When my bestie sent me a week of Hello Fresh meals to try after she tried it (and loved it), I was excited to see what all the hype was about. For the most part I don’t cook. I can cook, I just don’t do it much and for the most part don’t enjoy it. Cooking for one is just a pain! But the Hello Fresh meals come in 2 or 4 person options so I figured with the 2 person one I could eat one serving for dinner and the other for lunch the following day. Sounds reasonable right?
There are 5 available meals each week and if you pick the 3 meals per week option it defaults to 3 of them. But don’t worry, if you aren’t a fan of the ones it defaulted to you can go in after your order is placed and change them up. For me one of the default meals was steak, which I don’t eat, so I swapped it for a vegetarian options. The three meals I had coming were Citrus Skillet Shrimp with Poblano, Olives, and Crispy Potatoes, Pan-Roasted Chicken with Dijon Mushroom Sauce and Brown Rice, and Jamie’s Easy-Peasy Tomato Tagliatelle. Shrimp, chicken, and vegetarian – pretty good variety!
Deliveries are available Monday through Thursday, so you can pick which day your want you food to show up. I picked Monday since I knew I’d be home during the week and not on the weekend. Each meal comes with the protein (if applicable) and a separate box of ingredients for each meal. You have just enough of each ingredient for the meal, but you do still have to chop/measure/prepare the ingredients. The shrimp meal said “make me first!” on the box so that’s what I did.
The recipe was easy to follow, only required one pan, and was super tasty. It was definitely two portions and would have been more than enough for two people. I split the food into two portions as soon as it was cooked – one went on the plate to eat and one went in a container for lunch the next day. I was quite impressed with the ease of the preparation and the taste of the food. I will definitely be making this meal again.
My second meal was the Pan-Roasted Chicken with Dijon Mushroom Sauce and Brown Rice. I was a little apprehensive about this meal for a couple of reasons, the main one being that I HATE HATE HATE having to handle raw chicken. It totally grosses me out and then I’m paranoid that I will under cook it. The only thing that made me a little less nervous on this was that you cooked it in the pan for a bit and then it went in the oven. I could always leave it in the oven a little longer if necessary.
This one was a little bit harder only because there was a lot going on at one time. First you had to get the rice cooking, then sear the chicken and put it in the oven, then start making the sauce, then put then chicken in the sauce and finish it up. Oh, and of course the rice got down right about the time I was trying to finish up the sauce. Some how I got it all handled and the meal turned out pretty good.
Looks good right? The sauce didn’t turn out as thick as I think it was supposed to, but it was still tasty. This wasn’t my favorite meal but it was tasty and filling. I think if I made it again I might throw in some broccoli or other veggie.
All in all I was very happy with Hello Fresh. Easy recipes, good quality food, and it all just shows up at your house. The biggest downside for me? The price. Its $69 for three meals that feed two people. Even once you factor in not looking for recipes and not going grocery shopping, that just isn’t in the budget for me. I could definitely see this working out well for busy couples and families, or even if I had someone staying with me and wanted to cook for them. I could totally pretend like I do this all the time right?