Gobble vs. Home Chef 2024: Does the Little Guy Win?

Home Chef is one of America’s biggest and best-loved meal delivery services. Gobble is a small but growing service that provides busy cooks with restaurant-quality 15-minute meal kits. Knowing all the nuances as to why one might be more desirable than another isn’t straightforward. Fortunately, I’ve got you covered in my comprehensive comparison.

I’m a professional meal delivery service reviewer. It’s a spicy job, but somebody has to do it. I’ve examined both menus, pored over the ingredient lists, studied shipping fees, compared costs, and consulted my colleagues. And, in my professional capacity, I’m here to proclaim the winner of this meal delivery battle.

While it was a close match, the win ultimately has to go to Home Chef. Home Chef offers a much larger menu and lower prices. It also provides the full list of ingredients and nutritional data long before signing up (unlike Gobble). But there’s a lot more to it – so read on to get the full scoop now.

At a Glance: Who Won Each Category?

Menu Variety: Home Chef Offers a Ton of Options

Home Chef’s menu variety is tough to beat, and so it wins this round. Gobble has a very good selection, but it’s a smaller service up against a meal delivery titan.

Both services offer menus that feature American classics along with other familiar recipes from Chinese, Mexican, and Indian cuisine. Gobble’s menu is a bit more adventurous than Home Chef’s, but it offers a good selection of family-friendly Specialty Kits for Four like Chicken Pot Pie and Sausage Rigatoni.

Home Chef requires all suppliers to follow industry best practices for the humane treatment of animals. It also offers organic meats (with an upcharge) in some recipes. Gobble provides cage-free eggs, hormone and antibiotic-free chicken and pork, and sustainably wild-caught and farm-raised seafood.

You can enjoy a Culinary Collection meal like Steakhouse Filet Mignon on a special occasion. But Home Chef also offers family-friendly meal kits like burgers and pasta for picky eaters. For busy nights, Home Chef has Express Meal Kits that are ready in 15 minutes, as well as Oven-Ready and Grill-Ready items.

Home Chef labels its regular meal kits by difficulty level, with Easy, Intermediate, and Hard recipes available. Each week, Home Chef offers 30 meals, as well as market items like proteins, meal bundles, sides, and desserts.

All Gobble meals arrive fully prepared and need just 15 minutes of cooking. The Homestyle Roasted Chicken pictured above is a good example of Gobble’s culinary style – high-quality ingredients put together in familiar ways with a final result that looks like it took hours, not minutes.

Gobble’s meal selection is smaller than Home Chef’s, with 14 meals and a more modest selection of extras. Along with its Specialty Kits for Four, Gobble offers breakfasts, sides, salads, and ready-to-bake cookie dough that the kids will be sure to love.

Sample Meals

Gobble’s menu is pretty varied, and there are lots of categories and filters. For example, you can find regular Dinners, Lean & Clean Dinners, Premium Dinners, Specialty Kits for Four, Salads, Sides, Soups, Breakfasts, and Desserts – all in the left navigation bar.

• Best Lean & Clean Dinner: Chicken Fajitas with Whole Wheat Tortillas & Guacamole

• Best Premium Dinner: King Salmon Poke Tostadas with Avocado & Coconut Rice

• Best salad: Mediterranean Fattoush Salad with Green Harissa Dressing

• Best breakfast: Petite Breakfast Quiche Lorraine

Home Chef’s menu, on the other hand, is far more varied and even provides nutritional info long before signing up. It features a Carb-conscious, Calorie-conscious, <30 Minutes, and Vegetarian filter right on the main menu.

• Best calorie-conscious meal: Portobello Rockefeller with Asiago mashed potatoes

• Best <30-minute meal: Pork and Butternut Squash Chili with cheese and sour cream

• Best carb-conscious meal: Crispy Buffalo-Style Chicken Salad with blue cheese and ranch

• Best vegetarian meal: Black Bean and Corn Tacos with poblano and cilantro crema

Meal Customization: Home Chef Is Better for Personalizing Your Meals

Home Chef wins this round because Gobble doesn’t let you view nutritional information before you sign up. To me, that’s a huge no-no. In a day and age where pretty much any other meal delivery service lets you view this info before signing up, this was quite shocking. But that’s not the only reason Home Chef wins.

This round also goes to Home Chef thanks to its Customize It feature. Home Chef lets you double up or swap proteins for most meals. Customize It is available for most Home Chef entrees, so it’s easy to get exactly the supper you want. Gobble also offers customization options on several of its meals and salads but on a smaller scale.

