HomeChef
reviews and complaints

So, my buddy told me about HomeChef and how I could get a sweet $30 discount on my first three meals. I was all about that deal, so I signed up and put in my credit card info for the $30 charge. I knew I couldn't afford to spend $60 a week on meals, so I planned to cancel after the first week.

I hit the pause button on Friday morning at 9 am, and it said "account inactive." I thought I was good to go since the cutoff for pausing the account is noon. But, when I checked my bank account, I saw that they charged me another $60 for food even though I had paused my account.

I was pretty ticked off, so I called customer service and talked to this dude who was super rude. He said it was my fault and that they didn't see anything on their end showing that I had canceled. But, I had a confirmation email and other emails asking me to come back, so I knew he was wrong.

He denied that any of that happened, but I knew better. I told him again that I had proof, but he just said sorry and that there was nothing they could do. I'm really frustrated, especially since I've read that this has happened to other people too.

So, my advice to you is to not even bother with HomeChef. Sure, the $30 off sounds great, but they'll keep charging you even after you pause your account. And, their customer service is terrible. Save yourself the headache and go somewhere else.

Home Chef is absolutely amazing! The food is delicious and the service is top-notch. My husband and I tried Blue Apron first, but we quickly realized that they don't spend much money on the food they send you. We were getting a lot of celery roots, ground beef, and sunny side up eggs. It got pretty ridiculous! But then we discovered Home Chef and everything changed.

Every week, Home Chef sends us steak, veal, shrimp, and chicken breast. And the best part is that we get to pick our meals from 10 different choices for the same price! Last week, they sent us steak, ribs, salmon, and pork. It's like having a gourmet restaurant in our own kitchen!

I can't say enough good things about Home Chef. The food is always amazing and the time and money they are saving us is priceless. For Valentine's Day, we're getting Filet and over the holidays they sent out cheesecakes and appetizer trays. We had stuffed mushrooms and bruschetta and our friends loved it!

For just $4, they also offer fresh fruit smoothies and fresh fruit bowls. It's so convenient to have everything we need delivered right to our door. No more wandering up and down grocery store aisles looking for ingredients or overpaying for items we don't need.

We used to spend a lot of money at restaurants, but now we're enjoying food that's just as good (if not better) at home. Plus, it's been a lot of fun having my husband cook with me. This service has given us a great winter hobby to do together.

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask me. I obviously love talking about Home Chef! It's the best decision we've made for our kitchen and our taste buds.

I gotta say, I'm pretty surprised by all the folks out there who seem to be lovin' Home Chef. I signed up for their service 'bout two months ago, but I gotta say, my experience hasn't been all that great. The first two orders I got had produce that was all damaged and freezer burned from the ice packs they were packed in. I reached out to the company twice to let 'em know 'bout the problem, but I never heard back from 'em. Not a great start, if you ask me.

When I signed up for Home Chef, they had me fill out a profile that asked 'bout the types of meals I like. I'm a low carb eater, so I made sure to indicate that on my profile. But here's the thing: I didn't realize that if I didn't go in and select a meal, they'd just send me whatever they felt like. And what did they send me? Risotto. Not exactly a low carb meal, if you catch my drift. At that point, I decided to take a break from Home Chef and skipped all the meals I could. But I forgot to cancel my account, and today I came home to find two more high carb meals on my doorstep. I tried to cancel my account online, but it turns out I can't do that. I had to pause my account indefinitely and then reach out to customer service to finally cancel my account. What a hassle!

All in all, I gotta say I'm pretty frustrated with Home Chef. Their customer service is seriously lacking, and I don't appreciate the fact that I couldn't cancel my account online. Good riddance, Home Chef!

Not gonna lie, HomeChef was a bit of a letdown for me.

On the plus side, the packaging was pretty solid. I live in Arizona and even on a hot day, the ice packs were still frozen when I got home. So that's a good thing.

But man, the cons really outweighed the pros for me. First of all, if a recipe calls for an ingredient, PUT IT IN THE BOX. That's the whole point of this service, right? So you don't have to go to the store. But nope, apparently that's too much to ask. Every recipe called for olive oil and yet, somehow, they didn't include it in the box. And it's not just olive oil, either. Even if a recipe calls for something as basic as salt and pepper, they don't include it. Come on, guys. You're charging a pretty penny for this service, the least you could do is make sure we have everything we need to actually make the meals.

