Hello Fresh

[Night Elf]

Update! I received my box on Monday and have made 2 of the 3 meals so far. It's a definite success. I love how everything you need is in one bag and there is a bag for each meal. They send extras of some things like 2 peeled garlic cloves when I only need 1, but that's no big deal. 

 

I do understand the complaint about too much packaging. There are two huge ice packs in the bottom of the box that they meat is laid in between for transit. You can keep them for future use but we would never use such large ice packs so we threw them away. There was also some long stuffing type packaging to keep everything in the box secure so it wouldn't move around. Threw that out too.

 

The quality of the food is really good. None of my veggies look bad. The meat is vacuumed packed so I don't mind it sitting in the refrigerator for a few days. 

 

Right now I'm on a promotion that lets me have two weeks at $40 a week. For 3 meals for 2 people that is not bad. When the promotion is over, it will go up to the regular price of $60 for 3 meals for 2 people. It does make more food than DH and I can eat so we have some leftovers, but still I'm not sure I want to spend that much money often. I might get a box once a month as a special treat week. The meals look like something prepared in a restaurant which is very pleasing to me. My oldest dd signed up too and when she and I cook, we text pictures of our finished plates to each other. 

 

Basically it's been fun and I'm looking forward to my second week.

[TechWife]

I've been wanting to try one of these services for myself when dh is out of town, but with his irregular schedule I can't order in advance. If I could order on Sunday and have it arrive on Tuesday or even Wednesday it would be worth it. Thanks for the review, though. It does seem very reasonably priced, especially considering the cost of restaurant meals these days. 

[Mothersweets]

I love Hello Fresh! We've used it 3 times last year and I just reactivated my account so we can start up again next week. 

 

We are on the 3 meals per week for 4 people. We have 5 people in our house and it works out just fine (1 adult, 2 teens, 12yo, 10yo). I have been dreading dinners for the past several months and I found myself ordering out instead of cooking and still not being very happy with dinner. :(

 

We liked the Hello Fresh meals and and I am pretty confident that we will like the meals this time around, too. They've been super easy to prepare - my teens can follow the directions and make dinner - and it's always been the perfect amount of food for us. We've even remade one of the dinners a few times because everyone liked it so much - score!

 

Beth, I'm so glad you're liking it! Anything to make getting a good dinner on the table easier is a win in my eyes :)

[Catwoman]

Thank you for starting this thread, Beth -- I might give Hello Fresh a try! :)

[Night Elf]

Due to the holiday, deliveries scheduled for September 4th, 5th and 6th may be delayed. My plan is to deliver meals on Mondays so I don't know when I'll get my box. I don't know if it will be sitting in a post office warehouse or if Hello Fresh will purposely send it late so it's still really fresh when it gets to me. I'm wondering if I should skip that week to avoid the problem.

[Guest]

Thanks for sharing your experience. I was very close to trying either Hello Fresh or Sun Basket and I'm still on the fence. I did find a meal on Sun Basket that sounded very good to me, but also, I was able to find the complete recipe online, so I tried with my own ingredients. But I defeated this purpose because I changed something about the recipe to take advantage of fresh vergetables I have in my garden. So this is one point on which I waver. I think I would end up not making the recipes as planned and it would defeat some of the purpose for having the service.😛

[EmseB]

I loved Hello Fresh, but it's just not enough food for all six of us.  I have yet to find a meal service that accounts for larger-ish families. It's probably not practical or profitable for them. I'd honestly love to live by meal service, but I'd have to plan out extra sides or more main course and that kind of defeats the purpose, right?

Edited August 25, 2017 by EmseB

[EmseB]

I will say that after I used their promo, I put the service on what I thought was an indefinite pause in case I wanted to use them again for a week or something later on.  Well, I made an error and it wasn't an indefinite pause, it was just for 30 days. So I woke up one morning and saw my cc had been charged. I was really bummed, but realized it was my mistake so I figured we'd just eat the meals. I called them to figure out how the pausing worked and the lady refunded my money on the spot and offered to cancel my account so it didn't happen again. I mean, I've always had companies try to upsell me or harass me into staying when I call to cancel. This rep made the offer to cancel for me and said I could rejoin anytime.

 

So...excellent customer service from Hello Fresh.

[Serenade]

We had two Blue Apron meals this week, and they were both very, very, good. I have not tried Hello Fresh, but it sounds like they have two things in common with Blue Apron -- great customer service and really nice, good-quality food items. I've been "doing" Blue Apron for a little over a year, maybe ordering a meal kit every month or two, to add interest to our normal meals. A few things we've liked so much that they've become part of our regular meal rotation - made on our own, of course - I've yet to see an exact meal duplicated on Blue Apron.

[Guest]

We had two Blue Apron meals this week, and they were both very, very, good. I have not tried Hello Fresh, but it sounds like they have two things in common with Blue Apron -- great customer service and really nice, good-quality food items. I've been "doing" Blue Apron for a little over a year, maybe ordering a meal kit every month or two, to add interest to our normal meals. A few things we've liked so much that they've become part of our regular meal rotation - made on our own, of course - I've yet to see an exact meal duplicated on Blue Apron.

What I'm wondering about people who use these services often: do you end up ad-libbing some of the recipe or do you follow it explicitly? I think I have strong opinions about how to cook something or what I think goes best with it and I worry that I would quickly defeat the purpose. The recipe I recently tried that was SunBasket, one thing I hesitated on was cooking the salmon in a pan; I usually bake Salmon in the oven. But I tried it in the pan because I thought, "Well, I should probably try it as intended or else I won't be able to say I like Sun Basket," but I regretted it. It is harder to cook it correctly in a pan and I didn't like it as well. It makes me wonder if they do certain things a particular way to stay within a time boundary, rather than what will taste the best.

[Lady Florida.]

 I might get a box once a month as a special treat week. 

 

Can you just order whenever you want without having a subscription? I've been thinking of trying either Blue Apron or Hello Fresh. I've always enjoyed cooking and I'm good at it but lately I'm just tired of planning and shopping. 

[Night Elf]

I will say that after I used their promo, I put the service on what I thought was an indefinite pause in case I wanted to use them again for a week or something later on.  Well, I made an error and it wasn't an indefinite pause, it was just for 30 days. So I woke up one morning and saw my cc had been charged. I was really bummed, but realized it was my mistake so I figured we'd just eat the meals. I called them to figure out how the pausing worked and the lady refunded my money on the spot and offered to cancel my account so it didn't happen again. I mean, I've always had companies try to upsell me or harass me into staying when I call to cancel. This rep made the offer to cancel for me and said I could rejoin anytime.

 

So...excellent customer service from Hello Fresh.

 

I'm glad to hear they have good customer service. I looked at my account and I don't see an option to pause service, only directions on how to skip weeks. I log in every Tuesday to accept or skip the next week. 

[Night Elf]

Can you just order whenever you want without having a subscription? I've been thinking of trying either Blue Apron or Hello Fresh. I've always enjoyed cooking and I'm good at it but lately I'm just tired of planning and shopping. 

 

That's what I was just commenting on EmseB's post about pausing service. If you'd like, you can go on their website and do their live chat and ask them that. I only know how to skip weeks, but that means I have to sign in every week to either skip the meals or choose the 3 meals I want delivered. If I don't do one or the other, they automatically send their chosen 3 to you and charge you. I have a reminder in my phone so I won't forget to sign in and take care of that.