Gobble offers a modest Vegetarian menu and a high-protein, low-fat Lean & Clean plan. Home Chef offers Carb-Conscious, Calorie-Conscious, and Vegetarian entrees. There are around 6 veggie entrees and 3 or 4 more can be made veggie by using the customize options to swap animal protein for Impossible Burger. 

You’ll find around 4 entrees per week on the Home Chef menu tagged Keto-Friendly, which is great to see. But neither service offers specific plans for those on specialized diets like paleo or vegan.

Both Gobble and Home Chef make it easy to avoid proteins you don’t like. Gobble lets you uncheck boxes for poultry, beef, lamb, pork, fish, and shellfish. Home Chef lets you exclude the same proteins but doesn’t include lamb (as it doesn’t have lamb on its menu), but it also lets you filter out mushrooms, peanuts, tree nuts, and sesame.

Gobble does not include a full list of ingredients on its website or recipe cards – these are sadly only available after signing up. To me, that’s unacceptable. What’s the company trying to hide? Ingredients containing dairy, nuts, or wheat are packed separately in the kits, so you can avoid them.

At Home Chef, all ingredients are individually packaged and labeled, but they’re also produced in facilities that process eggs, milk, fish, shellfish, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat, and soy. This doesn’t protect against cross-contamination, so neither service is suited for those with serious food allergies or intolerances.

Ingredient Quality and Nutrition: Home Chef Is More Transparent About Its Ingredients

The primary reason Home Chef wins is because it showcases nutritional data before signup. Gobble doesn’t offer this information until after you sign up, and I can’t give the company any brownie points for that.

Though Home Chef wins this section, a very slight nod has to go to Gobble as well. Gobble’s website states that it uses sustainably sourced ingredients and organic chicken breast and Norwegian salmon filets. The same thing can be said about Home Chef in terms of organic chicken breast.

Each company allows you to upgrade certain meals withEach company allows you to upgrade certain meals with higher-quality ingredients. For example, Gobble’s Shrimp Scampi with Linguine could be purchased with sustainably sourced ocean shrimp or sustainably sourced wild jumbo shrimp instead.

Home Chef has similar swaps for its meals. Crispy Buffalo-Style Chicken Salad could be purchased with antibiotic-free boneless skinless chicken breast or just boneless, skinless chicken breast. For more information about personalization options, check out my Customization section up above.

Neither company is particularly good at catering to allergies. There’s no promise or guarantee that the ingredients used haven’t come into contact with any known allergens. The meal kits are all prepared in the same facilities.

Ordering, Delivery, Unboxing: Home Chef Has an App + Offers More Delivery Days

Home Chef wins thanks to its app and its wider selection of delivery days. It was a close round overall.

Home Chef delivers to 98% of the continental US. When you enter your zip code upon signup, Home Chef will let you know if you’re in 1 of its blackout areas.

Gobble delivers to the continental United States, with the exception of Montana and parts of Nebraska, New Mexico, and Kansas. It also gave me a choice of 3 delivery dates (Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday), while Home Chef offered delivery on any weekday.

Gobble provides 2-serving or 4-serving meal kits, while Home Chef has a 6-serving option that’s great for large families. Both have a minimum order of 2 meals serving 2 people per week.

Home Chef has an app you can use to change orders or reschedule deliveries. Gobble doesn’t presently have an app, but its website is optimized for mobile users, and you can make changes on your phone simply by opening your browser.

The deadline to skip or customize your Gobble box is Wednesday at 11:59 pm Pacific Time the week before your meals are scheduled to arrive.

All changes to your Home Chef order must be made by Friday 12 pm Central Time of the week preceding your delivery.

Both Home Chef and Gobble send you individually wrapped ingredients that make it easy to sort things out when cooking. The bad news is that both services use a lot of plastic, which isn’t optimal. Fortunately, both provide information on recycling the packaging on their respective websites.

Gobble dinner kits should be refrigerated as soon as you open your box and prepared within 7 days. It’s also recommended that you cook items with fish or seafood first, as they have a shorter shelf life.

Some Gobble items, like proteins, pastas, soups, and sauces, can be frozen for up to 3 months. Meals with leafy greens or produce may not thaw as well, and Gobble recommends using your best judgment when choosing what to freeze.

Home Chef advises against freezing dairy or produce ingredients, but you can freeze meat and seafood for a later time. Steak, chops, and poultry can be frozen for 4-6 months, while ground meat can be frozen for 3-4 months and fish and seafood for 2-3 months.

