Meal Service Review- Green Chef

We've decided to work our way through the meal subscription services. Trials are steeply discounted, and we figured it could be fun.

Week 4: Green Chef

Biggest Perk: Color coding

On a 5 star rating (low to high):
Flavor: *****
Price: $$$
Portions: ****
Variety: ***
Prep (Difficult to Easy): ***
Website: *****
Sustainability? They're all organic and wild caught. All of their packaging is recyclable.

Promo used:  (50OFFBLOG or 50OFFFB) I used the $50 off your first box from their website
Other Codes? http://greenchef.com/invite/4a78em If you have friends that use this service, they might have a free box to give you.
*I want to note that i actually scheduled this one 2 weeks out. I purchased it the 2nd with our first delivery being the 14th.

This is one of their promotional photos- used for groupon. Cardboard box shipping

Shipping: First off, i want to point out that shipping is not included in their pricing, shipping is an additional $10. This too comes in a cardboard box. Normally, my husband unpacks these while I'm at work. This one had proteins on the bottom and extras on the top divided by a layer of cardboard. Most of the little extras are in cute little plastic jars. This box, by far, had WAY more individual pieces to pull out and store than any other box, but each recipe's ingredients were color coded. Dressings are pre-made. It DID include both milk and butter. Our box got delayed a day due to winter storm Stella, and i got a text message with an alert and tracking. Our ice packs were frozen and our produce was intact when we received the next day.

This recipe was all the purple stickers

The Recipes: We received Pork Golumpki Ragout, Greek Tuna Fatoush Salad, and Potato Chowder. We made the chowder first, cuz snow. :) It was tasty and hit the spot.

Prep/Time: Our recipes ranged in time from 30-45 minutes. There was an effort at minimizing dishes in the recipe cards.

Price: This box is slightly pricier by $2-$5/meal depending on your plan. it averages out around $70/box for a standard plan and they DO charge shipping separately. The trial came out to $30 shipped.

Variety: Green Chef offers diet specific plans (omnivore, carnivore, paleo, vegetarian, etc.). We chose to go with the standard omnivore. Once you pick your plan though, the only tailoring you can do is to knock out certain proteins, the 3 meals are set without options for others. Ours had a kind of boring chicken dish in it, so i tailored my plan to not include poultry and they replaced it with a seared tuna dish. Omnivore included 2 protein dishes and a vegetarian dish.

Cancelling: They require you to email: cancel@greenchef.com, but also have a live chat function available. Like HF, they give you the option to switch to bi-weekly, monthly, or "take a break" when you cancel. Since some of these services are pricey, i like the idea that you could do them monthly.

Overall: We enjoyed this box, but it wasn't a standout. With a higher price point, limited menu, and lots of pieces, it doesn't rank at the top for us.

Next Week, we'll be trying out Sun Basket