Having tried HelloFresh and Gousto in the past, L360’s editor Mattie Lacey-Davidson reviews recipes from Green Chef — and it’s a win for her pescatarian diet.
I used to love cooking, but between work, nursery pick up, bedtime and squeezing in some exercise here and there, I find I barely have any time — or headspace — to try new recipes. As a result, I end up cooking the same thing week in and week out (pasta pesto anyone?).
I’ve dabbled with meal delivery services before, including HelloFresh and Gousto, but as an at-home pescatarian (in a bid to reduce my meat intake), I’ve found them to be somewhat disappointing.
So, when I saw that Green Chef had a dedicated pescatarian menu — alongside vegetarian, vegan and flexitarian, plus diet choices such as keto, low carb, calorie conscious and high protein — I jumped at the chance to try it.
Green chef recipes
Each Green Chef recipe shows you the macronutrients (aka macros), carbs, protein, fat, calories and the number of your five-a-day it contains. Some of the recipe cards even display an ‘ingredient spotlight’, highlighting the benefits of a particular element such as kimchi or kefir (both fermented foods with live culture to feed your gut microbiome).
I chose the Spicy Sea Bass with gochujang noodles and kimchi (amazingly high protein at 47g), Tandoori Prawns with cucumber kefir (delicious) and chana saag (low carb at just 33.9g), as well as the vegan Satay THIS Isn’t Chicken (not my favourite meat substitute), with jasmine rice, spicy smacked cucumber and pak choi.
Cooking time was between 15-25 minutes, which made cooking new and varied dishes much more achievable for me — and, of course, afterwards I was satisfied not just from being full, but from the joy of having tried something new.
How much does Green Chef cost?
For two people, you can choose between two and five recipes per week — just two costs £7.99 per serving, while three or more comes in at £6.49. If you’re cooking for four, you can choose three or four recipes per week for £5.99 per serving.
However, it seems Green Chef often runs deals and discounts — at the time of writing, you can get 30% off your first four boxes, for example.
Green Chef vs HelloFresh
Compared to Green Chef, HelloFresh’s prices are a little cheaper. If you’re cooking for two people, two recipes will be £7 per serving (99p less than Green Chef), reducing with each extra meal, while five meals a week comes in at £4.45 (significantly less than Green Chef; that works out as a saving of £2.04). However, if you’re cooking for three or four each meal, the price per serving reduces further.
HelloFresh also has varied menus, including meat, vegetarian, quick cook, family, calorie smart, flexitarian, protein rich and pescatarian. However, I noticed that after my first order, the pescatarian options available reduced so significantly that I called to complain and cancel my subscription.
Green Chef definitely wins for menu variation and options within them, with extras such as vegan, low carb and keto — plus they’re all ‘quick cook’, which HelloFresh offers separately.
Green Chef review: my final thoughts
The recipes were easy to cook, easy to follow, highly nutritious and the portion sizes were quite generous. If you want to follow specific diet — from vegan to keto — you’ll find a lot of variety and a regularly changing menu, too.
Green Chef also has clear emphasis on health. And while you can’t currently choose a specifically high-fibre menu, you can view the high-fibre options via the ‘Our Recipes’ tab at the top of the website’s meal selection page. With fibre being a key health trend this year, Green Chef is clearly leading the way when it comes to healthy eating made easy.
