Many cooks can dread one simple phrase, what’s for dinner. It is more than blankly staring into the refrigerator waiting for the perfect meal to magically appear. Home Chef partnered with Ayesha Curry to offer several vibrant, flavorful, and easy home cook meals that will have everyone around the table asking for seconds.
Home cooking does not have to feel like a chore. While grandma might have spent her entire Sunday stirring gravy or prepping biscuits, today’s home cooks know that convenience is king. But, they are not willing to sacrifice flavor and creativity for that quick dinner.
Over the years, Home Chef has not only simplified the meal cooking process but also has given home cooks confidence. The pre-prepped ingredients with easy-to-follow instructions take the guesswork out of recipes. With celebrity chefs and other well-known culinary influencers curating menus, the meals capture a restaurant quality dining experience without leaving the house.
Recently, Home Chef partnered with Ayesha Curry to bring several new meals to its platform. Blending Curry’s bold flavors with approachability, these five meals appeal to the whole family. Whether it is a swicy Hot Honey Fried Chicken Wrap with pickles and slaw or Mezze-Style Flatbread with feta and olives for pizza night, it blends familiar while pushing people a touch out of their comfort zone.
Ahead of the launch, Ayesha Curry graciously spent a few minutes chatting with me about her Home Chef partnership. The chef, best-selling author, and Founder of Sweet July is not only successful in her business endeavors, but she balances that role with being a mom. In some ways, that multifaceted approach is infused into the recipes she created for Home Chef. Flavor makes food exciting and enticing, no matter the age of the people gathered around the table.
When asked how she tackled people’s unwillingness to try a particular food, she offered some simple advice. Curry said, “oftentimes people’s aversions are with their thoughts, not necessarily what they smell or see. It is just something, like a memory in their mind that turned them off or made them not want to try one thing. If you can speak to it and change the way that they are thinking about what they are going to eat, it takes just one bite to get them to lean in.”
That food approach can apply to several of the dishes on the Home Chef menu. It could be a person’s avoidance of feta or the lack of experience with Jerk seasonings. Opening the table to the conversation is key to getting people to reframe it.
Curry believes that her recipes are exciting because they are unique. She said, “I don’t think that they are your run-of-the-mill offerings at first glance. But, when you start to read into it, the dishes are a different take on something that people know and love.”
These dishes are more than vibrant colors and bold seasonings. Every dish balances the familiar and innovative. Those ideas can inspire the home cook to step outside of their recipe box and evolve classic recipes into something more. From an infusion of spice from a favorite vacation spot to swapping the protein, that melding of concepts, ingredients, and flavors keeps cooks engaged and in the kitchen.
Curry encourages people to turn the meal into a total experience. While Home Chef makes it easy to follow the recipe and plate the dish, the enjoyment does not stop once the food hits the table. For example, pairing that tasty food with a beverage amplifies the flavor enjoyment.
Specifically, Curry said, “I feel that no meal is complete without a little beverage pairing, either alcoholic or non-alcoholic. It is fun to see how a beverage can transform a meal, including a family dinner. A fun mocktail can even get my kids to eat more because they feel like big kids, and it keeps them focused on the meal.”
Although people’s preferences vary, Curry has a particular suggestion for pairing spicy food with a beverage. She said, “if you’re dealing with a spicy dish, you want the drink to compliment the meal. I like something that will calm down the spice.”
While it is impossible for Curry to pick just one favorite recipe on her menu, she believes that the diversity is vital to engage cooks. The dishes travel the world but never lose sight of what makes Home Chef a favorite - prepped, easy to make meals will keep people coming back time and again. That concept is not a food trend, it is a staple that grows with any chef during their culinary evolution.
The Ayesha Curry Home Chef menu includes the following dishes: Jerk-Style Chicken and Rice Bowl with mango salsa, Sweet Sambal Yellowtail with coconut-lime rice, Mezze-Style Flatbread with feta and olives, Hot Honey Fried Chicken Wrap with pickles and slaw, and Pan-Seared Filet Mignon with brown butter-apple-sweet potato mash. They can be ordered now through March 14, 2025.