Green Chef Review 2025, Tested by Food & Wine

There are few things that I both love and hate as much as making dinner. I can find the task glorious on days I’m inspired by a recipe or some fresh, seasonal produce I’ve just acquired. Plus, as a former restaurant chef, I often find myself missing professional kitchens, and it’s nice to re-immerse myself in culinary adventures from the comfort of my own home. That being said, dinner can be a real pain — and I don’t think I’m alone in dreading the ever-present question: “What do you want for dinner tonight?”

That’s where meal kit deliveries come in: They’re supposed to take all the hassle out of meal-making with expertly curated menus, fresh ingredients, and prep work that’s already been done for you. The only problem is that the food doesn’t always turn out that tasty. Also, I try to buy only organic or local produce, and I am a celiac, which really narrows down my choices. So, when I had the opportunity to test out Green Chef, I was genuinely excited. With celiac-safe offerings and certified organic ingredients, the company provides a diverse set of meal options. In light of my dietary restrictions and preferences, it seemed like the most appealing meal kit delivery option out there. 

After a month of giving the service a shot, here are my thoughts.

Price Range: $11.99-$13.49 per serving | Shipping: $9.99 | Delivery Area: The contiguous United States | Products Arrive: Fresh

What I Love About Green Chef

Without sounding too boastful, before this experience, I didn’t believe a meal kit delivery service could offer meals that would stand up to my own cooking. As much as the convenience was appealing, it didn’t justify getting stuck with a meal I didn’t love. But Green Chef impressed me from the get-go. From the intuitive packaging to the broad diversity of flavor combinations, culinary methods, and cuisine options, I feel confident in recommending the service to any kind of home cook. 

In fact, because I have loads of culinary expertise and often find myself going on autopilot, I tested the user-friendliness of the recipes by having my boyfriend (who has minimal culinary experience) prepare a few himself. He needed no assistance in interpreting instructions or executing steps. The meals we created following Green Chef’s instructions, no matter who cooked, were truly delicious and dynamic. They included American classics, Japanese-inspired bowls, Greek-inflected seafood plates, and beyond. 

I felt the key to the depth of flavor was the prepared spice blends and sauces. They appeared across different recipes, but they didn’t feel repetitive as they were always paired with different ingredients and complementary condiments, resulting in novel combinations. There were a few sauces and dressings that I made myself by mixing pre-measured ingredients in a pan or a bowl. These simple sauces felt like hacks — they imbued the meals with a dynamic taste without much work. I even found myself taking note of the measurements so that I could recreate them later as accompaniments for dishes of my own. Multiple garnishes gave each meal textural elements, which were balanced by flavors from spice mixes, stock concentrates, and the meal kit ingredients themselves. Well-balanced with produce, starch, and protein, the meals never felt lopsided or carb-heavy.

The recipes also called for minimal cookware, which eased cleanup and cut down cook time. For example, leftover browned bits from searing meat remained in the pan and became the base for a sauce; or salmon would be added to a sheet tray of half-roasted veggies. I appreciated these steps as they mimicked some of the tips and tricks I’d learned in restaurant kitchens to maximize efficiency and deepen flavor. 

Green Chef’s customer service was top-notch too, with a website (and app if you’re more phone-prone) that are effortless to navigate if ever you want to pause your subscription or chat with a customer service agent about ingredients or dietary preferences. Both easy-to-use interfaces offer a vast selection of meal options each week (and which are even more numerous if you aren’t on a gluten-free diet). In fact, after a month of testing I didn’t find any repetitiveness in the meals, even when I didn’t go out of my way to pick out exactly which recipes I wanted for the week. 

Caveats

The main caveat with Green Chef is that its produce can be inconsistent in quality. While some meals offer fresh-looking, -smelling, and -tasting fruit and vegetables, others were on the brink of unusable. Particularly, pre-cut items or items in sealed plastic bags — like chopped onions or peas — required swift use. In my month-long testing period, I found myself having to supplement produce three times for some meals, which I cooked toward the end of the week. That being said, one could likely remedy this by inspecting the produce of the entire haul and scheduling meals in order of freshness, cooking the least hardy first and the most robust last. 

