Family Chef

A long-running frozen meal shop

Family Chef sells fully cooked, flash-frozen meals, steaks and seafood by mail, packed on dry ice and reheated at home. It isn't a subscription meal plan or a meal kit; it's closer to an online frozen food shop with a strong line in special-diet meals and gifts. The homepage says all prepared meals are "shipped and delivered fully-cooked, flash frozen to lock-in freshness and go from freezer-to-table in minutes."

The About page gives the history. Family Chef was established in 1999 and is based in the Black Hills of South Dakota. It launched its website in 2000, incorporated in 2007 and added family style, senior and diabetic meals and gourmet gifts, and in 2012 partnered with other national home-delivered meal companies to widen its range. It says it's owned and run by a 20 year US Air Force veteran and his family. The homepage calls it America's most popular website for prepared gourmet meals, which is the company's own billing. The company started out helping busy families and single parents, and its customers grew to include grandparents, friends sending care packages and employers sending get-well meals.

How ordering works

You shop by category and order what you want. The main sections are Individual Gourmet Meals, Family Style Foods, Senior Meals, Diabetic Meals, Weight Loss Meals, Healthy Lifestyle Meals and Low-Sodium Meals, with further menus for vegetarian, gluten-free, paleo and low carb food, plus steaks, salmon, soups and quiches, appetizers and desserts. Meal packages and gift certificates are available, and the site pushes the meals as gifts for any occasion.

There's no subscription language on the site. It's a shop: you choose meals, check out, and they ship. The site doesn't explain whether you can set up recurring orders.

What it costs

Starting prices are listed on the homepage:

• Gourmet meals from $13.99.
• Family Style foods from $24.99.
• Senior meals from $10.99.
• Appetizers from $8.79.
• Desserts from $14.79.

Two spend-based discounts were running: spend $200 and get $30 off at checkout, or spend $250 and get $50 off. There's also an On Sale section. Shipping costs aren't printed on the homepage; there's a separate shipping page linked from the menu.

The food

The range is broad and traditional. The gourmet menu includes dishes such as Roasted Crab Cakes with Lobster Sauce, an oven-roasted crab cake appetizer the site calls a customer favorite. Steaks are described as USDA Choice, hand-trimmed and sold in gift boxes. The family menu includes a Prime Rib Roast Family Dinner that serves 10, with a 5 lb. prime rib roast, broccoli with cheese, twice cooked potatoes, apple and pecan pies and butternut squash. Family Style meals cover everything from BBQ sides to complete dinners, fully cooked and ready to heat. Starters include soups and quiches, and the homepage suggests a Ham and Spinach Quiche as an appetizer before dinner. The premium meats menu splits into beef and steaks, chicken, salmon and other meats, with tofu listed alongside. The salmon section pitches restaurant-style fish at home, and desserts are sold as a restaurant quality indulgence for coffee with friends or a family gathering.

Gifts and holidays are a big part of the catalog. The site links to executive gourmet gifts, holiday dinners, home style holiday pies, meal packages and gourmet gift certificates, and its About page says gift-giving grew its customer base well beyond the busy families it started with. For a family that wants a holiday meal without cooking, the family dinners and pies are the obvious draw.

The special-diet lines are where Family Chef differs from a gift steak company. The site says its diabetic meals are nutritionally balanced and made with extra lean proteins, and that its weight loss meals are perfectly portioned and nutritionally balanced by food experts. Those descriptions are the company's; it doesn't publish calorie or sodium targets for these lines on the homepage. A senior meal example on the senior page is a Thai Shrimp and Vegetable Stir Fry with baby shrimp and vegetables in garlic and ginger over white rice with snap peas, 1 serving per package at 10.6 oz.

The senior section is aimed both at older people who want to simplify cooking and at relatives who want to help a family member eat well from a distance. Senior meals can come from the gourmet menu or any of the special-diet menus, so a parent on a low-sodium diet and one who simply wants easy dinners can both be served from the same shop. Portion information like the 10.6 oz. figure appears on individual product listings, which is where anyone buying for a specific diet should look.

Where it delivers

The site says meal delivery is available nationwide, with home delivery for you or as a gift. Each order is hand packed in a reusable Styrofoam cooler with blocks of dry ice to keep it frozen. Delivery days, transit times and any excluded states aren't stated on the homepage or About page, so check before ordering for a specific date, particularly for gifts.

What's left open, and who it suits

The website looks dated (the footer copyright notices stop at 2019 and 2015), and some details that newer services show up front, such as nutrition panels and shipping rates, need a click or a call. Starting prices are published, but full per-item prices sit on the product pages. The two copyright dates also make it hard to tell how current some menu pages are, so it's worth confirming an item is in stock before building a gift order around it.

Family Chef suits people sending meals to an elderly parent or someone recovering from illness, families who want a prime rib dinner or holiday meal delivered ready to heat, and seniors who want simple, single-serve meals in the freezer without a subscription. The spend-and-save discounts favor bigger gift orders. It's less suited to shoppers who want a modern subscription with detailed macros, or anyone who needs certified medical diet meals rather than the company's own diet labels.