A Comprehensive Review of Meal Kit Delivery Service, HelloFresh

HelloFresh has been promoted so much lately by Youtubers and the algorithm. It's like the new Best Fiends. Or I guess, the new Raid: Shadow Legends to be more current. Do you remember when everyone and their momma was telling you to download that game? I typically bypass everything promoted by Youtubers for the simple fact that they're being paid to push it. I passed on Sugar Bear Hair, Skinny Tummy Tea, that Honey Browser Extension and even that Function of Beauty shampoo but for some reason, this intrigued me.

I hate cooking. Everyone who knows me, knows this. It's not even that I'm a terrible cook. I'm decent but just the act of grocery shopping, meal planning and prep, having leftover ingredients that I'll never use, it's so exhausting. Not to mention the cleanup afterwards. Yikes! My aversion often means that I go weeks without cooking a single meal and eat everything on bread which I acknowledge isn't the healthiest habit. I also spend an inordinate amount of money getting takeaway.

A meal delivery service that would pack all of the required ingredients and no more (no food waste!) and leave detailed instructions for quick, delicious meals? Sign me up!

Full disclosure: I've actually tried out HelloFresh before this review and didn't have such an amazing experience. The service was superb but a couple of the meals I tried were less than amazing. I don't know, maybe it was my particular palate. I've decided to give it another go, mainly because I've swung back to my routine of just eating everything on bread and my stomach and skin are not too happy about the lack of variety. I thought I'd share my experience.

Initial Thoughts:

1. As per usual, the service was amazing. I have actually moved into a new apartment since the last time I got HelloFresh delivered and forgot to update my address before placing my order. Customer service was really understanding and accommodating and fixed the issue for me.
2. My box arrived on time on Tuesday at around 10AM. Fedex actually showed up in the middle of my morning lecture so I had to quickly switch off my webcam and awkwardly shuffle downstairs while my headphones were cutting in and out because of the distance.
3. One of the brown paper bags containing one of my meals was torn and something leaked out. I don't know what it was but it smelled God awful. Not ideal. My fridge also now smells awful. :(
4. There's also something to be said about the amount of single-use plastic packaging that HelloFresh uses to store ingredients. I think this is an area they can improve on. 9/10 times it's not recyclable here in Ontario and honestly, they can do better. I hope they work to improve on this in the future.
5. In terms of the meals I ordered, this week I chose the Roasted Salmon with Crispy Potatoes, Burst Tomatoes and Green Beans; the Bocconcini Romesco Pasta with Cavatappi and Parsley and the BBQ Ranch Burger with Beyond Meat and Fries.

This cost me CAD$68.93 which works out to be around $11.50 per serving. Kind of steep but less than what I typically spend getting food delivered every week.

Meal #1: Roasted Salmon with Crispy Potatoes, Burst Tomatoes and Green Beans 8/10

Ok, my plating is not as good as theirs. Still, this was pretty frickin' great. I'm not a huge fan of green beans if I'm honest but in this meal, it was masked by the taste of the tomatoes and the potatoes. The salmon was so good! I might've cooked it a bit too long though. The potatoes were the true star of this meal though!

No complaints here, though I'll dock points for the green beans. Do people actually like green beans? As a concept?

Meal #2: Bocconcini Romesco Pasta 7.5/10

I love pasta and it's really difficult to mess up pasta. This was delicious. I really enjoyed the blend of flavours. There were a lot of flavours at work in this dish from the vinegar to the toasted almonds to the bocconcini cheese to the garlic but I thought it worked really well together. If I had one critique, it would be that the taste of parsley was particularly strong in this dish. I don't hate parsley but it was a bit much. Also, remember when I said earlier that something had spilled and made everything smell awful! I found out what it was when I made this dish. The red wine vinegar packets (both of them!) had been ripped and spilled out!

Luckily, I had balsamic vinegar on hand so I just substituted it but I guess I'll never know what the chefs intended this dish to taste like because one of the key ingredients in this dish was not used. For this reason, although it was pretty tasty in the end, I'm docking 2.5 points.

Meal #3: BBQ Ranch Burger 9/10

Again, I'm not a chef so please forgive my plating. Ngl, once I see anything with Beyond Meat in it, it's an instant hit for me. I've been pescatarian for a very long time and one thing I miss from my meat-eating days is a good, juicy burger. This meal hit all the points. There was an interesting mix of flavours from the savoury ranch to the crunchy pickles to the tangy BBQ sauce. It was pretty amazing.

Final Verdict:

I like HelloFresh. In fact, my weekly box arrived earlier today and I can't wait to get cooking. I recognize that it's not for everyone as it's significantly more expensive than just meal prepping and grocery shopping yourself. For someone like me, I think it helps me to eat a wider variety of meals. Although before my diet pretty much consisted of avocado toast and oatmeal so 'variety' as a concept is not that hard to achieve. It also ensures that there's less food waste in my household each week as I don't have to buy an entire bottle of ranch or a whole jar of pickles to make a one-off recipe. It gets a thumbs up from me.

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