What is Hello Fresh?
HelloFresh is a meal delivery service which brings fresh, pre-portioned ingredients and accompanying recipe cards to your doorstep for quick and easy home-cooked meals!
While HelloFresh is a service catered towards greenhorn chefs, even old kitchen pros will find the delivery and pre-portioned aspect makes cooking quicker.
Hello Fresh Review 2015
This week I got the chance to try Hello Fresh, and I’m excited to share my experience.
Now, I’m not a great cook. Not terrible, but not the next Barefoot Contessa either. Since I don’t cook a ton, I was very curious to see if HelloFresh could teach me something new and make cooking easier for this apprehensive chef.
Hello Fresh: What You Get
When you order with Hello Fresh, you get a big box of fresh ingredients and recipe cards delivered to your doorstep. Each box contains ingredients and recipe instructions for 3 different meals.
Biggest Benefit: Ease of Use
The main benefit that HelloFresh provides is simplicity and speed. Normally if you want to cook a meal, you need to find a recipe you like (for me that means scouring Allrecipes for hours), create a grocery list, go to the grocery store, come back and get cooking.
The truth is that many of us will spend 2 (or more) hours choosing recipes, making ingredient lists, and spending time in the grocery store, and that’s all before you start cooking! If you’re heading to the market on a weekend, expect it to take even longer!
HelloFresh cuts all that wasted time out of the picture. When I head out to Trader Joe’s for grocery shopping on Sundays, it’s truly one of the most stressful events I face all week. Instead this week I got to just lounge about, relax, and enjoy Netflix!
It’s also a delight having all the ingredients pre-portioned. Not only do I spend less time measuring out all my ingredients, but I also end up using less dishes (usually when I cook a portion out everything into various bowls prior to starting).
Hello Fresh Meals
HelloFresh offers a really great selection of meal choices. When you first sign up, you decide if you want a meat meal box or a vegetarian meal box.
Once you’ve signed up, you can access your online HelloFresh account, which lets you:
- Pause or skip deliveries
- Choose which specific meals you want delivered
- Switch between box sizes (boxes come with enough for 2 or 4 people)
- Deactivate your account
The online system is super easy to use and really makes me feel like I’m in control of the whole process.
Hello Fresh Recipes
When you log into your online account, you can choose which specific Hello Fresh recipes you want to use! They cycle through new recipes every week, so there’s always different to try.
Some examples of HelloFresh recipes from this week:
- Parmesan Crusted Chicken with Tangy Balsamic Potato Salad
- Spicy Poblano Bolognese
- Pan-Roasted Salmon with Mustard-Butter Bean Salad
- Spicy Pork & Kale Soup with Udon Noodles
- Honey-Roasted Squash with Warm Mushroom & Quinoa Salad
The Hello Fresh recipe cards are very simple and easy-to-follow. Even those feeling skittish in the kitchen won’t have a problem following their guided directions. They also feature a nice photo so you know what your final product should look like!
If you’re concerned about getting on over your head, you can pre-select your recipe difficulty level on a scale from 1-3. It’s worth noting that usually the total time including prep and cooking takes no more than 30 minutes!
What are HelloFresh Portions Like?
Very generous! I made a HelloFresh 2 person meal for myself and a friend – we’re both 20-something women who LOVE to eat, and both of us almost couldn’t finish! We were stuffed all evening.
It’s definitely great for a couple or family (if you do the 4 person serving). Solo cooks probably have it best, since they can cook and are guaranteed delicious leftovers!
Quality of Ingredients
HelloFresh works hard to deliver only the freshest ingredients, and I can testify to that. Everything looked great when it was delivered. In fact, all the ingredients still looked wonderful several days laters. HelloFresh puts major emphasis on using high-quality local suppliers.
Hello Fresh Cost of Box
Here’s how HelloFresh works. You choose a subscription box for the week, which provides you with 3 meals for the week. You choose between meat or vegetarian meals, with meat meals costing slightly more. Next you choose if you want enough to feed a party of 2 or 4.
Here are some recent numbers:
- 1 meat subscription box costs = $69/week (providing 3 meals)
- This amounts to $23 per meal, or, divided between two parties, $11.50 per person, per meal.
- 1 vegetarian subscription box costs = $59/week (providing 3 meals)
- This amounts to $20 per meal, or, divided between two parties, $10 per person, per meal.
Note: For the calculation above, we are looking at the numbers for feeding 2 individuals. Prices go down another dollar when calculating for 4 people.
I would consider $10-$11.50 per meal a pretty good deal overall. Now in all likelihood, there are some situations where you probably could pay a bit less if you went and bought the ingredients yourself (although even that depends where you grocery shop). However, the time saved and connivence factor makes it well-worth the extra buck or two (in my opinion anyway).
Other Benefits of Hello Fresh
Learning Opportunity
HelloFresh provides creative recipes you might never normally try. Even seasoned chefs will find some exciting recipe selections to choose from! If you’re very new to cooking, you may find that HelloFresh provides the boost of confidence and support you need to get in the kitchen, since they do a lot of the hard work for you.
Healthy Eating
All the recipes HelloFresh provides are geared towards being healthy. Oftentimes I’ll find myself feeling too lazy to cook. That’s when the thai or pizza menu comes out. Last week though, I knew half the work was done for me with HelloFresh, and it pushed me to make the healthier choice and cook (not to mention I had a delicious healthy meal in front of me long before that pizza would have made it to my doorstep)!
Cut Down on Waste
I really hate seeing wasted food, especially knowing that so many people around the world are going hungry. Did you know that the average American throws out 40% of the food they buy! That’s one frustrating fact. HelloFresh prevents that from happening by delivering the exact, pre-measured amounts of the ingredients you need to make a complete meal. And they really do cover everything, including spices and garnishes (although they do expect you to have olive oil, salt, butter, sugar, and pepper on hand as kitchen staples).
Saves You Money
If the average American throws out 40% of the food buy, that means a ton of money used to purchase those wasted groceries goes down the drain. It’s happened to all of us before – your recipe calls for one leek, but they come in a bunch. You need just a couple mushrooms, but they are sold only in packs! Not only does this result in wasted food, but it wastes your money too!
I definitely recommend you check out HelloFresh, especially now that they are delivering nation-wide (except for Hawaii and Alaska…sorry guys)! I also think HelloFresh would make a great gift, especially if you have a friend you’ve been pushing to cook more. If that sounds like someone in your life, try checking out the HelloFresh giftcards.
Hello Fresh Discount
If you’re new to HelloFresh, there are a number of ways you can start with a discounted meal subscription!
Hello Fresh Coupon: Use Hello Fresh discount code:
- FRESH25 to get $25 off your first box!
Hello Fresh Groupon: HelloFresh periodicially partners with deal sites like Living Social or Groupon to offer discounted meal box subscriptions.
- HelloFresh Groupon Offer [current as of March 1, 2015]
Sign up for HelloFresh’s Mailing List: Subscribe to HelloFresh’s email newsletter (which you can do from the homepage) and you’ll get $15 off your first delivery.
Hello Fresh Reviews From Others
I’ve seen very few negative reviews from HelloFresh customers. Those that complain usually have some kind of unusual delivery issue or hiccup, but I haven’t seen many instances of that.
Check out these HelloFresh reviews from other users…
Note: these reviews come from productreview.com
Give Hello Fresh A Try!
I had a very positive experience with HelloFresh – they made my time in the kitchen more efficient and fun! Give HelloFresh a try and let me know what your experience is like in the comments!