A secondary caveat was portion size. My boxes came with four meals for two people per week and while portion size varied across recipes, I sometimes felt the finished meals provided enough food for one and a half portions rather than two. On days when I was cooking to eat alone, I found the smaller meals were perfect for dinner the night of (for one) and leftover lunch the next day. Meals with rice bases were often generously portioned, as were those with ground meat or tofu. The proteins ranged in portion size, too: Chicken was usually just right whereas pork chops were often on the smaller side. 

How We Tested

I tested Green Chef for four weeks; each week I received four meals for two people, totaling eight meals. I followed the instructions to a tee, timing my total cook times as well as adhering to the designated cook times in the recipe. (I made notes if I had to extend cook times for any reason, or if the allotted minutes were too generous.) To ensure that my takeaways were unbiased, I shared the meals with different family members, all with differing culinary experience and personal taste preferences. 

In testing, I held Green Chef up against a plethora of other meal delivery services our team tried out. While every meal delivery service we’ve recommended has their own sets of pros and cons, Green Chef stands out for a number of reasons. For example, I appreciate the company’s commitment to sustainability. It utilizes renewable electricity in its production facilities and works to reduce food insecurity by regularly donating food to food banks, and more. Also, according to Green Chef, using its service cuts down on your carbon footprint by 31% lower than if you shopped at a typical supermarket. 

But in comparing and contrasting Green Chef with other meal delivery services when testing our favorite gluten-free meal kits, the company easily earned a spot as the “Best Organic” choice for those looking to ensure they’re prepping meals with all-organic ingredients. In fact, Green Chef is the first meal kit company to be certified organic. (It’s certified by the CCOF, California Certified Organic Farmers.) The company teams up with regional purveyors across the country to secure farmer-fresh organic produce, eggs, seafood, and proteins. In testing, a handful of ingredients (such as onions) came along with a little card notifying the consumer that due to a shortage in supply these ingredients were conventionally grown. I appreciated this transparency as it shows Green Chef is closely tracing every single ingredient across all its meal offerings to do good on its all-organic (or all-organic whenever possible) promise. 

I tried several meal options from Green Chef, including:

• Southwest pork and rice stuffed peppers 
• Sriracha tamari tofu bowls 
• Cheesy pesto chicken bowls 
• Coconut shrimp and bacon soup 
• Cheesy Dijon pork chops (pictured below)

Tips & Tricks

• Veggies often took a little longer to cook than Green Chef’s recipe called for. One helpful habit I developed was beginning the cooking process by throwing the veggies on whatever heat source was called for before starting the other steps in the recipe.
• Because I often found myself saving half of the two-portion meal for lunch the next day, I discovered the most efficient way to get the most out of both meals was to dole out one portion into my bowl or plate and the other into a storage container, using half the sauces or garnishes, then securing them with a rubber band for use the next day. 
• Green Chef’s recipes are surprisingly flavorful. I’ve had the tendency to add extra seasoning with other meal kit services I’ve tried, but with Green Chef meals, I recommend holding back until all the meal components are put together and you’ve had a chance to taste. 

The Verdict

All in all, as an avid and somewhat picky home cook with loads of professional experience, I was pleasantly surprised by my time testing Green Chef. Green Chef offered options that stood up to what I would otherwise prepare myself, without having to do any of the meal planning, shopping, or prepping. I confidently recommend the service to those who are looking to ease the workload of weekly dinners, regardless of dietary restrictions, flavor preference, or cooking experience. 

Our Expertise

Stella Totino is a former pastry chef turned food writer with years of experience testing and researching all things food. Invested in discovering fun new flavors and the tools that help to create them, you can find her work in the Strategist, Simply Recipes, Apartment Therapy, and The Kitchn. As a celiac, Stella has spent years taste-testing gluten-free alternatives and ingredients both in, and out, of professional kitchens.