HelloFresh: A First Timer’s Review

HelloFresh review

I used to talk more about recipes and what I was eating on the blog, but recently got out of the habit. We like to cook our food from scratch a lot of the time, but of course sometimes we’re a little bit lazy and grab a pizza to stick in the oven or a takeaway – we’re only human, and humans who work full time and do a lot of extra-curricular activities on evenings too!

My bosses at work have been getting HelloFresh boxes for a while now. Every Monday morning, a big box would arrive for them then all the week they’d talk about all the yummy recipes they’d put together and post pictures of them on social media. About a month ago, I had some survey people knock on our front door…you should probably know that I’m terrible at saying no to people and they promised it would only take a minute (which it did) so they won me over to answer their questions! They asked about my shopping habits, whether I’d be prefer to spend a little more to buy fresh, independent and locally sourced ingredients, and what kind of meals I’d prefer. Their question asking made me a little more curious, and we are currently trying to buy fresher and more locally sourced foods, so Ben and I did a little more research into HelloFresh.

Before researching, I’d initially thought it was a bit gimmicky – thinking it would be more expensive than our usual supermarket shops and that you’d be ending up with stuff you didn’t want. But when we found a code that gave us our first box for only £24, we thought that was pretty awesome for 5 meals for 2 people – a week’s worth of shopping for £24? Yes please!
If you purchase through my referral link, you can get £25 off your first box (click here!), meaning you can get the same Classic box as I did (5 meals for 2 people) for only £24, or any of the other options of Classic, Veg or Family boxes for even less!
We were a little concerned about the fact that we might not have our usual leftovers for lunch the next day and that I, being the fussier one, might not like all of the options. (Just to clarify, I used to be SUPER fussy – unrecognisable to how I am now! Nowadays, I just don’t like sausages, mince and horseradish). So how did we get on?

The box arrived safely on the Monday morning. It was a massive and heavy box – that was very promising! The weight of it is due to the large amount of stuff you get plus the ice around the chilled ingredients including meat and fish so that it lasts all day before you’re able to put it away.

HelloFresh review HelloFresh review

As you can see, the box was absolutely packed full with fresh and yummy ingredients, along with a welcome booklet and the recipe cards for the week. We chose the Classic box which can give you meals for 3 or 5 days and for 2, 3 or 4 people – we went for 5 meals for 2 people. HelloFresh choose a meal plan for the week, so you receive all the ingredients for every recipe along with instructions on how to make them. The Welcome booklet included told us all about the suppliers of the meat, fish, vegetables, herbs and more – all high quality, locally sourced (UK) and independent, with some organic. Here are all our ingredients laid out for just one week:

HelloFresh review

All the recipes are carefully thought through so that they’re well balanced and healthy. This was a major positive for us as we try to create healthy but filling meals using good ingredients, so it definitely means a lot when you can get really high quality ingredients to create healthy meals for a good price and know their origins. What we also really liked the idea of is that there is very little waste from this as you are given exactly what you need, down to a single stock pot or a small sachet with breadcrumbs or peanuts.

I wanted to show a few examples of the meals we’ve had already. We’ve actually had 2 boxes now, so these are from both of those:

HelloFresh review - Tilapia HelloFresh review - Tilapia HelloFresh review - Tilapia

Pan Fried Tilapia with Panzanella

Neither of us had tried tilapia before, but we try to eat fish at least once a week so we were really pleased to see this on the menu. The fish is pan fried with a flour coating which gave it a nice crispiness, but it stayed really moist inside, then was topped with some parsley that becomes a little crispy with frying, alongside a panzanella salad with super yummy fresh tomatoes, cucumber and onions and crunchy croutons. This one has been my favourite so far and I would happily it eat again.

HelloFresh review: Herb & Mustard Chicken

Herb & Mustard Chicken with Crushed New Potatoes & Slaw

This was made with chicken thigh fillets (I’m glad the bone was removed, I like them better that way) and topped with an amazing mustardy lemony sauce. The recipe made LOADS of food, so I didn’t have to worry about leftovers – we both ended up with a bit of everything (and a lot of slaw!) for lunch the next day.

HelloFresh Pork Satay burgers HelloFresh Pork Satay burgers

Pork Satay Burgers with Sweet Potato Wedges

So, woops, I ate most of this before photographing! You may remember earlier in the post I mentioned that I don’t really like mince…so I was slightly put out when I realised our second box contained two packets of the stuff – one pork, one beef. Nevertheless, I persevered and we dived into this week with the pork satay burger…and oh my goodness, HelloFresh – you have converted me to pork mince!! You make the burger with peanuts inside and slather it in a satay sauce, then serve alongside sweet potato wedges with a salad. Yep, I’m sold. This is yet another new favourite.

As I said before, you can purchase through my referral link to get £25 off your first box (click here!), meaning you can get the same Classic box as I did (5 meals for 2 people) for only £24, or any of the other options of Classic, Veg or Family boxes for even less! I find the price is really good for what you’re getting, in fact, we put all the ingredients or equivalents of them into Tesco and Sainsburys online when we received the box and found it was only very slightly more expensive (at full price, without the code) to buy through HelloFresh, plus you’re getting really high quality ingredients that you know the source of. So with a code, it’s half price of a normal supermarket! For us it’s totally worth it because we either have to drive quite a way to the supermarket on an evening or weekend or pay delivery from online shopping.

Have you tried HelloFresh or a similar service? What did you think?

2 Comments

  1. May 23, 2016 / 3:29 pm

    I love Hello Fresh! I have gotten a few boxes from them for Cody and I. We love to cook together and these make it fun for us to work together in the kitchen. We often get the 3 meals for 2 people. I love the recipes we get and often appreciate getting to try new flavors. I do think it’s worth the price and they often send discounts via email when you stay away for awhile (which I do since we only get them once in awhile when we feel like trying something new).

    I love that you reviewed it – I have been wondering if I should do the same. Perhaps, I will! I have a box coming on Friday!

    • Sian Thomas
      Author
      May 26, 2016 / 1:54 pm

      I think we’re going to try the 3 meals one at some point because we quite often end up having something simple like a jacket potato (or takeaway, shhh!) mid week sometimes, so we end up with some extra ingredients that we have to make for lunchtimes. It definitely seems good value to me 🙂
      Ooh yes, I’d love to see your review if you do one! I’ll keep an eye out 🙂

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