'I tried Green Chef for a month and felt my energy levels soar'
Why is deciding what to cook for dinner so difficult? Throw in dark evenings, a packed social calendar and a healthy dose of training, and time – let alone inspo – is hardly on your side. During winter it can be all too tempting to reach for carb-heavy comfort food (no shade here), but day after day of all beige everything can become rather dull, not to mention that it’s not exactly the most nutritious way of eating...
Enter Green Chef. This recipe box service is nutritionist-backed, so you know you're getting a healthy, hearty and balanced meal without even having to think about it. Dreamy.
Recipe Box
After realising I was pretty much knackered all the time and my diet a likely culprit, I gave Green Chef a spin for one month to see if I could learn a thing or two about boosting my energy levels. I went in with the aim of fuelling my busy training plan, as well as upping both my protein and fibre intakes. Read on to find out how I got on...
What is Green Chef?
Put simply, Green Chef is a recipe box subscription service targeted towards the more health-conscious. It's the UK's first keto-friendly recipe box, but also offers flexitarian, lower-carb, vegetarian, vegan and pescatarian meal plans. Every recipe is nutritionist-approved and comes with pre-portioned ingredients to prevent food waste.
‘To us, eating well means satisfying dishes that are exciting and full of flavour, colour and crunch,’ says Lily Keeling, registered nutritionist at Green Chef.
‘Green Chef is not a quick fix, but a tool you can use to help you on your way. You set your goals and use our recipe boxes to reach them, making the journey fun, tasty and uncomplicated.’
How much is Green Chef?
Prices start at £5.50 per serving (based on four people, four meals a week). For two people ordering two meals a week, it's £8.25 per serving, three meals is £6.24 and four meals is £6.06.
However, there are usually discount codes and offers to help cut the price. Right now the brand is offering 40% off, taking the cheapest serving price down to just £3.59.
What sets Green Chef apart from other recipe boxes?
Plenty of recipe boxes offer health-forward choices, but Green Chef is different in that it's expert-approved (aka nutritionist-approved) too.
‘Green Chef aims to break down barriers to healthy eating,’ says Keeling. ‘We offer expertise in developing recipes (all of our chefs are registered nutritionists), so there's no confusion or fear of getting anything wrong when trying to hit your goals.
‘We're the UK's first keto-friendly recipe box, and we offer other diet options to suit specific diets, such as a vegan-only meal preference. Customers can mix and match between meal preferences, allowing them to customise their plan to fit them.’
Who is Green Chef for?
You don't need to be ‘on a diet’ or looking to lose weight to use Green Chef – simply wanting the peace of mind that comes with the knowledge your meal is nutritious is reason enough.
‘Green Chef is for those who are looking to make health-conscious choices, without having the hassle of meal planning and grocery shopping,’ adds Keeling.
‘Our fresh ingredients are delivered straight to your door with pre-portioned ingredients and easy-to-follow recipe cards, allowing you to save time without sacrificing flavour.’
How does Green Chef work?
Using Green Chef is incredibly simple, and likely similar to any other recipe box delivery service you've used. Once you've set up your account, simply view the menu (it changes weekly) and make your choices, or let the brand do the work for you, based on your plan preferences.
You can filter recipes by diet plan (keto, flexitarian, low carb, veggie, vegan and pescatarian) and choose how many people you want to feed (two or four), as well as how many meals you want to receive each week (two, three, four or five). Even if you select a specific diet plan when you set up your account, you still have access to all the recipes on offer – your preference will just be shown to you first.
The box arrives complete with ingredients portioned out, recipe cards (which helpfully break down your macros — protein, carbohydrates, and fats, as well as calories, saturated fats, sugars and salt) and insulated packaging for fridge ingredients. My not-so-helpful neighbour failed to tell me they had my box for over 24 hours, and the ingredients were still cold when I finally got my hands on it, so a big tick there.
Recipe Box
Green Chef review
Before ordering my first box, I was lucky enough to chat with nutritionist Lily Keeling at Green Chef who, after listening to my wants (I was most interested in meals that would fuel me properly and keep my energy levels up), gave me some advice on how to choose my meals and picked out my first recipes for me.
She suggested avoiding the keto and low-carb dishes as — by the sounds of my training programme — I need a decent amount of carbs to stay as active as I do, and promised me I'd receive some delicious (yet high-protein) pasta dishes (my absolute weakness). With all that in mind, my first box was ordered.
Recipe choice
With over 32 recipes to choose from each week, Green Chef offers a wide range of meal options for every diet or nutritional preference. As you scroll through each week's menu you can see each recipe's macros, as well as all the ingredients and extra badges, such as ‘high protein’, ‘low emission’ and ‘one pan’ to help you decide.
Even with a few no-nos (I don’t like mushrooms, my partner isn’t mad about fish and we’re both not fans of lamb or tofu...) there was still a good range to choose from and we had a varied meal plan each week.
