Home Chef vs. EveryPlate – Which Meal Prep Kit Is Best?

Comparing any two popular meal kit delivery services is definitely a very confusing and time-consuming task. Even so, you want to know the differences, so you can pick the one that better suits your eating habits, schedule, budget, and other personal preferences. With that said, here’s the ultimate comparison of Home Chef vs EveryPlate.

Recipe cards, pre-portioned and fresh ingredients, recyclable packaging, flexible meal plans, a wide range of recipes and flavors, and more. These are just a few of the similarities that exist between Home Chef and EveryPlate. Both are subscription-based services as well.

What about the key differences then? There are a few of those too, in areas of pricing, number of dishes per week, cooking time, and diet-specific options. Time to get to know all the differences and some of the similarities between both meal kit delivery services.

Why Home Chef, EveryPlate, or Any Other Meal Kit Delivery Service?

Saves Money

Delicious, home-cooked-like meals that are way more affordable in comparison to takeout, junk, and fast food.

Saves Time

Why waste your precious time by going to the supermarket or buying groceries when you can have them delivered to you? All fresh and prepped!

Easy, Quick to Cook

Meal kit recipes are simple and fast to cook because the prepping work is already done for you. hey also come with proper, beginner-friendly cooking instructions to make the process and your time in the kitchen less taxing.

Are Meal Kit Delivery Services Worth It?

Read the following and decide for yourself:

• The best meal kit delivery service will put together both unique and tasty dishes with ingredients that, more often than not, are organic.
• The portion size per serving is never disappointing while also minimizing packaging and food waste.
• The quality of the served ingredients meets high standards, and that improves the overall flavor and taste of your cooked meals.
• With the convenience and flexibility of meal kits, you can go ahead and take that much-needed break from cooking and, at the same time, consume healthy meals without spending too much.
• If you’re concerned about packaging waste, then you might be relieved to know that top-rated meal kit delivery services such as Home Chef and EveryPlate make sure that at least the majority of their packaging materials are recyclable.

Keeping all this in mind, I can most certainly say that the modern-day meal kit industry is prospering for all the right reasons indeed. Wouldn’t you agree?

Home Chef vs EveryPlate – How Much Do They Cost?

Let’s first discuss the pricing, which is definitely a very important determinant for most people, so you know which of the two you’re leaning more toward. Affordability is a priority, and there’s no denying that.

How much does Home Chef cost? The greater part of their meal kits is around $9 for a single serving, along with entrée salads and easy lunch options costing about $7 only. Slightly more expensive dishes are also available at anywhere between $11 and $18 per serving. These are mostly recipes with “premium” beef cuts or are seafood-based.

As for the cost of Home Chef shipping, you get free shipping if the order amount exceeds $45. Normally, the price of a 3-meal weekly box of 4 serving sizes per meal is about $120. In that case, delivery is going to be free of charge. In the delivery section of Home Chef’s FAQs page, they mention that delivery to 98% of states in the US is available. You have to enter your zip code to check if your location is in the Home Chef delivery zone.

Comparatively speaking, EveryPlate’s cost is even more budget-friendly. You pay just $5 per serving for their meal kits for 4 people and $6 per serving for 2 people. EveryPlate is not only less expensive than Home Chef, but also other meal kit delivery companies.

However, premium meat options, like steak and salmon, do cost extra per serving. You also have to factor in the delivery fee of EveryPlate, which is $9 for each box.

Home Chef vs EveryPlate – Choosing Meals

Home Chef

Quite a large selection indeed with Home Chef, but this selection is mainly catered toward meat-eaters and not so much for vegetarians. The Home Chef menu changes every week, every Friday to be more specific. Although you can check out what’s on the menu for upcoming weeks, so you know what to expect in case you want to go ahead with the subscription.

Once you click on their “Our Menu” page, you can filter their recipes for every week by selecting any one of the following tags:

• Calorie-conscious
• <30min
• Carb-conscious
• Vegetarian

The meals on Home Chef, for the most part, are super easy to prepare, and you don’t have to be an expert cook to get it right. There are plenty of comfort food options available in the form of classic, American dishes. No unfamiliar or too experimental flavors, rather only traditional dinner recipes such as baked chicken, pork tenderloin, teriyaki steak, chicken tacos, pasta recipes, and lots more.

