Gluten-free cuisine has a deservedly bad reputation. This is not because wheat has a monopoly on good taste: Entire countries and cultures would disagree. Rather, it’s that cooks far too often make things that desperately need gluten to be what they are: pancakes and waffles, say, or Southern fried chicken. Or, lord help us, pizza.<\/p>\n
And so every time I’ve tried out gluten-free plates among the many meal<\/a> kits<\/a> I’ve<\/a> reviewed<\/a>, it’s been with a little bit of fear\u2014lest I find myself endlessly chewing a tapioca pancake, or breaking my own heart over a tray of limp zoodles.<\/p>\n Photograph: Matthew Korfhage<\/p>\n Which is all a prelude to say: The gluten-free meals from HelloFresh’s organic meal-kit brand Green Chef were a hell of a nice surprise. More than half of Green Chef’s recipes are gluten-free, a quality that the brand attests with hearty, full-throated validation<\/a> from the Seattle-based Gluten Intolerance Group, which offers certification for gluten-free ingredients and restaurants.<\/p>\n More on that validation and what it means, in a bit. But first, I’ll say that among a week’s worth of gluten-free meals from Green Chef, I didn’t miss the gluten. I didn’t miss it, because aside from a swap of gluten-free amino sauce (here’s one popular brand<\/a>) in lieu of a little soy sauce, none of the meals would or should have had gluten in them anyway.<\/p>\n Rather than make pale imitations of gluteny things, Green Chef’s meals were dishes that never needed wheat in the first place. This might include a kale and quinoa grilled chicken bowl with North African spice, steaks in red pepper sauce with green peas and rice, or a rice bowl topped with cabbage and honey ginger shrimp.<\/p>\n Each was a fully realized and appetizing meal, which took between a half hour and an hour for me to prepare after receiving a box of ingredients and recipe cards from Green Chef in the mail. None felt like an ingredient was missing. Here’s how Green Chef works.<\/p>\n Organic, Hearty, Quite Often Gluten-Free<\/p>\n Photograph: Matthew Korfhage<\/p>\n