Hello Fresh is a food ordering and delivery service whereby you choose your options by midday on a Wednesday (classic box or vegetarian, 3 or 5 meals per week, 2 or 4 people) and a box of ingredients with recipes is delivered the following Monday.
Hello Fresh Ingredients
Gourmantic received a complimentary offer to try Hello Fresh (5 meals for 2 persons) at home. Below is a review of Week 44 menu (27 October 2014) with snapshots and ratings of every dish.
Hello Fresh Review
The ingredients were delivered in a cardboard box with a small Styrofoam box inside with ice pack for the fridge items. The quality of the fruit and vegetables delivered was good on arrival and everything looked fresh. With the exception of tinned lentils and chickpeas, there were no other processed food. Of the protein items, the fish and chicken had a short expiry date and had to be used within the first three days of the delivery.
Dish 1: Pan Fried Snapper with Zesty Asparagus and Chips
Pan Fried Snapper with Zesty Asparagus and Chips
Meal Appeal/Wow Factor: 4/5
Ease of preparation: 4/5 – fry the fish, boil the asparagus, bake the potatoes
Recipe alteration: Baked potatoes for 45 mins.
Flavour: 3.5/5
True to recipe and photo supplied: 3/5. Potatoes took 45 mins to cook not 15 mins as stated in the recipe.
Left over items: 2 small potatoes
Comments: Light summery fish dish, easy to prepare, lemon zest lifts flavour. Would easily make it again.
Dish 2: Dukkah Chicken with Roasted Ratatouille
Dukkah Chicken with Roasted Ratatouille
Meal Appeal/Wow Factor: 3/5
Ease of preparation: 4/5 – bake vegetables, open tin of lentils, pan fry chicken
True to recipe and photo supplied: 5/5
Flavour: 1/5
Recipe alteration: None.
Left over items: half tin of lentils
Comments: No herbs in “ratatouille”; not enough dukkah to coat 2 half breasts of chicken; dukka lacks punch; a bland dish for “safe” palates
Dish 3: Pumpkin, Pine Nut and Ricotta Penne
Pumpkin, Pine Nut and Ricotta Penne
Meal Appeal/Wow Factor: 2.5/5
Ease of preparation: 4/5 – bake pumpkin then pine nuts, boil pasta, mash and mix together
True to recipe and photo supplied: Instructions don’t state to chop spinach as seen in photo supplied.
Flavour: 2.5/5
Recipe alteration: Mashed all the pumpkin instead of leaving half in chunks.
Left over items: pasta, half of baby spinach
Comments: fairly average pasta dish that is too sweet on the palate; pumpkin and pasta is not a combination I would normally eat.
Dish 4: Kicking Tae Bo Beef
Kicking Tae Bo Beef
Meal Appeal/Wow Factor: 2.5/5
Ease of preparation: 4/5 – chop ingredients, stir fry, boil rice
True to recipe/image: 5/5
Flavour: 1/5
Recipe alteration: Made it as per instructions, tasted it and found it bland, added oyster sauce and fresh chilli
Left over items: half the amount of rice
Comments: The beef was from Haverick Meats and was of excellent quality. It came pre-sliced, ready to cook, tender and flavoursome. But overall, the dish was a let down as it was bland and unlike its name, it needed a strong kick.
Dish 5: Roasted Spring Lamb with Za’atar Cauliflower *
Roasted Spring Lamb with Za’atar Broccoli
The recipe calls for cauliflower and chickpeas, neither of which agree with me so I substituted broccoli.
Meal Appeal/Wow Factor: 3/5
Ease of preparation: 1/5 – it took one hour and 45 minutes for preparation and cooking, not 30 mins as stated.
True to recipe/image: 3/5 – Aside from the substitution
Flavour: 4/5
Recipe alteration: I used 2 garlic cloves instead of 1 and substituted the vegetables which I cooked briefly in the microwave
Left over items: Cauliflower, chick peas
Comments: Delicious piece of lamb from Haverick Meats, tender and flavoursome with very little fat. The za’atar was a little understated but I didn’t mind.