And speaking of the meals, they take way longer than the advertised 30 minutes. Most of them took closer to 45 minutes, which is a pretty big difference. And the difficulty level was high on all of them. I mean, I'm not a terrible cook or anything, but some of these recipes were a real challenge. And there are only a dozen or so meals to choose from, which seems pretty limited to me.

Oh, and if you don't pick your meals within a day and a half, they choose for you. Which is annoying, because if I don't pick meals, it's probably because I don't want food that week. And if you're a first-time customer, they don't give you much of a chance to decide if you want to continue. We couldn't even make a meal the first night because we didn't have everything we needed. Not a great start.

And finally, the taste just wasn't that great. I know this is supposed to be healthier than other meal delivery services, but that doesn't mean it has to be bland. I've made way healthier meals that tasted a lot better and took a lot less time. So why bother with HomeChef?

All in all, I had high hopes for this service, but it just didn't deliver. I think I'll be trying a competitor next time.

Me and my wife decided to switch things up and try Home Chef after using Hello Fresh for a while. The first week was amazing! Our box arrived on time and the produce was fresh and well-packaged. My wife was thrilled that the meals were easier and quicker to prepare. However, after being with Home Chef for three months, we've had some issues with delayed deliveries. In fact, our box was delayed for the third time in four weeks tonight.

We signed up for a meal service to make our lives easier, not to add more stress. When we're counting on our box to arrive and it doesn't, it's no longer a convenience. It's a hassle. We end up scrambling to put something together, which only adds to the stress of the day. And to top it off, we're paying for this inconvenience!

After much consideration, we've decided to switch back to Hello Fresh. There are a few reasons for this decision. While the meals from Hello Fresh may take a bit longer to prepare, the flavor profiles are much better and the portions are a bit larger. There were a few nights where I was still hungry after a Home Chef meal, which never happened with Hello Fresh. Additionally, when our box was delayed tonight, I called Home Chef to see if we would still be receiving it. To my surprise, they don't have after-hours phone support! Hello Fresh does. Overall, while both services have their issues, Hello Fresh is the better option for us.

So, it's goodbye to Home Chef and hello to Hello Fresh once again.

I really like cooking and trying out new recipes, but I absolutely hate meal planning and grocery shopping! That's why I decided to give Home Chef a try, and I'm so glad I did! It's definitely not the cheapest option out there if you're feeding a family of four every day, but I've been getting two to three meals a week with just two servings each. I usually plan Home Chef nights to replace date nights that my husband and I would normally have gone out to dinner for. With two teenagers in the house, there are usually at least two to three nights a week when they're not around for dinner anyway, so it works out perfectly.

I love being able to come home from work and not have to think about what's for dinner. It's been really fun trying out new ingredients and discovering that we actually like Brussels sprouts (a veggie I always thought I didn't like!). I've tried another meal delivery service before, but I found that Home Chef has more menu choices to choose from, simpler recipes, and less messy prep. But don't let that fool you - the flavor and quality are definitely not lacking! The ingredients are always fresh, and even though some of the recipes seem simple, they always deliver in flavor. We haven't had a recipe we didn't enjoy yet!

I've been ordering from Home Chef since the beginning of the year, and I plan to continue. I really like being able to schedule five weeks in advance and the flexibility of changing the number of servings and/or number of meals from week to week. I've referred four friends to Home Chef, and they've all ordered and enjoyed it too. Tonight, we had a restaurant-quality steak dinner for just $20 - cheaper than dining out, and I get the satisfaction of cooking without all the planning!

Customer service has always been very quick to respond and answer any questions I have. Thank you, Home Chef, for making cooking enjoyable (and doable) again!

I've been using Home Chef for quite some time now and I must say, I'm pretty satisfied with the meals they offer. My husband and I have tried other meal delivery services before, but we always end up going back to Home Chef because of the variety of options they have. However, there were a few hiccups along the way that I encountered.

One of the issues I had was with the steaks they advertised. They would claim that the steaks were sirloin or filet, but my husband, who happens to be a butcher, would always tell me that they were not those types of cuts. It was a bit disappointing because we were expecting a certain quality of meat, but we ended up getting something else. I usually just avoid ordering steaks from them now and opt for other types of meat instead.