“Premium” meals are also a part of the Home Chef menu, they fit under their “culinary collection.” These dishes have a slightly higher price tag because they consist of expensive beef cuts, seafood options like tuna, etc. You can easily add one of such premium meals into the weekly order to mix things up, but you will have to pay extra for that.

There’s also a selection, albeit limited, of add-ons – bread, breakfast, dessert, and proteins. Meals can be swapped/modified. Serving sizes can also be customized and proteins can be substituted. You can also increase the number of meals to your orders.

EveryPlate

The EveryPlate menu experience is much like Home Chef in that you get a host of familiar, flavorful, classic, comfort-food recipes to choose from, that are new every week. Except that EveryPlate doesn’t have any filters to narrow down your options based on preferences, unlike Home Chef.

However, when selecting your meal plan at the beginning, EveryPlate provides you with four categories to pick from:

• ClassicPlate
• VeggiePlate
• FamilyPlate
• EasyPlate

You can choose your box size – how many servings per meal and how many meals per week.

EveryPlate has tags such as Vegetarian, Spicy, Top Rated, Quick & Easy, Family Friendly, and Premium, so look out for those when browsing the menu. There are quite a few comfort food options like pork chops, meatloaf, pasta dishes, tacos, chicken pot pie, etc. Even the sides are quite appealing, such as roasted carrots, mashed potatoes, and the like.

Unfortunately, plant-based dishes are not that many, which seems to be a setback in the case of Home Chef too. As for steak and seafood options, you’re sure to find 1-2 recipes every week, but these could be the “premium” ones and that means you have to pay extra.

Another drawback with EveryPlate is that they don’t include snacks or breakfast meals. However, you can add protein-packed ground beef and chicken breasts for the sake of proper, well-balanced meal planning.

Home Chef vs EveryPlate – How Does the Cooking Process Work?

It’s pretty straightforward with Home Chef, but comparatively faster and also easier with EveryPlate.

Home Chef

When talking about Home Chef, it’s definitely worth stating that their meal kits come with recipe cards that have very clear, easy-to-follow, and step-by-step instructions.

These cards are labeled accordingly depending on the skill level required for cooking. They contain visuals as well for every step, along with proper instructions for even modifying the cooking time in the case of substitute proteins.

With Home Chef, even beginner-level skills are more than enough. As long as you know how to use a knife and understand the meaning of terms such as mincing, dicing, sifting, etc., cooking Home Chef meals isn’t going to be a huge challenge or anything of the sort.

However, what might pose a problem for inexperienced at-home chefs is adjusting the cooking time based on the size of the proteins compared to the size mentioned in the instructions. For instance, when cooking two steaks, one thick and one thin. If, in this case, you only have basic cooking knowledge, this may turn into a tricky situation since both steaks don’t demand the same cooking time.

The perfect solution to this problem would be using a kitchen thermometer. The tool comes in handy when cooking all kinds of meat. Apart from that, you only need basic ingredients like cooking oil, salt and pepper, and the like.

As for Home Chef’s Oven-Ready meals, these are delivered to you with an oven-friendly aluminum material baking pan. No other or extra equipment is required, now isn’t that convenient!

EveryPlate

Now let’s talk about EveryPlate’s cooking process, which doesn’t exceed 30-40 minutes on average. That’s great for those who want access to quick yet healthy meals at home. Those individuals could be anyone from a workaholic living alone, to a dad or mom preparing a hearty, nutritious meal for the family. They could also be an elderly person who simply has no interest or energy to spend hours toiling away in the kitchen.

The recipes on EveryPlate, at least the majority of them, take only six or fewer steps, so you can really spruce up a delicious, healthy meal fairly quickly, even if you’re a beginner cook. Just make sure you have those base ingredients such as butter, oil, salt, and pepper. Other pantry items like sugar and flour are covered by EveryPlate!

Home Chef vs EveryPlate – What About Packaging?

Home Chef

Are we dealing with recyclable plastic bags here? Let’s find out!

