HelloFresh is a service which will deliver ingredients to your doorstep for meals. The ingredients are just the right amount needed for recipes that come with easy to follow instructions. Using the recipes and ingredients, you can then prepare meals for yourself.
HelloFresh Subscription
You subscribe to a box, which varies for the number of meals (three or five times a week) and number of people (two or four people). You can see the recipes for the weeks through the app or website and there are a small number of options which you can choose from. The boxes are delivered weekly, at a time range of your choosing (from a few options) but you can skip weeks by pausing weeks through the website or app.
Box Delivery
I subscribed to the three meals (for two people) for two weeks and I chose for it to be delivered . The HelloFresh box was delivered while I was sleeping, as I woke up in the morning to an SMS saying that my box was delivered, sent at midnight. The HelloFresh SMS even had a link to a photo of the box sitting on my front door as proof.
The box came with ingredients separate into three paper bags (one for each meal, colour coded) and one extra freezer style bag to keep ingredients that needed to be kept cool, together with an ice pack. Once I opened the box I put everything from the freezer bag into the fridge.
Quality of Ingredients
The ingredients that HelloFresh provides are excellent quality. The portions are just the right amount for the recipes. Only once did they provide me which extra which was a pack of noodles for four instead of two, but it was obvious that they they couldn’t split the packet in half easily.
HelloFresh also assumes that you have certain ingredients in your pantry such as salt, pepper and olive oil which is used in all recipes. Some other ingredients that are also expected are soy sauce, honey and flour. What surprised me was they assumed you had balsamic vinegar for one recipe. Luckily I did have all these ingredients so keep that in mind and check the weekly recipes online for these extra ingredients.
Following the Recipes
The HelloFresh recipes were generally pretty easy to follow. Certain ingredients come pre-cut but others are not. The instructions are clear and have some nice colour photos.
I did not have any trouble following the recipes but I do consider myself better than average when it comes to cooking. The recipe comes with guides oh how long it is estimated to cook, which ranges from 45 to 60 minutes. But generally I took less time than what was given.
The Taste Test
Overall, I found the HelloFresh recipes to be pretty good. I enjoyed all the meals and only found one meal, an Asian stir-fry noodles to be quite ordinary. But being Asian myself, maybe I had higher standards for authenticity for Asian style meals. But it was by no means bad, it was still edible. The portions, to my surprise was quite generous. Although the meat portions were smaller, the meals were quite filling.
For $50 credit for your first HelloFresh box, signup using this link.
Is it Worth it?
HelloFresh provides a lot of good things, quality ingredients delivered right to your door, which is really convenient. I also found myself looking forward to trying new recipes that I would normally not cook myself. People who enjoy cooking will not miss out. In fact it is a good way to learn cooking.
But the deal breaker for me is the cost. I only decided to try HelloFresh because I managed to get 50% off for two weeks. What normally would cost be around $11 per meal only cost me $6. But I feel if I would to buy the ingredients myself I could probably get the cost down to under $5 (with a bit of effort). However, with the convenience, I would probably be willing to pay around $8 per meal.
Although I decided to cancel after this experience, I will probably order more boxes if I can get some deals for discounts. But for people that are time poor, hate going grocery shopping and can afford it, HelloFresh definitely has a lot to offer.