Wednesday, April 13, 2016

Hello Fresh {Review}

After having such a great experience with Blue Apron, I have totally become sold on the concept of boxed meal delivery services. So when I found a coupon code for Hello Fresh giving me $30 off, I had to give that one a try too!

HINT: If you download their app on your phone, use the code FRESHAPP at checkout to get the $30 off!

It couldn't hurt to get 3 meals for 2 people for $39 instead of $69, right?!?! That's only $6.50 per serving! You can't even eat take-out for those costs. I know this because the other day I went to get take-out for lunch and a salad cost me $8!!! And it wasn't even a good salad. It was just an okay salad. So if I can have a healthy, fresh and fun dinner...then heck yes I'll try it!

Prior to the delivery arriving we were given five options of meals to chose from and got to pick three of those for the week. Dusty and I selected:
  • Lemony Pan-Seared Chicken with Pesto Potato Salad and Peas
  • Fiery Pork Fajitas with Blistered Peppers and Guacamole
  • Jamie's Oozy Zucchini Risotto with Buffalo Mozzarella and Fresh Basil
There were two other options that week of: Salmon en Papillote and Lasagna Penne Bake. We chose the three recipes above because they sounded the most interesting and unique out of the group, plus I wanted to try the risotto since it was a Jamie Oliver recipe. He contributes one recipe each week and they all look fabulous and a notch above the rest!


Our order arrived on Thursday via UPS. When the food arrived, it was packaged in pre-portioned and separated boxes by the recipe with the complete nutritional table on the box for each recipe. I love that! The caloric value of each recipe ranged from 550-700 calories, which I view as the perfect amount for a solid family dinner.
 
The first recipe we made was the Fiery Pork Fajitas with Blistered Peppers and Guacamole. The flavors of the vegetables and pork were on point. Perfect amount of heat without being unbearable. We were disappointed in this recipe because the tortillas were suppose to be spinach-flour tortillas and apparently we missed out since we were shipped plain white flour tortillas. Also, we were bummed to find that one-fourth of the red onion was rotten and the avocado was borderline unusable. I thought it was suppose to be "fresh" produce???
 
 
After a somewhat disappointing first meal, we continued on and made Jamie Oliver's Oozy Zucchini Risotto with Buffalo Mozzarella and Fresh Basil. I've only ever made risotto using Ina Garten's fool-proof oven technique, so making it the old fashioned way was going to be a new and fun culinary challenge. This dish was vegetarian but you did not walk away from dinner hungry! You got so much food for two people with this dish, that both Dusty and I couldn't finish our bowl of risotto. And when they say "oozy," they mean it! This dish had 4 ounces of fresh mozzarella for two servings and the ooey gooey strings of cheese were insane!
 
 
The third and final dish we made was the Lemony Pan-Seared Chicken with Pesto Potato Salad and Peas. Overall this dish had awesome flavor from the pesto, but was nothing really special. I felt like I could have thrown this dish together myself with the items in my pantry and fridge, and definitely not worth $6.50 per serving ($11.50 without the discount....ouch!). There really isn't a lot to say about this dish since it was so mediocre.
 
 
After 3 different dinners over 3 nights, Dusty and I came to an agreement that we would not continue our subscription with Hello Fresh and that we prefer Blue Apron much more. I do like the fact that Hello Fresh has a referral program that helps to cut the costs of meals if you have friends sign up using your code! I posted my code on Twitter once randomly and somebody I didn't know used it to sign up and I got $20 off my next box. So who knows, maybe I'll give them another try in the future, but for now I'm sticking with Blue Apron.
 
Have you tried Blue Apron or Hello Fresh? What did you think? Which one did you prefer? I'd love to hear your experiences!
 
 
Note: This review is not paid for or sponsored in any way, shape or form. All opinions are my own.  Also, follow me on SnapChat (Hi-Line Healthy) to see step-by-step reviews and details of my Hello Fresh and/or Blue Apron experiences each week :) 




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