Your Home Chef meals kits arrive in cardboard boxes. The cardboard is indeed partially recycled and the insulation inside each box is made from recycled denim and cotton. As for the question, “is the insulated liner fully recyclable?” the answer is yes, but you will have to deconstruct the thing first. Meaning, separating the film and liner filling!

If the box has come with ice packs, what do you do with those? You can either reuse them at home or you also have the option of cutting them open, draining the ice/water, and recycling them with the other plastic waste. Speaking of plastic, plastic bags are used for storing proteins, and these bags are obviously vacuum-sealed to preserve freshness.

The ingredients for your weekly recipes are all individually packed in plastic and grouped by meals in resealable plastic bags equipped with a handle. Home Chef here has certainly made the task of identifying recipes more convenient. With this, you can just see what’s inside and then pull the bag you want from your refrigerator. Plus, all resealable bags are labeled with the name of the recipes.

Please note that Home Chef has clearly specified here on this page that their cardboard packaging is curbside recyclable and plastic packaging can only be recycled at facilities that accept plastic. Unfortunately, not all towns and cities offer the option of curbside recycling, which means a huge chunk of that packaging might just have to go into the trash.

EveryPlate

Even EveryPlate’s cardboard boxes are curbside recyclable. The meal kit boxes contain cooling elements and insulated inserts that you can drain and also recycle. More information is available on their FAQs page.

Additionally, EveryPlate’s packaging includes tiny cardboard inserts that serve as little trays for ingredients, hence they’re easy and quick to remove from the box and simply place into the refrigerator.

What about the use of plastic? Yes, plastic is used for most of the EveryPlate recipe ingredients. However, don’t expect much out of the plastic used here since these bags are usually not recyclable, thus not the most eco-friendly choice, right?

Home Chef vs EveryPlate – Ordering and Delivery

Both Home Chef and EveryPlate send shipping/delivery email updates. In both cases, once again, the fresh ingredients are supposed to be used up in a week’s time before they start to deteriorate. Hence, the concept of weekly orders!

On Home Chef, placing orders every week is extremely simple. They also have an app that you can use for managing your weekly deliveries. About that, you’ll find the option on the app itself for changing future delivery dates if need be.

Then you have EveryPlate with its 7-days-a-week delivery service, which depends on where you live, meaning what your zip code is. Changing delivery dates can be done incredibly easily by logging in to your account.

Home Chef vs EveryPlate – Quality, Flavor, and Freshness of Ingredients

Home Chef

The Home Chef menu is quite appealing, especially if your taste buds dig traditional American food options like Steak, Chicken Kiev, and more.

At the same time, international-inspired cuisine is also served. Home Chef includes some global elements too, such as their Mediterranean-Style Shrimp with Couscous and Feta Cheese. Although even this particular recipe is reminiscent of familiar American flavors with a special or refreshing take.

The Chicken Kiev dish by the way is hugely popular on Home Chef. It’s the perfect dish for both children and grown-ups. There’s also the Sirloin Steak recipe, this comes with bordelaise sauce, but it’s very standard in terms of variety. After all, it’s just meat with potatoes! However, don’t hesitate to add an extra dose of your favorite or non-starchy veggies to create more flavor and a nutrition-balanced meal for the whole family.

Along the same vein, the Oven-Ready Steak Stew is equally family-friendly and also so easy to prepare. It’s got mushrooms and potatoes, and the whole thing is very filling and appetizing, no doubt about that. You can devour the meal all by itself, or with rice if you like.

Moreover, look forward to only fresh produce when choosing Home Chef, along with top-grade steak and turkey. What’s not of the best quality is the chicken and shrimp maybe. I say this because these ingredients that you get are packed in a solution of salt, water, and food starch. These recipes, in that context, might be a tad too salty, but this just means keeping your salt addition to the bare minimum.

When the meals are packed with high sodium, you have to be extra careful about how much more salt you add during cooking. On Home Chef, the highest sodium content in a dish is 1,816 milligrams of salt per serving and the lowest, which is also quite high, is 1,435 milligrams per serving.

EveryPlate

The freshness and quality of EveryPlate’s ingredients are not complaint-worthy at all. The ingredients look fresh, feel fresh, and have no visible discoloration or bruising.