What’s Good about Hello Fresh
- Minimal cooking expertise required. If you can chop vegetables and throw protein in a pan or oven, you’ll be right.
- Surprise mystery box is delivered each week – if you like to be surprised about dinner.
- All ingredients are fresh and with the exception of the fish and chicken with short expiry dates, they lasted the whole week.
- Good quality meat supplied (lamb and beef from Haverick Meats)
- Recipes have easy to follow instructions.
- Most recipes take under 30 mins.
- Dishes are easy to plate up.
- Some left over items can be used again eg pasta, baby spinach, potatoes, rice
- Very little food waste
- Pantry items (not supplied) are common items found in most kitchens eg salt and pepper, oil, soy sauce, butter, flour.
- Saves time on supermarket and grocery shopping.
- Hello Fresh meals that give the impression of being a weight loss program. But without the Heart Foundation Tick.
- Suitable for couples and families who want a quick dinner with no fuss.
What’s Not So Good about Hello Fresh:
- There is no choice of meals or ingredients as you get a mystery box each week.
- No leftovers for the next day, if this is how you normally cook.
- You must cook the recipes in the recommended order to maintain freshness of some of the ingredients and expiry dates.
- Recipes are not too creative and play it safe on flavour. You need to modify recipes to your own taste.
- Most dishes have a heavy carbohydrate component eg chickpeas, lentils. Substitute vegetables would be preferable.
The cost of the Classic Box of 5 meals for 2 persons is $99 (including delivery). This works out at about $10 a meal per person with the convenience of not having to go shopping. Overall, it’s been an interesting experience and I was pleased to try something that’s a little “out of the box”.
If you would like to try Hello Fresh for yourself, go to the Hello Fresh website and enter the code GOURMANTIC50 to claim a 50% discount of your first order. This offer is valid until 26/11/2014 and is only valid on a household’s first box of Hello Fresh. There is a limit of one discount per account and it cannot be used in conjunction for any other offer.
Happy cooking!
Disclaimer – The discount code has been provided as a bonus to our readers. Gourmantic will not be compensated should you take up the offer.
Also in food reviews… dish’d by Jacques Reymond.
[…] meals have a certain appeal. Whether it’s fresh ingredients that you cook yourself such as Hello Fresh which we reviewed recently or frozen meals from dish’d that you conveniently keep in your […]
I ordered a Hello Fresh box to try it with a discount code. I got my first box delivered for $41.60 USA in January 2015. The box arrived today and I’m very happy with it!! The food was well packaged with 2 ice bags in a styrofoam cooler. It had no leaks and it looks very fresh. I got a chicken entrée, a pork entrée and a seared steak entrée. All of the vegetables look plentiful and very fresh. The meat is sealed in vacuum bags and they look to be about 4-5 ounce portions. They look like really good cuts of meat, too. All of the fixin’s come in the box except for basic pantry items like salt, pepper, olive oil and butter. The recipe cards are beautiful and show us exactly how to prepare each meal step by step with pictures. I haven’t cooked any of them yet, but from just reading the recipe cards I can tell they will be tasty. An awesome concept for people who don’t have a lot of time to shop, or for people who don’t have a large variety of foods near them. The convenience is wonderful and it’s less expensive than going out for dinner at a sit-down restaurant. If 2 people ate out 3 nights a week for a nice meal, it would be at least $100 conservatively. It’s NOT discount food, it’s quality convenience food. When you place your first order, you can go to the calendar and delay your next 3 or 4 shipments to give you time to decide if you like it. A+++ give it a try.
Hey JackieFL,
Great review… I agree with you. What really got me to try HelloFresh, because $69 for a week of food I may not like was not going to happen, I got this promo code: CE6HNQ which took $40 OFF my first order! So i only had to pay $29 for the first full box of 6 meals.
