We tried cooking Home Chef's Thanksgiving sides—here's how it went
This meal kit service offers everything à la carte, making your holiday easy.
Credit:
Home Chef
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Somehow we’re halfway through November and Thanksgiving is just over a week away—where did the year go!? If, like me, you’ve been consumed by reconfiguring holiday plans and coping with daylight savings time, chances are you still need to sort out the food for your Turkey Day feast.
Home Chef is one of a few meal kit delivery services offering Thanksgiving dinner and the good news is, you’ve still got plenty of time. Order your Home Chef Thanksgiving kit by noon EST on Nov. 20.
I tried a few of the Home Chef Thanksgiving side dishes and here’s what happened.
What’s in the box?
The Home Chef Thanksgiving side dishes are easily made vegetarian, so they're perfect for me to enjoy!
True to form, Home Chef delivers its Thanksgiving meal kits perfectly pre-portioned and packaged in recyclable materials. The Home Chef Thanksgiving meal kits contain everything needed to cook each dish, with the exception of olive oil, salt, and pepper.
This year, the full range of à la carte Thanksgiving dishes from Home Chef includes:
- Turkey Breast Roast
- White Cheddar and Sage Biscuits with Honey Butter
- Pecan, Sage, and Cranberry Stuffing
- Caramelized Onion Green Bean Casserole
- Loaded Mashed Potatoes with Cheddar, Bacon, and Green Onions
- Apple Cranberry Crumble
I tried the Caramelized Onion and Green Bean Casserole, Loaded Mashed Potatoes with Bacon, Cheddar, and Green Onions, and White Cheddar and Sage Biscuits with Honey Butter.
What’s not in the box?
Tools! Like with any meal kit delivery service, you’ll need to make sure your kitchen is stocked with all the necessary equipment. If you’re a first-timer, we’ve got a list of everything you’ll need to host your first Thanksgiving. But for the Home Chef Thanksgiving kits specifically, we recommend the following gear:
One additional note: I ended up adding extra flour to my biscuit dough to get it to the right consistency, so I recommend having flour on hand in case you need to do the same.
How much does it cost?
Home Chef Thanksgiving options are à la carte and serve six people, so you can customize your order by choosing from their lineup of sides ($16 each), dessert ($16), and turkey breast ($50). This means the entire Home Chef Thanksgiving menu would cost $130 plus shipping.
Caramelized Onion and Green Bean Casserole
The secret ingredient in the Home Chef green bean casserole is the caramelized onion jam.
Thanksgiving is pretty much the only day of the year I eat green beans and it’s because my family’s tradition is to smother them with dairy and top with crispy fried onions, making them almost indistinguishable from their raw state. I was delighted to find the Home Chef take on green bean casserole lived up to my expectations!
The recipe was easy to follow, ingredient quality was excellent, and the end result was delicious. In terms of portion, this dish could easily serve six people. The only critique I have was that even after baking, my casserole was still pretty liquidy, but since everything tasted great I didn’t mind.
Loaded Mashed Potatoes with Bacon, Cheddar, and Green Onions
I've never met a potato dish I didn't like, and this one was no exception.
Mashed potatoes are one of my favorite parts of Thanksgiving, so the bar was high for Home Chef. The procedure for cooking the potatoes was pretty standard—wash, peel, cube, boil, drain, mash. I liked the mixture of added dairy (light cream, sour cream, cheddar cheese) and toppings (more cheddar, bacon bits, and green onion) that made the final product taste just like a loaded baked potato. As a vegetarian, I also liked that the bacon bits were easy to omit, making this side dish a great option for me.
White Cheddar and Sage Biscuits with Honey Butter
All Home Chef meal kits come with exact measurements of the ingredients you need.
These biscuits tasted amazing—the combination of delicate sage flavor with melty cheese was really excellent. The DIY honey butter was super yummy, but I wish there’d been a bit more of it. My biggest issue with the cheddar and sage biscuits was that I had to add an additional ½ cup of flour in order to achieve the correct dough consistency.
Dough issues aside, these biscuits were easy to make and I loved the Home Chef’s recipe. I might even try to recreate these on my own!
Is it worth it?
These à la carte options are great for folks looking to intersperse traditional family recipes with the Home Chef meal kits. If you’re planning to order the full lineup of Home Chef Thanksgiving offerings, you’ll receive a mixture of classics like green bean casserole and fresh takes on traditional sides, like the loaded mashed potatoes.
All Home Chef Thanksgiving meal kits are intended for six people, though some dishes (like the mashed potatoes) are better suited for four to five. And if leftovers are your favorite part of Thanksgiving, you might be a bit disappointed with the amount of food you’ll have remaining after the Home Chef Thanksgiving dinner. That said, if your gathering is super intimate (two to three people) you’ll have plenty to eat the day of and after the fact.
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