One minor setback I’d like to mention is that you may get some under-ripe produce, but there’s no reason why this is such a big deal since you can eat that food even though you might not be so thrilled about it.

I noticed that the quality of meat with EveryPlate is relatively lower than that on the menu of Home Chef. I guess that should explain why the former is so much more inexpensive than the latter. Don’t get me wrong, the meat cuts taste good and everything, but the quality doesn’t seem to appease.

As for the salt content in the case of EveryPlate, it’s just about right. However, I would like to note the too salty dried herb seasoning, so keep that in mind.

Overall, the recipes taste very delicious because of the fresh ingredients. The quality is acceptable even though not as superior as Home Chef, and the portion sizes are quite filling indeed.

Home Chef vs EveryPlate – Is Meal Customization Possible?

In the area of meal customization, Home Chef seems to bag the trophy because this particular meal kit delivery service offers the ‘Customize It’ option. It’s available on more than half of the menu items, which opens the door to swapping ingredients so the recipes are more in-tune with your specific diet.

I’ve already talked about the four filters on the Home Chef menu page – calorie-conscious, <30min, carb-conscious, and vegetarian. Thus, you can find the dishes you like very easily and quickly. On top of that, there’s the Customize It feature that allows you to switch one protein with another depending on what your diet consists of.

If you just take the time to go through the recipes on Home Chef, you’ll see how swapping proteins, especially meat with plant-based alternatives and also choosing different kinds of white or red meat is so convenient with most options.

On the other hand, the EveryPlate meal customization experience is nothing like that of Home Chef. In the case of EveryPlate, you get to select from four different types of plans – ClassicPlate, VeggiePlate, FamilyPlate, and EasyPlate.

‘Classic’ consists of the whole menu. ‘Veggie’ has only vegetable-based meals (not necessarily vegan) for veggie lovers and those who don’t consume meat. ‘Family’ is more kid-friendly, thus there are recipes that are easy to prepare and just about right for picky or selective eaters. Then the last one is EasyPlate for dishes you can make in under 30 minutes only. Hence, minimal cleanup in the kitchen!

After picking the meal plan of your choice on EveryPlate, customizing the recipes is not an option, quite disappointingly. With that in place, make sure that you check all the ingredients on the ingredients list of every dish, so you can keep away potential allergens and other things you don’t like or can’t tolerate in your food.

Home Chef vs EveryPlate – Is Customer Service/Support Really Helpful?

Home Chef

The FAQs page on Home Chef is very informative, and you can get in touch with them through phone and email when a certain inquiry doesn’t get resolved through FAQs. For example, Home Chef mentions that they deliver to 98% of areas in the US, but don’t clearly state which locations are a part of the non-deliverable 2%. In that case, you may have to call or email them to confirm.

The response time is prompt and the customer service team is friendly and quite helpful. However, the agents may not be able to provide any more information than is already available on the Home Chef website. It’s only through looking elsewhere do you find out that the states not included on the delivery list of Home Chef are Hawaii and Alaska.

EveryPlate

Expect round-the-clock customer support from EveryPlate, even if it means getting in touch with them in the middle of the night on a weekend. After all, they do have that super helpful live chat feature with a customer service team that’s responsive and friendly.

As for contacting them by phone, that can be done only on weekdays between 6 in the morning and 11 at night.

Even EveryPlate has a pretty informative FAQs section where they address the most basic queries and problems, such as changing delivery day, what’s included in each box, how to skip/pause an order, and lots more.

Home Chef vs EveryPlate – How Are the Nutrition-Based Meals?

A quick scan of Home Chef and EveryPlate recipes makes it clear that Home Chef’s palate is more diverse and diet-friendly than that offered by EveryPlate.

Home Chef has recipes high in protein. EveryPlate, on the other hand, has high-caloric dishes from 600 to 1,000 calories per serving. Some meals are also high in protein, but they do not cater to any specific diet the way Home Chef does.

As you’re exploring Home Chef’s menu, there are a few “nutritional” filters you can select such as calorie-conscious, carb-conscious, and vegetarian meals. EveryPlate does not have such filters that cater to dietary preferences. All the recipes you see come with accurate nutritional value such as calories, proteins, carbs, total fats, etc.

