It’s been four weeks since we began our journey with HelloFresh and this is our review of the last four weeks, I’ve also uploaded each of the recipes that we have had over the past four weeks along with photographs of the ingredients and the meals.
Before we start though, allow me to briefly explain a little more about HelloFresh, the service and the options they provide along with some price guidelines.
Who is Hello Fresh?
They are a London based company who provide ingredients-in-a-box all measured out to the exact quantities needed for each individual recipe. The concept is that they provide fast and simple solutions to dinner time cooking that are both delicious and healthy.
What do they offer?
HelloFresh offer three recipe box choices each with the option of choosing between 2 and 5 people and 2 to 5 recipes for a week (excluding the rapid box which is 3 or 4 meals per week). We went for the classic box for two people and 5 meals per week, so far we’ve had 20 meals.
HelloFresh Prices
The prices fluctuate depending on which box you choose, how many people and how many recipes per week you choose. The most expensive choice would be 3 meals for 2 people per week at £5.83 per meal each totalling £34.99 per week. If like us you choose to have 5 meals per week for 2 people then it costs just £4.90 per meal each and £48.99 per week which I personally think is good value for money, especially when you live in the city and have little access to large supermarkets.
Our Verdict
Overall, we are very happy with our HelloFresh meals, we believe it is value for money, their delivery is fantastic, efficient and the boxes are well packaged. The quality of the meat is fantastic but the freshness of their vegetables, especially their herbs is what lets them down. We’ve had several occasions where the herbs (coriander, basil e.t.c) were not fresh and we couldn’t use them. If they could simply improve the freshness by one or two days, then we would rate HelloFresh a 9.5 out of 10. With our only negative being that we would prefer to be able to re-pick previous recipes that we enjoyed the most, for example, the Jerk Chicken Tostadas we had yesterday.
If you are looking for a fast and convenient solution for dinnertime meals that are delicious and good value for money then we definitely recommend trying HelloFresh. Just as we did, use a coupon and get 50% off your first order, if you don’t enjoy your first week then simply cancel.
Why did we begin using Hello Fresh?
I’ve been intrigued by meal delivery kit services for quite some time now and once we moved to our new apartment I thought it was a good reason to begin testing one of the companies out. I enjoy cooking, but when you live in the city, shopping for ingredients can become something of a chore and quickly becomes expensive. Therefore HelloFresh for us helped remove the stress of shopping and thinking about what to cook for dinner. It also provided us with a structured routine for dinnertime and ensured we had at least one healthy, delicious meal per day. An additional benefit was the fact that we could now calculate our monthly food budget much easier having a structured weekly outgoing for dinner.
Our review of Hello Fresh
We’ve been subscribed to their service since the 23rd July 2018 and are currently on our fourth week of meals, so far we’ve had 17 out of our 20 meals and each and every one of the meals were easy to cook and delicious. I’ve added each of our recipes right here.
Each meal came with all of the necessary ingredients, excluding salt and pepper, cooking oil and water. Inside the weekly box were also individual A4 size recipe cars with easy to follow, step by step instructions on how to prep and cook each meal along with an estimated time it would take to complete.
Now, I wouldn’t call myself a beginner in the kitchen, but I am hardly Jamie Oliver… for anyone who is worried that they won’t have the experience necessary to cook these meals, don’t. Honestly, each of the meals is really simple to prepare and cook, I will admit that you may have to read the step by step instructions a few times. If you are like me, you quickly become too excited about what you are making and begin missing important information.
Packaging
One thing I was worried about was how the meals were going to be delivered each week. However, Hello Fresh does a fantastic job of packaging all the ingredients safely, securely and for the refrigerated food, these are all packaged in a sort of ice-packed duvet. The produce and pantry ingredients are then packaged into individual brown paper bags which are sorted by meal and numbered and colour-coded according to the recipe card/meal they refer to.
The biggest issue with the packaging is simply the waste material, I do recycle but it’s just one of those growing issues, especially since we also use Amazon Pantry every week and boy do they love to waste packaging.
Are the meals substantial in size?
Another concern I had was whether or not the meals would be filling enough, especially since we were ordering for two people, I half expected them to be a little cheeky on the proportions. However, I was pleasantly surprised, after 17 meals and counting, I’ve not once jumped back into the kitchen to make an additional meal, or grabbed a snack or even a dessert!
Our verdict
Honestly, if you are looking at subscribing to a meal kit delivery service, then please try Hello Fresh. They’ve surprised us both at just how good they are, the quality of the produce and the taste of the finished meals. As well as the fact that every week, we are learning to use and cook new ingredients that we haven’t used before. The time it saves us, in both planning, shopping and cooking is priceless and to have such a mouthwatering meal to enjoy every night of the week is fantastic.
Meals