Another issue I had was with my account. I initially set it to 3 meals a week, but I recently decided to switch it to 2. The first time I changed it, I was sent 3 meals instead of 2, but I thought it was my mistake for not double checking my order. The second time, however, I made sure to check my order and it stated that I was going to be charged $39 for 2 meals. However, when I checked my bank account, I was charged $79 and noticed that they added 2 more meals to my account. When I reached out to customer service, they basically told me that I chose additional meals and that the presets were for people who didn't want to choose their own meals. It was frustrating because I felt like they were not listening to my concerns and were just blaming me for the mistake.

Overall, I still think Home Chef is a good meal delivery service, but they definitely have some areas for improvement. The false advertising and customer service issues can be a bit of a turn off, but I still appreciate the convenience of having meals delivered to my doorstep.

Home Chef is a meal delivery service that we recently tried out and we were pleasantly surprised by the quality of the food and the variety of menus available. The food was mostly fresh, although we did notice that the fresh items didn't last as long as other fresh items we've purchased elsewhere or had delivered. We did have a couple of instances where items were either rotten or frozen, but it only happened twice.

However, our main issue with Home Chef was with their website and customer service. We needed to pause our shipment for the week, so we visited the website and paused the shipment before the deadline. But the following week, we received another shipment. We assumed we hadn't saved something or had done something to "unpause" our account, so we went back to the site and paused the account again. We double-checked to make sure it was paused before leaving the site. Later in the week, we returned to reassure ourselves that the account was paused, and it still showed that it was. We don't remember if we looked at the menu for the coming weeks or not, but when we left the site, our account said it was paused. However, the following week, we received yet another unwanted shipment.

When we contacted the company, we were disappointed by their response. They basically told us "too bad" and said that we had edited the menu (which was untrue) and unpaused our account (also untrue, unless looking at the menus and/or making adjustments to future shipments, which we suspect causes your account to automatically unpause). The person from Home Chef was completely unconcerned, bordering on rude. We know of two other families who started using Home Chef on our recommendation, but due to the unwillingness of the company to even acknowledge that there might be an issue with the website and the lack of anything resembling customer service, we canceled our account.

Overall, we enjoyed the food from Home Chef, but the lack of reliable customer service and the issues with their website made it difficult to continue using their service. We would recommend looking into other meal delivery services that have better customer service and a more reliable website. A good product isn't worth dealing with an untrustworthy company.

I gotta tell ya, I've tried a bunch of these meal delivery services and HomeChef is hands down the best one out there. I mean, I've gone through six different services in the past year and once I found HomeChef, I cancelled all the others. The flavors of every single item in the meal are just out of this world and the recipes are so easy to follow. Plus, there's way less prep involved than with the other services. I've been with them for about five months now and I haven't had a single repeat meal. The entrees are always amazing and the side dishes are just as good. Even the veggies are so good that even the pickiest eaters will gobble them up. And I'm telling you, I absolutely hate brussel sprouts, but I've eaten both side dishes that included them and loved them. The quality of the meat and veggies is like what you'd get at a fancy restaurant, not what you'd find at your average grocery store. The meat just melts in your mouth and even the fish tastes like it was just caught. And the sauces you make are to die for. They're like something you'd get at a five-star restaurant. I feel like a real chef with all the tips and tricks I've learned from HomeChef. And get this, they even give you a nice notebook with your first order so you can keep all the step-by-step directions on beautifully photographed 8x10 glossy paper. I've got a gorgeous cookbook with all our favorite recipes (which is pretty much all of them) in this notebook. I have no idea how much it would cost to buy a cookbook with 5-star recipes like these, and they just keep coming! I can't even begin to tell you how much we love this service. And let me tell you, I'm a picky eater, but my husband is even pickier and we both look forward to every single meal. We haven't gotten tired of it yet, and after a few months with the other services, we definitely did. And get this, there's only two of us at home and this service is so reasonable that I'm saving over $50 a week on groceries. And we're eating better than we ever have before. Switching to HomeChef was the best decision I've ever made. It's a no-brainer and I recommend it without any hesitation!

I gotta say, I wasn't too impressed with Home Chef. Luckily, I paid through PayPal and they gave me my money back. Check out this convo I had with them.