EveryPlate’s meals, I found, are not at all carb-conscious since they boast of high potatoes and pasta recipes. Home Chef, on the contrary, keeps carbs in check with specific meals that have fewer than 35 grams of carbs. These are labeled as “carb-conscious” meals, whereas “calorie-conscious” meals have fewer than 625 calories.

Home Chef has a richer selection of meals when it comes to dietary options for chicken, beef, and seafood. EveryPlate has more vegetarian choices like pasta, chickpea stew, quesadillas, and stir-fry recipes than Home Chef.

Home Chef vs EveryPlate – What About the Nutritional Content?

Home Chef and EveryPlate have plenty of similarities as they are subscription-based meal kit delivery services. If you want premeasured and pre-portioned ingredients delivered straight to your door, you can choose from either one of these services.

Variety-wise, they serve all types of recipes, but Home Chef wins as it offers more than EveryPlate per week. Home Chef includes meal kits and easy prep meal kits that are 15-minute meal kits for a quick dinner fix.

The meal kits with pre-measured ingredients take a slightly longer prep time, up to 40 minutes, as they aren’t heat-and-serve meals. If you want something faster to cook, the easy prep meal kits are perfect. That’s why Home Chef wins at flexible meal choices than EveryPlate.

EveryPlate offers 17 meal kits that take anywhere from 20 to 40 minutes to prep and cook. Most of the ingredients are proportioned, so all that’s left to do is cook them according to the recipe’s instructions.

Home Chef, on the other hand, has 28 dishes on its weekly menu. These are included under “Meal Kits” and “Easy Prep Meal Kits.” Also, you should know that EveryPlate does not offer easy prep meal kits like Home Chef.

Now that it’s decided we love Home Chef’s flexible menu options, what about each of their nutritional value?

Even though EveryPlate doesn’t match up to Home Chef’s wide-ranging menu with over 25 recipes weekly, it does guarantee a wholesome and nutrient-dense diet for health-conscious eaters. Of course, Home Chef does too!

Take a look at some of the recipes below to find your ideal match, health- and nutrition-wise.

Vegetarian

Home Chef’s Gnocchi and Red Pepper Cream has red peppers and gnocchi, which is made from wheat flour, egg, potatoes, cheese, and semolina. It’s a pasta dish served with garlic bread and fresh Parmesan cheese.

It’s the ideal vegetarian recipe, if you ask me, with 780 calories per serving. It’ll take you 25 to 35 minutes only to cook plus this one’s packed with 21 grams of protein.

EveryPlate’s Umami Ginger Snow Pea Stir-Fry is more aromatic with less than 600 calories per serving. The protein sources here include cashew nuts and snow peas.

The dish also contains jasmine rice, scallion, bell peppers, carrots, and garlic. As it is a stir-fry recipe, the umami ginger sauce and Thai chili sauce complement the veggies. Bonus points for the crushed cashew nuts and zesty lime that make the dish super flavorful.

It’s not a heavily protein-packed vegetarian meal, but you can add a fried egg on top to boost the protein content. The recipe card reads 12 grams of protein per serving.

Chicken

Home Chef’s Sticky Chicken Thigh Tacos with Pineapple-Pepper Salsa is packed with colorful veggies like red bell peppers, green onions, and shishito peppers. It also contains pineapple chunks with roasted peanuts and lime juice.

A single serving has 49 grams of protein, with diced chicken thighs that are not at all chewy or dry to eat. Chicken thighs are the softest part of the meat if there ever was one!

EveryPlate’s Saucy Cumin Lime Chicken Tacos with Pickled Veggies & Zesty Crema is a tacos dish again just like Home Chef, but it has a different dressing that is just as flavorful. At 37 grams of protein per serving, it has chicken breast strips combined with cumin, lime, chili powder, and garlic.

The veggies are restricted to only onions and jalapenos, but you can add some of your own to make the tacos more colorful. What I seriously loved about this recipe is the sour cream, which is absent in Home Chef’s version of homemade tacos.

