes it more difficult to recycle. This depends on your locale. But the ingredient bags are No. 4 plastic, which goes straight to the trash where I live. If you live in a more populated area, this might just mean more frequent trips to the recycling center. Some other meal kit services have less plastic waste.

Overall, though, my complaints are minor. If you're trying to make the herculean task of eating three times per day a little easier, or you're trying to avoid the grocery store and its eye-popping prices, or you simply want to expand your culinary skills, Home Chef is a great meal kit service worth checking out.