Angela
FRI. MAY 5th, 2017 9:30 am

Hey there - I got my order last week and I don't wanna subscribe. I made the pork medallions with the carrots and bok choy. It was pretty meh, nothing special. My hubby wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole though. The next recipe has fennel and I hate anything that tastes like black licorice, so we're not gonna use it. Also, I asked for low carb and the sauce for the pork medallion had a ton of sugar in it. One dish is supposed to be served on top of rice, but we don't eat rice. I just want you guys to not charge my card or send me anything else. Thanks.

TUE 4:40PM

Home Chef
Hey Angela, sorry to hear you didn't enjoy your first set of meals! We always let our customers choose the meals they prefer when cooking with us, so we apologize if it wasn't clear that you could edit your order to fit your tastes. Looks like you deactivated your account with us yesterday, so you should have gotten an email confirming that. We're sorry to see you go so soon, but we appreciate you giving us a try!

Angela
This would be great for seniors like my dad who don't know how to cook. I like my food to have some kick, so that's probably why I wasn't into it.
TUE 7:10PM

Home Chef
Thanks for the feedback, Angela! Plenty of seniors and beginner cooks use our services along with more experienced (but busy!) home cooks. It all just depends on what you're looking for in the kitchen. Thanks for giving us a shot, and take care!

Angela
One more thing... most guys can eat more than one chicken breast for dinner. If I had kept using this service, I would have had to make extra sides, so it kinda defeats the purpose of it being "convenient." Portions are good for a woman but not for most men.
WED 2:14PM

Home Chef
Thanks, Angela! Our portions are meant to be well-rounded but not too filling, but as you know, there's no perfect one-size-fits-all formula out there. We'll let our culinary team know about your insight, though!
Seen by Home Chef at Wednesday 2:14pm

1:36PM
Angela
I paused my account on Friday but got an email this morning saying you guys were sending me another shipment. I'll use the emails and Facebook messages to prove to my bank that I didn't authorize this charge. Most of the veggies you sent me were old. I think you guys are scamming people. I told PayPal to decline any future charges from you guys.

I've been using HomeChef for about 6 months now and for the most part, I've been pretty happy with it. The delivery always arrived on the day I selected, except for one time when I was missing an ingredient. But overall, we've enjoyed everything we've ordered, except for the steak which was tough as shoe leather.

However, for the past 2 months, my Thursday delivery has been consistently arriving on Friday. I understand that it's winter and the weather can be unpredictable, but only one box arrived in edible condition. I've called HomeChef multiple times to complain and they promised to reach out to FedEx and get back to me, but I never received a follow-up call or email.

I know the problem is with FedEx, but it's frustrating that HomeChef hasn't been able to resolve the issue. I'll probably call and complain again, but I don't have high hopes that anything will change. In the meantime, I've gone into my account and skipped every week shown and I'll be 'pausing' my account (because apparently, you can't actually cancel).

Overall, I'm pretty disappointed with HomeChef and I'm done with this company. It's a shame because I really enjoyed the convenience of having meals delivered to my door, but the unreliable delivery and lack of customer service just isn't worth it.

I bought a groupon coupon for $35.00 to try this food out. I had trouble using my coupon so had to have help. They asked for a credit card so I gave it to them thinking they were charging my groupon item. I got my box of food and thought that was what I paid for. Then two more boxes came without me ordering. Come to find out they were charging my credit card. The food was awful and took hours to prepare and then is so spiced up that none of us could eat it. I called and wanted a refund on the two orders I didn't order for over $130.00, They told me they couldn't refund my money and I should have paid attention to the small print stated my credit card would be charged until I called and canceled the order. There are no phone numbers on HomeChef site. I had to go on Groupon where I first got started with this horrible place. I will never purchase anything from Groupon or this HomeChef again.

So, I recently had an experience with HomeChef that left me feeling pretty disappointed. Apparently, they decided to switch shipping companies without letting their customers know. I guess they were trying to save some money, but it ended up being a really bad decision.

They switched from FedEx to OnTrac, which I've had deliver packages to me before. Let me tell you, it's not the most professional-looking operation. The guy who delivered my package was an old man in a minivan. I mean, I'm not trying to be ageist or anything, but it just didn't inspire a lot of confidence in me.

