My First HelloFresh Experience + Reader Discount

Cooking is not my strongest suit. More often than not I succumb to the temptation of take out on a weeknight. I mean really, my kitchen is small, I’m not great at cooking and there’s no shortage of delicious food options in Greenwich Village. I was super excited to try out HelloFresh which makes cooking a healthy meal at home easier by providing you all the ingredients and easy to follow recipes

Sorry food photography is also not my strongest suit– I made these meals for dinner after work which was great because they were super fast and convenient, but not so great because it was already dark out. Photos don’t do the taste justice 🙂 

How Hello Fresh Works

HelloFresh creates healthy, easy to follow recipes and then delivers all the ingredients to your door (or in my case, doorman).

You can choose from a classic box or vegetarian box. Both come with 3 recipes that make enough for 2 servings. With the classic box you can choose from 5 recipes every week, for veggie there’s only the 3 options. Even though I’m not vegetarian, I chose the veggie box since the recipes that week were easy to make dairy-free (just had to omit cheese on one of them) and I don’t eat red meat. Unfortunately they do not cater to dietary restrictions or allergies, but all ingredients are packaged separately should you omit something.

They are a subscription service but let you pause your account whenever you want.

• The classic box is $69 for 3 meals/ 6 servings
• The veggie box is $59 for 3 meals/ 6 servings.
• There’s also a family size option which doubles each recipe.

 

Your food comes in a refrigerated and insulated box that will keep everything cold up to 1 week. This is awesome because I was able to schedule the delivery while I was at work and not have to worry about my food going bad before I got home.

Each meal comes in it’s own, separate little box. Two thumbs up for organization.

What I made…

Vegetarian Tortilla Soup

I can’t believe I’ve never made tortilla soup before, it’s really not that complicated! Because of my lactose intolerance I skipped over the sprinkled cheese at the end, but it was obviously super easy to make this dish dairy free. I was surprised by not only how flavorful this soup was, but also how filling it was with just black beans in there for protein. The fresh avocado on top was arguably my favorite part. I reheated the second portion of this soup the next evening for dinner and topped it off with what was left of the avocado.

 

Veggie Lo Mein

This veggie packed lo mein was SO good. Adding mushrooms, green beans and carrots into the mix made eating Chinese food feel a little less indulgent. I was real excited to eat the reheated leftovers the next day for lunch. I should’ve waited to make this dish with Jeremy because he would’ve loved it, but am secretly happy I got to enjoy the left overs myself 🙂

I didn’t end up making the final dish, a sweet potato and raise pita with hummus but gifted it to my parents to enjoy. I’m not crazy about raisins.

 

Overall, I really loved HelloFresh and both dishes I ended up making. Somethings I really loved about it:

Super easy. If I can cook it, you probably can do. Both recipes were listed to only take about 30 minutes. Do to my subpar chopping skills it probably took more like 45 from start to finish. I didn’t burn down my apartment though and everything was not just edible but really really delicious. I’m not just saying that to make me feel better about my cooking.

Takes out the guess work. I think I would enjoy cooking more if someone told me what to cook, and if the grocery store had all the ingredients I needed. I don’t mind grocery shopping but I hate planning out what I’m going to buy and all. Maybe this is an NYC thing, but more often than not I have my heart set on making something and then I get to the grocery store and their out of one of the ingredients totally ruining my plan. All the guess work is done for me, all I have to do is supply olive oil, chop some veggies and follow the recipe.

Forces me to make something new. On the rare occasion I do cook, I make the same dish. Over and over again. It was nice to have something different for dinner that I cooked for a change.

You can check the menu. I like that you get a heads up of what’s on the menu for next week. For picky eaters like me it makes it easy to plan ahead.

 

My biggest complaints are that it’s pretty limiting for people with dietary restrictions. I realize I’m an especially limited eater sometimes– I don’t eat red meat or pork, I’m lactose intolerant and I’m also just plain picky. Pickiness aside, some weeks there are not enough options that are red meat-free and dairy-free. I also wish the recipes came as sheets of paper instead of as a book. I’m real messy in the kitchen (what a surprise) so got some oil splatters on the booklet after the first night of cooking.

Bottom line: Would I do it again and pay? Yes, but would have to check the menus beforehand and more sure there were enough options for me. What I did make was seriously so delicious and a reminder that I actually enjoy cooking when I take the time to do it. I’ve never done Blue Apron before so can’t compare the two.

Reader Discount

Get 30% off your first Hello Fresh order with code KAYLA30

Disclaimer: I received 3 free meals from Hello Fresh. As always, all opinions are my own.