I picked mostly flexitarian recipes marked as high protein but sampled meals across the keto, lower carb, pescatarian and vegetarian plans as well. (For reference, meals with 30g of protein per serving or above appear to fall into the 'high protein' category, with most hovering around the mid-40g mark. Generally, it's recommended we eat 0.75g protein per kilo of body weight per day, which is 45g for the average woman.)
Packaging and prep
As mentioned, I was impressed by the insulation in the box, which kept my fridge ingredients cool for the FULL DAY my neighbour decided to hang onto my recipes.
Each recipe card has a number that corresponds to a meal kit (essentially a paper bag containing the non-fridge ingredients), and everything comes pre-portioned. Because of this, there is a bit more plastic than I would have liked, particularly for sachets of sauce and bags of rocket or pre-chopped veggies that I easily could have prepped myself and thus wouldn't have needed to be bagged at all.
You're expected to provide your own pantry ingredients like water, olive oil and butter, which is fairly standard, but I was caught short when ‘mayonnaise’ was listed as I didn't have any to hand.
The recipes themselves are very easy to follow – it would really be very hard to do this wrong – as everything is laid out in simple steps and you're usually encouraged to get all your chopping out the way in step one.
The meals
Overall, I really enjoyed the meals from Green Chef. They were tasty, spanned a wide range of cuisines and felt satisfied afterwards. Favourites included red Thai-inspired pulled chicken laksa, pan-fried sea bass in lemon parsley butter (this had a cheesy cauliflower mash which was a game-changer and I now make on the reg), smoky king prawn tacos and the black bean burrito bowl. *Drool*.
The ingredients are of excellent quality too – we're talking known brands (including my favourite Italian Cirio), organic meat and sustainably caught fish. The prawns, in particular, are exquisite, and when you factor in how much you pay for high-quality ingredients at the supermarket or otherwise, the price per serve starts to look like pretty good value.
Occasionally, some ingredient choices felt a bit rogue and like they'd just chucked them in for nutrition, rather than taste's sake. For example, raw tomatoes in a burrito bowl and a bag of rocket as the greenery for recipes like moussaka and a lentil chicken dish.
I also felt some recipes were a bit bland and lacked veggies, so I added my own veg to bulk them out a bit. Sometimes a keto option really took my fancy, so I picked it and then added extra carbs – usually rice, which was easy and worked well – as I was advised not to skive carbs with the amount of training I do.
The portion sizes were generally good, although once or twice I felt they were a little on the small side.
Pros
The meals are tasty, varied, balanced, and nutritionist-backed.
If you're doing keto, trying veganism or counting macros, this recipe box makes it incredibly easy.
Recipes are simple to follow and don't require any fancy techniques or cooking equipment.
Eating for your training programme is easy, with high-protein options marked.
Ingredients are of high quality and come well-packaged.
Most recipes don't take long to make — between 20-30 mins.
The subscription is easy to manage.
Cons
Some recipes could have benefitted from more veggies.
I did have a few recipe mix-ups and delivery issues (Green Chef switched to a new provider during my review period, and after that, I had no problems).
Less plastic packaging would be nice — but I realise this is difficult with pre-portioned ingredients.
The portion sizes varied a bit — sometimes there were leftovers for lunch, and sometimes I was left a little hungry.
Green Chef: My verdict
I've tried most recipe boxes out there, and, in my opinion, Green Chef is easily the ‘healthiest’. Each meal is wholesome and hearty, and I felt good knowing I was getting high amounts of protein and fibre (hello, lentils) – plus, making them was an absolute doddle.
The peace of mind in knowing I had something nutritious to eat at the end of the day – with no time wasted deciding on what it would be – was truly lovely. Despite the nights drawing in I felt my energy levels increase – a huge bonus at this time of year.
So, if you're starting a new diet plan that Green Chef covers, I recommend giving the boxes a try. The range of recipes is excellent, the food is tasty, and you'll find inspiration for future meals should you decide to end your subscription.
For me, the recipes were a little basic for me to commit to subscribing to the boxes all the time (I love experimenting and trying new things in the kitchen), but for now and then, when I've not got the time or motivation, I've no doubt I'll be back.
Recipe Box
Want more tried and tested recommendations from the Editors of Women’s Health? Sign up to our new weekly newsletter The Edit. Click here to subscribe.
Other recipe boxes we rate...
‘I tried Cook's meal delivery service, and it's changed my meal prep game’
‘I tried Muscle Food's Goal Plans for a fortnight, and this is what I really thought’
‘I tried Frive’s healthy ready meal service, and this is my honest opinion’
Cut through the noise and get practical, expert advice, home workouts, easy nutrition and more direct to your inbox. Sign up to the WOMEN'S HEALTH NEWSLETTER
You Might Also Like