Anyway, long story short, my package never arrived. I tried calling and emailing HomeChef, but it took me 40 emails and 12 calls just to get a hold of someone. That's pretty ridiculous, if you ask me. I eventually got a refund, but I'm never going to use their service again.

Honestly, I think this was a really bad business decision on their part. They're going to lose a lot of customers over it. I've already told all my friends and family about my experience and encouraged them to close their accounts too. And I'm going to leave this review on every site I can find, just to make sure people know how bad their customer service is.

In conclusion, I would not recommend HomeChef to anyone. Their decision to switch shipping companies was a huge mistake, and their customer service is terrible. If you're looking for a meal delivery service, I would suggest looking elsewhere.

I recently tried out HomeChef and ordered two menus at a discounted price to give it a go. The delivery arrived on time, but I was disappointed to find that the food was very cold. However, I did enjoy the taste of the food, but I found the price to be too expensive for my liking. Additionally, I was charged on my credit card five days before I received the food, which I found to be inconvenient.

One of the biggest issues I had with HomeChef was that the servings only come in threes, which was not enough for my family of four. I wanted to cancel my subscription, but I found their website to be a complete "train wreck". It was difficult to find the login page, and when I finally did, I was met with a message saying that they don't deliver to my zip code. This was frustrating, and I had to search for advice from other customers on how to log in.

When I finally managed to log in, I found that there was no option to cancel my subscription. Instead, I could only "pause service," which was not what I wanted to do. The delivery calendar tab did not offer a pause service button, which made it even more difficult to cancel my subscription. I tried calling their customer service line twice, but I was on hold for 11 minutes each time. When I finally got through, I was allowed to leave a "non-urgent" message, which was cut off after only 15 seconds.

Overall, I am not satisfied with my experience with HomeChef. The food was good, but the price was too high, and the website was difficult to navigate. Additionally, the fact that I couldn't cancel my subscription easily was frustrating, and the lack of a pause service button made it even more difficult. I am even considering paying my bank $30 to stop payment because I am getting food that I was not allowed to select and doesn't fit our dietary needs.

I ain't never tried HomeChef before, so this is just my two cents. I'm the kinda person who likes to stock up on condiments that don't expire for a hot minute, so I can use 'em over and over again for future meals. But with HomeChef, it seems like there ain't gonna be no leftovers for the next day. And let me tell ya, I usually spend 'bout $10.00 per meal and still have enough for lunch the next day for me and my hubby. For example, if I buy a tri-tip for $20.00, it usually feeds us for three meals. That's only $6.66 per meal! And the remaining $4.00 from the $10.00 goes towards sides to complete the meal.

So, it seems like HomeChef might end up costing me more in the long run, especially with their delivery charge. Now, don't get me wrong, my household income is $150,000, so I ain't exactly strugglin'. But I just don't think HomeChef offers enough value for the price. Maybe if I was in a pinch and needed some convenience, I'd give it a shot. But for now, I'll stick to my condiments and leftovers.

Sorry if my grammar ain't perfect, I ain't no English major or nothin'. Just wanted to share my thoughts on HomeChef.

-Marle

I gotta say, I'm pretty bummed out about Home Chef lately. I live up in Seattle, and let me tell you, the delivery service they use is a real bummer. They ship everything out from California, usually Ontario, and my delivery day is Thursday. Now, my family and I are all about the veggie and fish meals, but let me tell you, we've had some real issues with the delivery times lately.

I mean, come on, FISH should not be riding around in a truck or parked in a warehouse for FIVE DAYS! That's just not right. And don't even get me started on the ice packs. The most recent order we got arrived FIVE days after it was dispatched, and it only had ONE ice pack... for FISH?! What's up with that?

The thing is, Home Chef used to use FEDEX for their deliveries, but it seems like they're trying to save a few bucks by using this ON TRAC service instead. And let me tell you, it's just not cutting it. ON TRAC doesn't deliver on weekends, which means our food is just sitting around for even longer.

I tried talking to ON TRAC about it, but they just suggested I contact Home Chef and ask for a change of shipper. And when I talked to the Home Chef customer service folks, they just told me that "the SYSTEM chooses the delivery service." I mean, come on, there has to be some way to override that, right?

My sister lives down in California and she gets her Home Chef deliveries via FEDEX, so why can't I? It just doesn't make sense. I really hope Home Chef can figure this out, because I love their meals, but I just can't deal with this delivery nonsense anymore.