Meal Prep: Gobble’s Meals Are Very Easy to Make

Gobble wins thanks to its easy meal kits. Every Gobble recipe is prepped by sous chefs and designed to be table-ready in just 15 minutes. Gobble’s laser focus on pre-prepped fast meal kits makes it tough to beat. Home Chef does many things remarkably well, but Gobble does gourmet easy-prep meals better. In this round, David triumphs against Goliath.

Gobble meals arrive with pre-marinated ingredients, prepared sauces, and prepped vegetables. (You may have to do some minimal chopping and cutting). All you need is a knife, an oven-safe skillet, cooking oil, and salt and pepper. Because these are one-pan meals, you save time not only on cooking but also on cleaning up!

Home Chef has a great selection of easy-cook, one-pot, and quick meals. Fast and Fresh meals are fully assembled and ready to cook in the microwave or oven. It even has a subsidiary that specializes in fast meals, Fresh and Easy.

Home Chef provides a list of all tools and utensils required on its website and recipe cards. Regular meal kits take between 30 and 50 minutes to prepare, while its Express meal kits require between 15-30 minutes of preparation. But even Home Chef’s speedy meal kits require more preparation and cleanup than Gobble kits.

Customer Support: Both Services Offer Great Customer Service

Both Gobble and Home Chef offer responsive support teams. Each agent I spoke with via live chat replied to my message in no longer than a couple of minutes. But that’s not the only way to contact someone.

Gobble, for instance, has phone, email, and text support, too. It offers phone support from Monday through Friday from 5 am to 8 pm PT and on weekends from 5 am to 1 pm PT. You can also get 24/7 support via text by texting “Hello” to 46225. Chat support hours are from 6 am to 9 pm PT, 7 days per week.

Home Chef, on the other hand, also offers phone and email support. Hours of operation are Monday to Friday from 9 am 6 pm CT, Saturdays from 10 am 2 pm CT, and Sundays from 10 am 2 pm CT (live chat only).

Each company also has an in-depth FAQ section that answers many questions that may arise. I highly recommend checking them out if you want to know anything about the company before ordering.

Overall, my live chat experience was stellar with both companies. 

Pricing: Home Chef Is More Affordable

At $9.99 per serving, Home Chef’s starting price is considerably lower than Gobble. The actual price you pay at Home Chef depends on which meals you order rather than how many you order, as meals are individually priced.

Gobble’s pricing of $11.99 per serving is quite a bit higher, but at least it does offer pre-prepped, fast, and convenient meals. Speed and convenience come at a price, though.

Home Chef’s Culinary Collection and premium entrees can cost as much as $10 extra per serving. But while Home Chef’s Filet Mignon will set you back $19.99 a serving, Gobble’s Pan-Seared Ribeye Steak costs nearly twice as much at $38.99 a serving!

Prices for desserts, proteins, and extras are comparable between the 2 services, and Gobble charges a flat shipping fee of $8.99 per order, which is lower than Home Chef’s $10.99. But the higher overall prices mean that you’ll be paying a good bit more for Gobble than Home Chef.

Gobble vs. Home Chef – Quick Overview

And the Winner Is: Home Chef

Home Chef emerges as the top pick in this comparison. With its lower prices and greater variety, it offers clear advantages over its competitors. Its transparency, particularly in providing nutritional data upfront, stands out in the market.

Gobble's approach raises some concerns. In contrast, Gobble seems to withhold information, offering only the bare essentials to potential customers. Such an approach feels less open to me.

Price and variety further differentiate the 2 services. Gobble is noticeably pricier than Home Chef, and its limited choices make it less appealing when viewed alongside the vast selection of meal delivery services.

Home Chef is well-regarded. Many users will find that it caters to most, if not all, of their meal delivery needs. Our own ranking placed Home Chef on our list of the best meal delivery services this year.

However, Gobble might have its own niche audience. Busy professionals or those who value speed over price might still gravitate toward Gobble's pre-prepped meal kits.

FAQ

Does Gobble offer gluten-free meals?

No. It makes its meals in facilities that also handle wheat products. Gobble packs all wheat-based ingredients separately, so you can avoid wheat, and it also labels entrees as wheat-free. You’re more than welcome to omit any ingredient(s) you can’t eat before cooking your meal kits.

What’s the difference between Home Chef and Fresh and Easy?

Fresh and Easy is a subsidiary of Home Chef that focuses on fast meals. All Fresh and Easy meals can be prepared in 30 minutes or less and are designed to get you and your family fed in the fastest possible way.

Does Home Chef deliver to my area?

Home Chef delivers to 98% of the continental United States. (Sorry, Alaska and Hawaii, but you’re out of luck). If you’re in a remote location and are unsure if Home Chef delivers to you, enter your zip code on the first signup page. Home Chef will let you know if delivery is available.