A few weeks ago my friend Ashley sent me a free week of Hello Fresh. To give you some background on me… My LEAST favorite part of the week is my trip to the grocery store. I am not a cook. And I DO NOT ENJOY preparing meals. I am also not skilled enough to “throw stuff together”… Like what the HECK is a PINCH of ANYTHING?!?! I need exact recipes to follow. Well if you are anything like me, FEAR NO MORE!!! I am THRILLED to bring you this life-changing MOM HACK because it is possible to have STRESS FREE dinners at your household. Have you tried a meal delivery service?
Here are my honest observations on Hello Fresh:
+ Every recipe we have tried has been delicious and recipes that I have never attempted to cook before.
+ The recipes are easy enough for someone LIKE ME to follow and do correctly. In general they take 30 minutes or less to cook! (I am the girl who ALWAYS BURNS the chicken breast trying to cook it through. Just giving you a point of reference here… If I CAN, YOU CAN! Ha!)
+ I have learned to ENJOY cooking these meals and my confidence in cooking in general has gone up. Now that I have expanded my horizon a bit, I feel like I have acquired a new skill set that I can replicate with other meals and recipes.
+ My family is officially out of our recipe rut! We were eating the same 4/5 dishes every single week and my family was getting burnt out. (Let’s be honest… So was I!)
+ I have held onto all of the recipes so that I can make our favorites at a later date! Each card contains the ingredient list AND pictures showing you HOW-TO make the recipe. I am a visual learner, so this was big for me!
+ ALL INGREDIENTS (with the exception of olive oil, salt, pepper) are included AND portioned out FOR YOU! This is where my trip to the grocery store because I am missing 1 ingredient is eliminated! (They package things like jam, mayo and sesame oil in the cutest little containers!)
+ The meals are HEALTHY and well balanced. We were in a bad habit over here of putting pasta or rice as a side for EVERY meal. We now have salads and veggies in the mix!
+ We have a 4 year old and 2 year old and the Classic Plan (3 meals per week for 2 adults) barely stretches to our family but we don’t really have a need to feed 4 at this point. I wish they had a 3 person option but at this point you can only order for 2 or 4. What we have done for some of our meals is buy extra meat at the store to prepare for our girls.
+ There is a vegetarian option and you can also change your preferences to things such as “Fit, Quick, Seafood Free, Pork Free, Beef Free.” I have mine on “Variety” because we aren’t super picky over here.
+ You can cater your schedule to be monthly, weekly, or select the option to customize and “skip week” if you are going to be out of town. I LOVE that this is not rigid autoship program. You can also pick which day of the week and time of day you want it delivered! Note: All items are delivered with ice packs so the meat stays really cold.
+ For my grocery store runs now I will get something easy to make 2 nights per week and then our normal lunch and breakfast items. SO MUCH LESS STRESSFUL for me! If you are a WORKING MOM I CANNOT IMAGINE how much easier this would make your life!!!
+ Our current plan is $59.94 for 3 meals per week for 2 adults. This is about $9/ person per meal which at a glance seems expensive but the fact that I am sent all ingredients portioned out and of course the elimination of the hassle factor makes it worth it for our budget! Plus, it is cheaper than eating out which we were doing way too much of!
Side note: I DO want to mention that this post is not sponsored in ANY WAY and I know there are lots of great meal delivery services out there but I just wanted to give you my two cents on Hello Fresh!
Would love to hear what meal services you have used and loved?
We tried hello fresh for several month and in the beginning it was amazing! I am a chef myself but being a mother takes priority always and I was enjoying the “help in the kitchen”.
After the 4th month of service I began noticing a switch in their packaging materials. No big deal right? The next order the dried ingredients were spilled all over the box and not able to be consumed.
The next delivery is was the meat. Each time we called they gave us a credit, however they would NOT send out replacement items, leaving me to have to go to the store.
This continued for one more order before we switched to Blue Apron.
It is a little more pricy than I like, but the product and materials are all quality and have not degraded over time ?
We have not had that problem at all actually! That’s a bummer! Heard great things about Blue Apron but did hear it was more expensive and longer prep time…but since you are a chef thats no biggie probably 😉 I am just NOT a cook so I like the simplicity of Hello Fresh! Thanks for sharing!