Me and my hubby been using Home Chef for a whole year, but we just cancelled our service. At first, it was all good, even though the recipes started to look the same and we got squash too often. But lately, I had to contact them like once or twice a month with problems that they don't seem to care about. The worst part is that they don't pack our box with care, and too often we got meat packages with holes or tears, and then blood or goo got all over everything. Sometimes we paid for fancy meat like filet mignon and didn't even get it! Other times, the veggies were all soft and wilted, and the last straw was when we got a garlic clove with mold growing on it! Can you believe it? The quality of the ingredients went way down, and it's not okay because this service ain't cheap. If you asked me a year ago if I'd recommend it, I'd say yes, but now, heck no! Don't waste your hard-earned money on nasty ingredients and bad customer service.

I've been using HomeChef for a while now, but after about 6 months, my family and I got bored with the menus and decided to "suspend" our subscription. However, we had a credit that was about to expire, so we decided to restart our subscription. Unfortunately, the first delivery was a day late, which upset our schedule for the entire week. To make matters worse, the delivery had cherry tomatoes in it, but many of them were crushed.

The following week, I received a notice that our delivery was on its way. I couldn't remember ordering anything, but I thought maybe my wife did. When the order came, it was just a bunch of fish. We didn't order fish. HomeChef is supposed to provide MEALS, not just random ingredients. I tried to contact them to find out what happened, but they never replied.

To make matters worse, every time I try to create an email in the app, it wipes out my email and takes me to the FAQ for questions on how to change your schedule. I don't need the FAQ. I need my money back and all this fish taken back.

Overall, I am extremely unhappy with my restart of HomeChef. I have asked them to deactivate my account (not suspend. Take me off your customer list) to no avail. I have the right to control this, but HomeChef seems to think otherwise.

I really hope this review gets their attention. I'm crossing my fingers that they will take action and make things right.

So, my wife got a gift card for HomeChef for Mother's Day. We were pretty excited to try it out, so we ordered a package with 3 meals. When the package arrived, I opened it up and saw two big ol' heads of cauliflower that were covered in brown spots. Not a great start. I kept unpacking and found some veggies that needed extra cleaning and some that were just plain inedible. I think one of them was dandelion greens - they were super bitter and looked all limp and sad. And to top it all off, there was a can of condensed milk that had rust on it! Gross.

But the real kicker was when I looked at the recipe cards. There were only 2 cards for 3 meals, and one of them was totally wrong! It was for a shrimp dish, but we got pork, chicken, and beef. What the heck?

I reached out to HomeChef to see if we could get a refund for the gift card, but all they offered was a $20 credit for another order. That's barely enough for one meal! And we had to throw out most of what they sent us anyway.

Overall, I was really disappointed with HomeChef. The products were poor quality, the packers were inaccurate, and the customer service response was slow and unhelpful. They said they'd take my feedback into consideration for future improvements, but what about making things right for the customer? We paid for 3 meals and got a bunch of gross, unusable stuff instead. I wouldn't recommend HomeChef to anyone - stay far away!

So, I gotta say, I'm not one to complain, but HomeChef is just not cutting it for me. I mean, I did my research and thought this was gonna be the answer to my meal prep prayers, but boy was I wrong. My first shipment was a disaster. I mean, one of the sweet potatoes was all soft and had black spots all over it. I didn't think much of it at the time, but boy was I wrong. My second shipment was even worse. One of the gel packs had ruptured and there was this weird jelly substance all over everything in the box. I called them up and asked if it was safe to eat and they said yes, but I was still a little skeptical.

Then, my third shipment came and I was like, "okay, maybe this time it'll be different." But nope. One of the zucchinis had this weird white foam on it and was just bad. I mean, come on. I emailed them and they gave me a credit on my next box, but I was still pretty disappointed. And then, my fourth and final box came and it was just the icing on the cake. There were not one, but TWO rotten baby cucumbers in there. I mean, seriously?

I had had enough at that point and deactivated my account. They wanted to know why, so I told them everything that had happened. They offered me a $15 credit, but I was like, "nah, I'm good." I switched over to Hello Fresh and have been much happier. I just can't recommend HomeChef to anyone. If you use them, you're just asking for trouble.