Is Green Chef worth all the hype?

Since I’ve been doing these do-it-yourself stories, my apathy towards purchasing items from a store or online, has converted to wanting to at least attempt a recreation. But one thing I’ve strayed away from was cooking meals from a recipe as it just seemed too difficult, even with the subscription boxes. It wasn’t until I saw a Gilt deal for a week of  Green Chef meals that I was ready to take on this challenge.

Firstly, let me give you a quick breakdown of Green Chef. Green Chef is a meal delivery program that provides you with the most responsibly sourced ingredients to cook delicious and healthy dinners. Each meal ranges from $10.49 to $14.99 per person, based on your chosen menu ie. vegetarian, vegan, carnivore, omnivore, pescatarian, gluten-free, paleo, family plan carnivore, or family plan omnivore. Dinners range from 450 – 750 calories and mine took no longer than 40 minutes to make. If you’re single, comme moi, you actually wind up with six meals that you can spread out throughout the week. All ingredients and packaging come in recyclable or reusable containers (I currently use one the plastic jars for my Invisalign trays when soaking it in water. Gross, I know.), and recipe card sheets to keep.

The first meal called to sear chicken before placing it in the oven. I was sure I was going to fuck it up, so decided just to snapchat portions of the process. When that chicken came out crispy skinned, yet juicy and golden brown on the meat… I knew I had to document the rest.

Philly Cheese Steak Bowl

Many of your don’t know, but I have had a gluten intolerance for the past seven or eight years. About the first year of finding out, I took as much care as I could to avoid flareups. Over time I just became lax with it. I mean, it wasn’t going to kill me, right? So why bother? Well wrong. Last week, I found out it’s been further causing damage to my insides, that cutting back on gluten is no longer a maybe. Since the meals had already arrived before seeing my doctor, I tried to find ways to reduce the most obvious problems.

With the Philly Cheese Steak with smoky barley & parsley, creminis, fresh spinach, I omitted as much of the barley and replaced it with Chipotle’s cilantro lime rice. Yes, I did walk to Chipotle, stand in line, then proceed to order just a side of rice to only be laughed at before they realized I wasn’t joking. It was worth it though. And for the Italian Grilled Cheese with balsamic tomato jam, broccoli slaw, spinach pistou, a gluten free bread was substituted. Now THAT was a fail as you can see from the photo below. It just fell apart in the pan, so the whole wheat slices were ingested. [Don’t wag your finger at me!]

Italian Grilled Cheese

Bacon wasn’t apart of the recipe, but I added it for a bit of protein or something like that. Truthfully, I just wanted to add some bacon, and it was pretty delicious. My favorite part was blistering the tomatoes and making that jam! It gave me some to step out and try doing other things.

Tempted to try Green Chef for yourself now? Go for it! Follow this link for 4 free meals (you’ll only be paying for two if you get the 2-person plan). If you’re still scared you won’t fare as well as the photos show, know this, I didn’t think I would be any good at it, but I just tried. You’ll figure so much out about yourself and what you are capable of completing, if you just give it a shot!