Beef

Home Chef’s English-Style Red Wine Steak “Pie” is an easy meal kit, and that means it comes prepped and cooked in a tightly sealed container. You only have to heat and serve this recipe, which shouldn’t take longer than 20 minutes when you heat it on the stove.

The recipe contains 34 grams of protein and 650 calories!

EveryPlate’s Hotel Butter Steak, on the other hand,  is an extensive and premium recipe that takes up to 40 minutes to prepare. It’s a medley of potatoes, broccoli, sliced almonds, and parsley. These are steaks seared in butter and garlic and parsley, so it does not get any better than this. Furthermore, it isn’t very calorie-dense either with 620 calories per serving and 37 grams of protein.

Seafood

Home Chef’s Blistered-Tomato Salmon with Creamy Spinach Gemelli is a chef-grade seafood recipe with an hour-long prep time. The box, however, serves 2 people, which explains the long cooking time. Salmon is packed with proteins and this puts the recipe’s 53 grams of protein per serving into perspective.

EveryPlate’s Linguine Alfredo with Shrimp with Parsley & Parmesan Frico is much like Home Chef in that it combines seafood with pasta, but this one has shrimps, which have fewer proteins than salmon.

The shrimps are served with a creamy Alfredo sauce and have only 36 grams of protein per serving. The good news about EveryPlate’s seafood pasta dish is that it takes 30 minutes to cook and has 200 fewer calories than Home Chef.

Frequently Asked Questions About Home Chef and EveryPlate

1. Is it easy to modify orders on Home Chef and EveryPlate?

You can modify all your active orders on Home Chef as long as it’s before 12 pm CT on Friday before the delivery week. You can edit your orders either via their website or app.

Modifications are possible indeed, like adding a few meals, making substitutions, or adjusting the delivery date. All these things are simple and quick to do using Home Chef’s website after you log in.

What happens after the cut-off time? If you want to make any last-minute changes, then you’re going to have to contact their customer care to handle the rest. Contact them on the Friday before the scheduled delivery week with your request and you’ll get an immediate response.

With EveryPlate, the process of modifying is a bit simpler. Even though there is no prescribed deadline to edit your orders, the delivery window for each order you place is between 8 am to 8 pm. The delivery date changes from week to week depending on your location, but you will be able to find a suitable delivery time without contacting customer service.

You can effectively edit your active orders on EveryPlate, which includes skipping meals, changing the delivery time/date, adding/removing meals, etc.

Just like Home Chef, EveryPlate has an app that you can use to make all these crucial changes. EveryPlate also sends confirmation emails after you cancel an order or skip a large meal for the coming week.

2. What About Accommodating Allergies?

Neither Home Chef nor EveryPlate accommodates allergy sensitivities. All the ingredients are cooked and prepped in the same kitchen that also processes nuts, soy, eggs, shellfish, etc. While it’s possible that you may select an allergen-free recipe of your choice, both companies do not guarantee that there are no cross-contaminations that will occur.

Home Chef recipes have a label read-out with all the common allergy-causing foods such as milk, wheat, peanuts, eggs, etc. The same applies to EveryPlate as they always put up a disclaimer that states that all foods are processed in the same facility as soy, peanuts, shellfish, milk, eggs, and the like.

Both meal kit delivery services may not be allergy-friendly, but they do keep you in the know about their ingredients, which means you can avoid certain recipes altogether and pick those that are more suited to your food and lifestyle choices.

Final Thoughts on Home Chef

 Final Thoughts on EveryPlate

Conclusion

Nearly all the meals from Home Chef are expertly curated and designed to fit the needs of most people. They are carb-conscious, low-calorie, and take less than 30 minutes to make!

The dishes from EveryPlate are better suited for someone looking for a simple, hassle-free solution without any specific dietary preferences. Home Chef prioritizes diet, whereas EveryPlate gives you an easy fix for your weekly dinner plans.

If you’re a complete beginner looking to follow a recipe with prepped ingredients, EveryPlate is your pick. Home Chef ranks better concerning flavor, versatility, and consistency of ingredients. It also organizes its ingredients well to fit different nutritional preferences, such as a low-calorie meal or something fewer than 35 grams of carbs per serving.