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Kitchen & Cooking

You can buy meat from Home Chef—but is it any good?

Meat doesn't get more convenient than this.

Shrimp and scallops sitting on a wooden cutting board. Credit: Home Chef

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Because of supply chain issues related to COVID-19, you might find that your grocery store’s meat selection is a bit sparse. Or maybe you’ve tried to limit grocery trips, relying instead on a meal kit delivery service. Either way, Home Chef has a new offering that might appeal to you.

In addition to its regular meal kits, oven-ready meals, and 15-minute meals, Home Chef is now offering “Protein Pack” add-ons. We wanted to see whether this new offering was worth it, so we ordered one for ourselves.

What are Home Chef Protein Packs?

Two plates, one filled with salmon fillets and the other filled with chicken breasts.
Credit: Home Chef

These add-on packs include a variety of meat and seafood.

When you place your weekly Home Chef order, you now have the option to add a Protein Pack to your delivery. If you scroll all the way to the bottom of the weekly menu, you’ll find a section called “Extras,” and there are typically three Protein Packs to choose from.

Essentially, these packs include a selection of Home Chef’s meat, designed to last you for a week or two. They include everything from chicken breasts and ground beef to salmon fillets and scallops, and you get several servings of each protein per pack.

You can choose to add a Protein Pack to your order just once, or you can add one every week. These protein packs can be especially helpful if you like to meal plan.

How much do they cost?

A screenshot of Home Chef's protein pack offerings.
Credit: Home Chef

The cost of each Protein Pack varies depending on what's included.

Naturally, you’re probably wondering how much Home Chef’s Protein Packs cost. Different packs vary in price, but to give you a general idea, the packs available the week I ordered are priced as follows:

  • Essential Protein Pack, $59.98: 6 chicken breasts, 36 oz. ground turkey, 4 Italian sausages
  • Seafood Sampler, $74.98: 24 oz. scallops and 24 oz. shrimp
  • Surf and Turf Pack, $74.98: 10 chicken breasts and 6 salmon fillets

It seems as though Home Chef swaps out the Protein Packs every few weeks—similar to its recipes—as we’ve previously seen options that include ground beef and steak, as well as other fish like mahi-mahi.

Convenient pre-portioned protein, delivered to your door

A stack of pre-portioned containers filled with seafood.
Credit: Reviewed / Camryn Rabideau

Our seafood came in several pre-portioned trays.

To experience this new offering from Home Chef for ourselves, we tested out the Seafood Sampler, which contains about six servings of both scallops and shrimp. The seafood arrived in the bottom of our weekly Home Chef box next to the ice packs, and the proteins were separated into two bags. The recipe card included for the Protein Pack said the seafood should be used within three days, so we opted to store it all in the freezer to maintain freshness (just in case those three days came and went).

Right off the bat, we loved that the seafood was split up into pre-portioned packages. There were three trays of shrimp and three trays of scallops, and each tray contained two servings of the protein. Living in a two-person household, it was extremely convenient to be able to simply grab one tray of the seafood, knowing it had just enough food for two people.

However, all that packaging does seem a bit wasteful—they could have easily put all the shrimp in one bag and used 60% less material. This is especially true considering that the trays are made from polypropylene and are labeled recycling symbol #5, which is not accepted via all curbside recycling programs.

Delicious seafood for homemade meals

Scallops cooking in a frying pan filled with butter.
Credit: Reviewed / Camryn Rabideau

The seafood tasted delicious, even after being frozen.

We’ve always been pleased with the quality of Home Chef’s meat, and the Protein Packs were no exception. We whipped up some shrimp scampi and we loved that the shrimp was already deveined and peeled, allowing us to simply thaw it and start cooking. The quality of the shrimp itself was good, making the dish a flavorful hit with both myself and my boyfriend.

I don’t cook with scallops very often, but I found an easy recipe for Garlic-Lemon Scallops that seemed fairly foolproof. Basically, I seared them in a copious amount of butter, and then I served them with a side of spaghetti because…. well, I love pasta.

Again, scallops aren’t something I eat on a regular basis, so I don’t have much to compare them to. However, I really liked the meal and ended up eating more than one portion, so they get a stamp of approval from my taste buds.

Are Home Chef Protein Packs worth it?

A white plate filled with scallops and pasta.
Credit: Reviewed / Camryn Rabideau

The Home Chef Protein Packs contain high-quality meat, and you can't deny it's convenient.

As much as I enjoyed the seafood in the Home Chef Protein Pack, I was a bit weary of the high price point—$75 seemed like a lot for the Seafood Sampler. To see if my gut was right, I priced out a similar amount of seafood at my local Stop and Shop, and here’s what it would cost:

  • 2 lbs. (32 oz.) frozen tail-off shrimp: $22
  • 2 lbs. (32 oz.) frozen sea scallops: $34

As you can see, you can buy quite a bit more seafood for just $56 from the grocery store. Some people might point out that the Home Chef protein is technically fresh, but I’d argue that you’re going to have to freeze it anyway, as it needs to be eaten in three days otherwise.

However, in the same way that Home Chef's meal kits would be cheaper to make yourself, you’re mostly paying for convenience here. If you don’t have time to make it to the grocery store, you really can’t beat the convenience of having high-quality protein delivered with your Home Chef meals.

Try Home Chef today

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