It’s time for a Home Chef Review after using Home Chef for 8 months! We’ve been using Home Chef for eight months now, and it has become a regular part of our dinner routine.
When I first tried it, I wanted to know whether a meal kit could actually make weeknights easier for our family of four. I work full time, have two kids, and have plenty to fit in around dinner. A recipe can look great online, but the real question is whether it works when everyone is hungry and you’re tired.
Eight months later, we’re still ordering, and we’ve cooked 64 Home Chef recipes. We’ve skipped a week here and there when life got busy, so that total reflects how we actually use it. Here’s what has kept us coming back, what hasn’t changed, and whether I still think it’s worth it.
This post includes my Home Chef referral link. You get 50% off your first box, and I receive credit toward a future box when you sign up through it. I don’t receive cash, but because we actually use Home Chef, that credit is as good as cash to me. Thank you for supporting The Desert Edit!
Get 50% off your first Home Chef box here.
We usually order two meals a week
Home Chef hasn’t replaced every dinner or our entire grocery list. We typically order two meals a week, which gives us a couple of nights where the dinner plan and ingredients are already handled.
We’ve also skipped a week here and there when our schedule was busy. It hasn’t been eight months of uninterrupted deliveries, and that’s part of what makes this a realistic look at our routine.
That balance works for us. We still have room for our usual meals and whatever else the week brings, but I’m not starting from scratch every single night.
If you want to see how it started, read [my first-week Home Chef review ].
The biggest benefit is less dinner planning
The cooking is only part of making dinner. There’s also deciding what to make, checking what we have, putting together a grocery list, and remembering everything at the store.
Having the ingredients delivered and the recipe ready takes some of that work off my plate. I still cook, but I don’t have to come up with the entire plan first.
For me, that has been one of the most valuable parts of using Home Chef long term. Two dinners already figured out can make a busy week feel a little more manageable.
It keeps us trying different meals
It’s easy to fall into a rotation of the same dinners because they’re familiar and you know how to make them.
Home Chef has helped us try meals and combinations we might not have picked on our own. Early on, we made Chicken Teriyaki with Rice and Mango and Garlic Sesame Chicken Stir Fry. My older daughter called that first meal “amazing,” and the girls enjoyed the stir-fry without making a fuss about the bok choy.
We also tried the Strawberries & Cream Nordic Waffle with vanilla ice cream, which was such a fun treat.
Those first meals helped convince me to keep ordering. Having choices gives us variety without requiring me to research a new recipe and buy every ingredient separately.
The portions made a good first impression
In my original review, I mentioned that both of our first dinners gave us leftovers. The portions felt generous for our family, which mattered when I was deciding whether the service was worth continuing.
That was our experience with those particular meals, rather than a promise that every recipe will leave leftovers. But it was a strong start, especially when the food went over well with my fiancé and the kids.
Check out this Start to Finish Cooking Vlog I did using Home Chef!
Less food waste helps with the value
Price matters to me. Convenience is useful, but it still has to make sense alongside our grocery budget.
One thing I’ve appreciated is getting pre-portioned ingredients instead of buying a larger package for one recipe and figuring out what to do with the rest.
When I shared an earlier update, I noted that our grocery budget hadn’t changed much because we were making fewer grocery trips and wasting less food. That’s a more useful way for me to think about the cost than looking at the meal-kit price alone.
We still need groceries for breakfasts, lunches, snacks, and other dinners. Home Chef handles part of the week, and I consider that when deciding what to order.
[Read my earlier Home Chef update ]
If you’ve been curious about trying it, my referral link gives you 50% off your first box, so you can see how it fits your routine before paying the regular price.
The cooking times still deserve a little breathing room
This is something I mentioned right from the beginning: the estimated cooking time doesn’t always match my actual cooking time.
Our first meal took about 40 minutes instead of the suggested 25. The second took around 25 minutes rather than the estimated 15–20.
Most meals have fit into roughly a 30–40-minute window for us, but I like to leave some extra time. It’s still cooking, and some nights I move faster than others.
I’ve also mentioned that I would have preferred a stronger sauce in one of those early meals. Enjoying the service doesn’t mean every recipe will be exactly how I would make it myself.
Is Home Chef still worth it after eight months?
For our family, yes. We’re still using it because it helps with a recurring part of our week: getting a home-cooked dinner on the table without having to plan every detail ourselves.
The value has been the combination of less planning, pre-portioned ingredients, less waste, and meals that get us out of our usual routine.
It hasn’t made dinner effortless, but it has made a couple of nights each week easier. After eight months, that’s why it still has a place in our kitchen.
Get 50% off your first Home Chef box
If you’ve been thinking about trying Home Chef, use my referral link to get 50% off your first box.
You get a discount, and I get credit toward a future box. This is a customer referral link, not a cash-paying affiliate link. Because we actually order and cook these meals, that credit goes toward dinners we’d already be buying. For me, it’s as good as cash.
After eight months and 64 recipes cooked, I’m sharing something that has become part of our everyday life. If this post helps you decide to give it a try, using my link is a simple way to support our family and the content I share here.
Still deciding? Read my first-week review and my earlier update for more of our experience.
Try Home Chef and get 50% off your first box.
Thank you for supporting The Desert Edit and I hope you’ve enjoyed my Home Chef Review After Using Home Chef for 8 months!
