I’m not sure why I didn’t think about using a meal delivery service back in March when everyone was terrified of going to the grocery store and there were long lines to get food. But it finally dawned on me after my best friend mentioned that he and his family use Hello Fresh. I’d seen their boxes on neighbors’ doorsteps in the past but never used them. I did use Blue Apron when they first came out but back then, we were traveling so much that we weren’t home frequently enough for a lot of cooking.
I don’t do a lot of cooking but fortunately, my wife does. I mentioned Hello Fresh to Natalie and she was open to trying it because the menu and app do a great job selling their meals.
The tipping point was when I saw a Hello Fresh commercial offering a promo code for $60 off (TV60). I signed us up and ordered. Note: We get our box on Thursdays. If you want to change your order, you need to do it at least five days in advance.
You can pick low-calorie, family-friendly, veggie, or meat and veggies. We chose the latter and we do three meals for two people a week. So far, we’ve had four boxes delivered and everything has been great, including their customer service.
Warning: Hello Fresh automatically picks the meals for you so if you don’t go into the app and remove their choices and pick your own, you’ll get whatever meals they choose to send. That’s what happened the first week and I only noticed it Monday morning, which, by then, was too late to cancel. So I contacted Hello Fresh via the app and was told we’d be credited for that box and to just donate it. We donated it to our former nanny and she was very grateful.
The following week we learned a lot about Hello Fresh.
First, the food arrives in a well-insulated box with three separate bags of neatly packaged and perfectly measured ingredients for each meal.
If your meal contains meat, you’ll find it below the bags in between two huge ice-packs that I think will last for while, possibly 24 hours.
Out of the seven meals we’ve eaten, my wife and I have given six of them 5 out of 5 stars. The only one we didn’t like was the tomato risotto because of the custom spice blend that was included. Something just wasn’t right about the flavors and neither of us were fans. Our favorites have been the pulled chicken tacos and the crispy parmesan chicken (pictured above.
Unfortunately, since the travel biz is in dire straits right now, I’m not going to continue with my Hello Fresh subscription because it’s expensive for us at $8 per person per meal. But if I had a regular income, it would be great because the meals are delicious, easy to make (according to my wife) and they’re giving her all kinds of ideas. However, thus far, she has never added the butter or sugar that some recipes call for because they don’t need it and God knows my body sure doesn’t.
If you are traveling, you can go into the app and just edit your delivery options and skip as many weeks as you would like. I do have a promo code for $40 off and I would get $20 off future meals but it’s not as good as the TV promo code I mentioned above—or better yet, the American Airlines promo code for $80 off and 2,000 bonus miles that I just learned about. I’m kicking myself for not taking advantage of that deal.
If you love to cook, or don’t want to go to the store but want to make fun, creative meals at home, I recommend giving Hello Fresh a shot. You might really enjoy it like we do.
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