Since then, my girlfriend and I order it every week and have SOO MUCH fun cooking together, and trying new food. Its always really good, and never takes longer than 30-40 minutes.
Happy Cooking
-Scott
I have subbed to Hello Fresh in Oct. of last year and really like it. I usually just get one box per month. The recipes are very good and some I have even made again with store bought ingredients. I’m single, so I take leftovers to work for lunch and can usually get two lunches out of “one” serving leftover. If you want to try, use code EY6D28 and get $40 off your first box. You can cancel anytime, the cancel option is on your manage account page. You can also skip weeks, which is really nice. Everything I’ve gotten from them so far has been delicious and the produce looks really nice.
The recipies are good, but their website is abolutely horrible to try and navigate. I’m a young physician, and pretty web savy so lets just assume I’m not an idiot. I just spent almost an hour trying to figure out how to pause my subscription. This is because the hellofresh website is awful. Whoever planned the website did a horrible job, it is NOT userfriendly whatsoever. Again, I’m a doctor. I’m not supid, and this website shouldn’t be so impossibly difficult to use. We are swithcing to Plated, solely because of the website.The Plated webiste can’t be worse than this Our neighbor who we gave a free week of hellofresh also had a horrible time trying to use the website. Any phone calls after 4pm it automattically goes to voicemail and says “just email us’. Bad customer service along with the bad website.
Hello Fresh is great, my wife thinks Im an all star now.
Use code M5J2J7 to get $40 off your 1st Shipment!
I got my first box last week, I loved it! I contacted customer service when I ordered because I used the wrong credit card and they were great to work with. My opinion is this-use a coupon and get your first delivery of six meals for $29 or $19 (vegetarian) and then cancel your subscription if you’re not impressed.
You can use this coupon code to get $40 off your first box and free shipping -> 3M3LHS
They have the WORST customer service though! I decided to give them a try and the boxes/recipes were good, but I decided to cancel my subscription because most of the meals I could make at home for half the price. I know I was paying for the convenience of not having to shop but it just wasn’t worth the extra cost for us at the time. No hard feelings, just not for us…until I tried to cancel my subscription.
I have tried to cancel my subscription via the website multiple times but I keep getting charged. I’ve sent them over four emails emails saying that I DON’T want to continue my subscription and all they do is refer me back to the website. Meanwhile, I keep getting charged and sent boxes when I have clearly communicated that I do not want them. I finally threatened to to go to BBB and they offered to give only a partial refund.
Unless you know you won’t ever want to cancel your subscription, I do NOT recommend Hello Fresh. This “convenience” has turned into a huge hassle and frustration.
Just received our first order today. Everything looks perfect. Will update once we cook one of the meals.
For any first time subscribers, use the code- V92PEE, to receive a total of 6 meals (3 different meals for 2 people) for only 29$ and free shipping.
Hello Fresh is great, my wife thinks Im an all star now. Use code M5J2J7 to get $40 off your 1st Shipment!
Hi there all!
I just signed up for Hello Fresh and I LOVE it! I’m finally cooking at home most nights instead of paying to go out for unhealthy prepared meals! I recommend it for sure. Use code 86F7PB to get $40 off your first box (code never expires!) ^_^
Happy cooking!
Clare
I ordered HelloFresh for several weeks. Unfortunately, I had problems after problems. Recipe cards were missing. Avocados were very spoiled. Customer Service never “calls” even when you leave message after message. And they didn’t give the $40 discount to my friend who used my referral code. And one of the three recipes were usually too basic.
Considering they are more expensive compared to other companies like Blue Apron (which I’m using now and love!), they shouldn’t have this many issues!!
Best Wishes…
Great meals and I didn’t buy all the unwanted stuff at the store (that I don’t need anyway!) Love it!!
