This was a couple years ago so idk about now. The intro deals just about make it worth it but would never pay full price. I’d say take the best intro offer you can get, use it and find new things you like/learn how to cook more and when the intro is over you can cancel and keep making the recipes you like
It was good to learn how to rationalize the food and prepare it. After two months with HelloFresh, cancel it and start groceries and preparing lunch and dinner boxes with your learning you will miles ahead of keeping paying for their service.
France. Recipes are sometimes not at all what is pictured, they always tell you to use way too much salt and I feel like some ingredients get updated and they never check the recipe. The portions are very uneven and most of the time very small. If you know how to cook it’s fine and you end up with edible food. If you blindly follow the recipe you’ll end up with junk half the time.
They pretend they cut food waste but I always end up with loads of seasonings in little bags because they give too much of everything. I’d rather have more of the base ingredients…
Their marketing is also toxic shit and they have the nasty trait of only giving vouchers when there’s an issue (pesto bag exploding for instance…).
I would not recommend.
HelloFresh in my country was very good actually. Easy to follow instructions, ingredients just enough for the recipes with no leftovers.
Only negative were small portions. You never felt really full after eating dinner, and it was pretty expensive.edit: oh and the food was often very tasty as well. Basic but good
The meals and ingredients weren’t as good as other services, but it was generally ok. Fresh Prep I found to be a bit more consistent, and the meals tastier.
UK - we preferred Gousto
The meals are fine, but they tend to be fairly basic and safe. If you can already cook then you will probably find most of the food pretty boring. If you can’t cook then it’s a good way to learn some basics.
The 20 mins meals are all pretty salty and meh, going beyond that is decent. I do it occasionally to force me out of my cooking comfort zone. It’s good as it lets you try things with ingredients you would never normally have.
It has some plastic waste (was more than ‘normal’ cooking, but no where near others (Gusto is awful for waste). Some recipes are worse than others though.
Don’t use it if your not getting a deal on it. If you quit they will offer you another discount.
I tried them for a few months and cancelled.
For me, the quality of the recipes was poor. It was the kind of stuff I’d make when i’d just moved out from home and was learning to cook for the first time. Boring. Simplistic.
There’s also way too much trash. There’s a big cardboard box, a few ice packs, and a mound of pre-portioned ingredients each in little plastic bags. They cheerfully say you can keep the ice packs and reuse them! How many fucking ice packs can one person use?? Anybody can use a couple of ice packs. No one alive needs 2 new ice packs a week.
If you aren’t a confident cook and/or you need some inspiration for new things to make, it’s totally worth it for a few weeks or months. After that, though, I think most people will outgrow it.
Good but expensive. I really appreciated them doing the organizing for me. Unfortunately, I had trouble keeping up with the stuff they sent me and a lot of it went bad in the fridge.
The best part was all the recipes for sauces. I never make sauces on my own and I still don’t, but it was great making them when they gave you all the ingredients and told you what to do.
Only heard of them through an endless stream of YouTube sponsorships, but apparently their food sometimes comes with a side of listeria.
It is easy but boring and expensive.
As a pescatarian, I ultimately moved on from them to Blue Apron. It was too expensive to get anything with protein from HelloFresh, and their vegetarian meals were basically all pastas. I got pretty sick of eating pasta non-stop.
I enjoy the food and the recipes have a pretty good variety. They tout the fact that you can keep the recipes and make them again with ingredients you get the old fashioned way, but there’s always that one obscure ingredient (of which you only need a little) that makes it tricky. They expect you’ll have some ingredients on hand, like butter (lots of butter, actually…)
And of course, with the preparation of dividing things out, extra packaging, shipping, etc… It does get expensive. That’s a large part of what held me back from getting it routinely. I also remember some pricing/customer service shenanigans that were annoying but can’t remember what.
But when my daughter was in NICU long-term (doing well now!) a friend abroad got us a gift card or whatever to help us with meals. It was pretty nice for that unique time.
The food is excellent! I did not realize how easy it is to make a hamburger at home. That being said, it’s very expensive even with the sales. My kits were for two people and it was just enough, no leftovers. Came out to $16-18 for the two of us? We can eat out with leftovers for that much.
Really wondering where you live. Outside of fast food, there’s very little I could get to feed one person in that price range where I live.
East TN. Tri-Cities, in the upper corner. and no alcohol in my calculations of eating out. Just stuff like chilis.
Exactly what I was thinking. I live in a smaller medium sized metro in the US Midwest and finding any restaurant where two of us can get a decent full meal with a cocktail/beer for each of us for under $40 is rare.
