For those of you who read my other “Your Meals Delivered: Home Chef” hello again. And for those who haven’t, I say “Welcome.” I have already made a review about Home Chef. Now it is time to write a review about Hello Fresh. So lets get started.
What is Hello Fresh? How Does it work?
Hello Fresh is a company that sends out meal kits so that those of us at home can create homemade meals without having to go shopping. They send you fresh ingredients, along with recipe cards that have very simple instructions on them.
One must create an account first and foremost. It’s a very easy process. And unlike Home Chef, they don’t have you create a flavor profile. But they do ask what kind of meals you prefer. Quick and easy? Veggie? Family friendly? And so on. You will also put in the number of people and the number of meals you would like to receive each week. Now the delivery day can be changed, but the kits can only be delivered from Tuesday to Friday. The number of people and meals can also be changed fairly easily.
One thing to be aware of. If you want to change the meals for next week, you must do so Before Friday of the current week. So if you get one on Tuesday of next week you must make changes before Friday of this (current) week.
The Details
Packaging
Everything is sent in a single box that is carefully insulated and packed with icepacks. The ingredients are separated, by meal, into paper bags. Any meats that you get are separate from the meals and do not come in any bag. So you have to make sure to check the box carefully. Each bag is labeled by name. As are the ingredients. Unless it is a vegetable or something like that. There is one thing that I wish to mention that they don’t give you. And that is butter. They don’t provide butter for any dishes, unlike Home Chef.
Meals
There are a large variety of meals to choose from each week. And just as an observation, Hello Fresh seems to provide many different vegetarian options as well. If you are vegan or have specific allergies then you might have a difficult time finding meals. You’ll just have to check the ingredients for every meal as it won’t show details like that on the small preview. You can also check all meals for the ingredients, directions, cook time, nutrition, and necessary utensils for each meal.
If you are looking for something quick or looking for something family friendly, you can sort through that week’s choices with the category filter on top. Each meal will also indicate if it will be spicy or not as well. In case you don’t like spicy things like me. Now this will be based on my opinions, but lets go over the pros and cons.
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Each meal is put into an individually labeled bag, and the ingredients are packaged separately within
- There is huge variety each week to choose from, even for those that are vegetarian
- It is easy to make any changes to your meals, like how many servings you need for each meal or the number of meals you want for each week
- All the ingredients are fresh
- All the ingredients are proportioned out
- The overall proportion size for each meal is good decent size to leave one full
- As someone who has never fried anything in oil before, that was about as difficult as it got to cook anything
Cons
- All the meat you’d get for the week are all left in their individual packaging, without being put into a bag of their own
- Just based an what I’ve seen so far, there are not a lot of options for those that have allergies like dairy; or even a way to filter meals based on allergies, you’d have to check each meal for the ingredients list
- It’s too easy to overspend. You get charged extra for choosing to add meat to certain meals, or any extras like garlic bread, and get charged for premium meals or meals that are not part of your subscription like “Hall of Fame” meals
- The one thing that they will not include if the recipe requires it is butter; they don’t include butter so make sure to buy sticks of butter for your recipes
Is Hello Fresh Worth it?
So before I started trying out all these home delivery meal kits, I cooked for two people 3 to 4 times a week since I made enough for leftovers most days. And the grocery limit every week I went grocery shopping was $120 a week. If I did Hello Fresh for 2 people 5 days of the week, without the coupon codes and including shipping, it would amount to about the same as grocery shopping for the week. Considering all this, I’d say that it is not a bad decision to give Hello Fresh a try if you want to try something new. Not to mention they always have offers and coupons available to make things cheaper.
Using Hello Fresh I cook 4 days of the week three of which are meals from them and one from regular shopping so I can make leftovers as well. It all works out so well because I’ve been able to try something new. And so far, everything has tasted good. If you enjoyed this review and wish to give Hello Fresh a try, click here.
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