$40 coupon code 2X5TGN
The food is fine but their billing practices are very questionable. Watch out for any free trials. I agreed to a free trial that I later discovered was billed to my credit card was billed without my approval. I personally hate it when it says clearly “Your card will not be charged.” Only to look on my credit card and see that they are in fact billing me! After contacting them they have said they will refund me. But who wants to deal with companies that engage in such shady business practices?
I’ve had a Hello Fresh subscription for the past couple of months and am loving their vegetarian boxes. I would encourage everyone to give it try — I’m trying new foods and learning new ways to cook things. If you this promo code you’ll get 4 meals free: LGX26G
I place one order, because its was written that we can cancel the subscription at any time until every Wednesday. I said way not, let try this. When I try to deactivate my account, it was written that you need to receive at least two boxes and after that you can deactivate your account. From this I can say that Hello Fresh is not honest with the customers. They have one rules before you pay, and different rules when you pay. When you pay , and you give them all your info you became their prisoner. In order to “get free” you need to obey their rules! This is not good. When you lie, the customer will never come back.
This is dead on correct. This has been our experience.
When I contacted them to get them to deactivate my account when I checked it online it kept telling me it was open. They insisted that their system did not detect any attempts to cancel. The excuses went on and on.
They are a very dishonest company.
Thanks Corinne for the amazing review!
I really needed to find a more convenient way to get back to loving to cook in my kitchen…
I ended up finding another service, which originally started over in Belgium but is now available across the United States: HomeChef. I have tried a number of different “dinner subscription boxes” and this one TOPPED MY LIST!
I started looking for a way to try this service pretty cheap, because I already pay too much for groceries, and I found a great deal for HomeChef!
I got $30 Off and Free Shipping on my First Order by using this offer link: https://www.homechef.com/%69%6E%76%69%74%65/kQWAUbAMrJo
That made my first order only $29, perfect to give it a try! In my first order I got the Raspberry Chipotle BBQ Chicken and it was SO good! The other meals included a Mushroom and Swiss Beef Burger and Sous-Vide Baby Back Ribs. They were all very easy to make in MY OWN kitchen and my whole family loved how they tasted! I now get it every week because it is SO convenient, tastes AMAZING, and I get to try cooking new things that I would have never made before…
I just thought I’d post it if anyone else is looking for a deal to give it a try.
Be very careful of Hello Fresh!
We used this service by first using their vouchers they were handing out.
Our first delivery was a day late and left in the sun while we weren’t home despite alternative instructions being left.
Our subsequent delivery ingredients were missing and the food was sub par. We complained but had to wait 2 weeks for anything to be done about it.
Not satisfied with the customer service we attempted to delete our account and ended up tangling with them for two weeks. I had to cancel my card as they were making unauthorized transactions against it and sending back deliveries we didn’t want or order.
Finally, we had someone from Fair Trading step in. It was a nightmare. Never again!
Does anyone else think the calorie counts are a little higher? I thought 700-800 for a vegetarian meal seemed high. Maybe it’s just me. I haven’t tried it yet, but was just looking through the recipes on their website. Thoughts?
Hello fresh website does not let you deactivate. you better call if you want to do that. I tried to deactivate and a few days later when I had no confirmation I called and they said it”did not go through”. They were willing to reroute my box 60 miles because I would not be home but could not cancel it. So I paid $69.00 for a box to sit on my porch and rot. Also they forgot a main ingredient in one previous box and the meal was useless. Threw that one away too. Food wasnt that good honestly.
I love theirs services, arrives on time, always fresh and healthy
try them out. $40 off your first order code: NHXEXK
First of all, GREAT REVIEW! I have had them for 2 months, and my girlfriend and I love getting our box, and cooking together. It has really brought us closer together, and taught us some really cool yet easy recipes. The food is always fresh, and cold, even with the box coming to Phoenix! I used this promo code: CE6HNQ which gave me $40 off my first box.
With that promo code, my first box was only $29, and now I happily pay the $69 each week for the box, and it has been a great experience and HelloFresh really has great customer service.
Happy Cooking!
– Scott