Hello Fresh Review!

HelloFresh is a meal delivery service kit that has the potential to ship 2-4 recipes for 2-4 people each week. Each meal kit is packaged with the meats needed for the recipes between ice, with produce and everything else stored in a bag on top to ensure freshness in order to cook your meals. Each meal comes with all the ingredients needed for it inside a labeled bag with recipe cards with pictures and easy to follow steps. You will need to keep oil, sugar, butter, pepper, and salt on hand. Recipes vary each week, so you won't have to be stuck eating the same thing over and over again. Some recipes have additional charges as well, but only 3 out of the large selection.

I am not a representative, nor am I a weekly HelloFresh subscriber as I write this review. I simply wanted to try it via co-workers' recommendations. I can't say that I do or do not recommend HelloFresh because it's definitely a personal choice depending on your lifestyle & budget. I can give $40 off your first box if sign up if you'd like to try it though. I can also send a limited quantity of free boxes, so please message me your email if you're interested.

The Recipes:

 

Chicken & Pineapple Quesadillas

Chicken, pineapple, onions, peppers, taco seasoning, homemade pico de gallo, & sour cream in a broiled tortilla shell.

 

 Pepperjack Burgers & BBQ Wedges

Stuffed BBQ seasoned burgers with pepperjack cheese with onions, peppers, sweet potato wedges with BBQ seasoning, & spicy ketchup

Tuscan Sausage & Pepper Spaghetti

Spaghetti in tomato sauce with spicy Tuscan seasoned sausage, peppers, & onions with Parmesan cheese.

These were the 3 meals we ordered for 2 people. My husband is quite the picky eater and he ate all of the meals happily. We liked each one, however, both of us really enjoyed the Chicken & Pineapple Quesadillas. Most likely because it is something we enjoy, but something I never cook. Each recipe was easy enough to make, but I thought that the Pepperjack Burgers & BBQ Wedges was the most difficult to cook, but sweet potatoes aren't always easy to cut and the recipe required a burger stuffed with cheese, which we never cook either. 

Pros:

• Each meal had fresh ingredients that were also of great quality
• The recipes were very easy to follow and everything was packaged together for ease
• The meals were tasty and we would eat each one again
• Calories & nutrition are listed for each recipe on the website. The recipes are also listed there in case something happens to your recipe card
• You make everything, so it's fresh with very little preservatives or additives. 
• Everything is perfectly proportioned. It teaches portion control and helps those who have trouble with it
• Each week is a different menu with nearly 20 recipes, only 3 of which are up-charged for having more expensive ingredients
• Every ingredient is used in the recipe completely, which has no waste of food

Cons:

• The cost is very expensive. For 3 meals for 2 people a week, it is $60. If it was routinely $30, we would do HelloFresh more often. 
• The packaging is a little much & a lot of plastic included, so not very eco-friendly
• The prep & cook time total on each card took me 10 minutes longer to do for each meal & this is staying focused cooking on the meal and not getting distracted doing other things
• It's much cheaper to grab the ingredients at the grocery store yourself and cook the recipes

I would recommend this service for beginner cooks. If you can try it for a good price, it's good to experience and open up some recipes to your library. I also like that you can try new foods each week because we get tired of making soups, pasta, & tacos each week. However, the price is really the largest issue for me. If it was half of regular price, I would use it pretty regularly.

However, I can tell you what we decided is the best for our lifestyle. Because the price is such a large con that it trumps everything else, we were able to order so many meals at discounted prices. We are getting 18 meals for 50%+ off. We will not pay full price, so we won't be buying anymore HelloFresh boxes after that amount ends unless it's discounted. We really enjoyed the recipes and my husband is so picky that I am tired of our weekly battle of, "what do you want for dinner?" so I can grocery shop & make it. We will be looking at HelloFresh's weekly menus often and choose meals we want to try each week, but we will grocery shop for it ourselves and use the recipes provided on the website to measure out our ingredients and make the recipe. This is cheap, but still using HelloFresh's amazing recipes to our advantages and it works for us. You can even download and print the PDFs online if you'd like a recipe card in front of you while you cook! We are going to make our own HelloFresh recipe book.