The Hello Fresh site is easy to navigate, clearly laid out, easy to find and understand the terms and conditions as well as aesthetically pleasing to browse. Off to a good start.There are three plans to choose from: The Classic Plan which allows you to pick your meals, how many to serve (2 or 4 adults) and frequency of delivery (3, 4 or 5 meals per week) at $9.90 - $11.50 a person depending on frequency of delivery, the higher the frequency, the cheaper the meal. The Veggie Plan which allows you to select 2 or 4 adults, but your frequency is limited to 3 time per week, there are no other delivery options. This means the cost per meal will vary between $9.08 - $9.83 per meal. The Family Plan serves 4 (2 adults, 2 children), your delivery options are 2 or 3 times per week and the cost is $ 8.75 - $9.99 per meal, again the more you buy the cheaper it is. For all plans the shipping is free.
I selected the The Family Plan, two meals a week. My thinking was cook once but have two meals, one for now, one for later. This strategy comes in handy with a crazy week-night schedule, sometimes cooking a meal is not an option and I hate wasting money on fast-food garbage. This way, put the leftovers on a plate and reheat. The total price was $79.95 subtract my $50 Valpak coupon and bingo, first delivery was scheduled for Saturday morning. All I had to do was wait. On Thursday I received an email & text from FedEx stating my package would arrive between 7:55 AM & 9:55 AM on Saturday and sure enough, the FedEx guy pulls up while I'm sitting at the counter having my morning coffee. I hauled the package inside, it was surprisingly heavy. The outside package was undamaged which is a good sign. Split the tape and took my first peek inside the box.
You can see the two meals partitioned within the box, veggies, spices, rice, potatoes, etc. The two meals they sent were Glazed Chicken with Green Beans & Coconut Rice and Roasted Pork Tenderloin with Lemony Potato & Zucchini Hash. Upon inspection of the ingredients, most made it through the shipping process unscathed. The zucchinis did have some dings and the potatoes a bit banged up, but overall everything was still edible. I then began to wonder where the meat was. I discovered you have to lift the top boxes out of the larger box and directly below them were two huge ice packs. Now I understand why the box is so heavy. You could put these two packs in a cooler and
keep a case of beer warm all day. I wasn't quite sure what to do with them, they would take up a lot of room in your freezer. If you have a box freezer, they'd probably be great to keep on hand. However, I don't have a spare freezer and they take up valuable space. I'm thinking I won't keep them but it's a shame to just throw them out. I pried up the ice pack layer and below were the packages of pork and chicken. They were still cold and intact. I was somewhat surprised not to find a liner to keep things cool inside the box.
Contents are laid out on the counter together and separated into the individual meals to be cooked.
The next day I had time to do some cooking and decided to try the the pork recipe first. The prep work was easy, dicing the potatoes and zucchini, slicing the scallions and mincing the garlic. The recipe called for two baking sheets, one for the potatoes the other for the zucchini. I simply used one larger sheet, put the potatoes on one side and started them earlier than the zucchini. Any chance I have to save on dishwashing, I'm going to take it. Popped the zucchini in and seared the pork, then popped the tenderloins on the same sheet, right over top of the zucchini. In the same pan as the pork was seared in, made the sauce. Now I can't say I'm a fan of searing meat inside, it stinks up the place, but I did it. I get that searing helps keep the meat juicy, but unless you have a good stove fan, consider searing it on the grill. I plated the food and my son and I sat down to eat. Unfortunately we were both underwhelmed. It was just ok, didn't have a lot of flavor, meat was cooked fine. Maybe I'm spoiled, but I like my food to have flavor, using lots fresh herbs and tend to put in a bit extra garlic, but that's just me.
There were extras for leftovers, enough to have another meal later in the week, so that aspect worked out well. Wednesday was my next day where I had a bit of time to cook. Out came the the chicken recipe. Got everything prepped, unfortunately within a couple days, some of the green beans had to be thrown out. The plastic bags they came in didn't do much for keeping them fresh. I would recommend transferring things to a container to keep them fresher for longer, if you're not going to cook the recipes within a couple days. Also, one of the ingredients is fresh ginger and the recipe says you can mince or grate. I tried to mince, I had the mincer out already for the garlic...failure. It just smushed the ginger so I then had to chop it up, pain in the butt. Hint: just grate the ginger. Similar to the pork recipe, you have to saute the chicken in olive oil. So not a fan of this method of cooking. Stinky house later... oh well. The glaze made with soy sauce, ginger, garlic, honey and water was easy and tasty. And I will have to say that making the coconut rice smelled good while cooking it, but again the recipe fell flat. My son and I weren't fans of how the chicken turned out, the green beans and rice were the best part of the recipe. The saltiness of the sauce with the slight sweetness of the rice paired well together. I believe it's simply a matter of how we're used to cooking our meats, I usually bake, grill or crockpot them. Frying and sauteing isn't something done frequently in the house.
Overall, everything was just ok. The recipes, prep, clean-up, just ok. However, I decided to give it one more delivery, see what the next pair of meals would be. The box came Saturday morning, perfectly on time. The box was still heavy, but I expected it this time. Picked it up and noticed it was wet, not damp, wet. I smelled my hands, but couldn't determine what was leaking. When I opened the box and pulled out the individual boxes, I could see there was water and meat juice / blood all over the inside. I began to disassemble the packaging, starting with the smaller two and found there was liquid all over the produce and containers in both boxes. I had to rinse and dry everything just to put it in the fridge. When I got to the ice packs they were not the same brand as prior, but a much cheaper made variety that were almost all water, meaning this box had been sitting somewhere for longer than expected. I picked them up and could tell that one of them had a leak in it. I pulled the ice packs out, quickly moving them to the sink and then saw the other culprit, one of the beef packages had popped open along the seam, the pressure of the ice packs and other food on top must have been too much. In addition to the blood / juice being everywhere, the beef didn't smell good, like it was beginning to rot. Disgusting! I immediately bagged it up and threw it out. As I looked inside the big box I could see about a 1/4 inch of water / blood along the bottom. I dumped it out and took the box outside. Ugh! I emailed the company with the issue and am hoping to hear back from them.
I haven't cooked up the two new recipes yet which are: Tangy Beef Stir Fry & Pork and Apple Meatloaf, that'll be sometime this week. The beef recipe does have me cooking the meat in a heated skillet, however the pork recipe might be ok. If they end up being outstanding, I'll definitely let you guys know. As far as my subscription, I cancelled it. Having to clean up all the blood and water in the box along with mediocre recipes, it simply didn't make sense for me to continue with a service that I wasn't completely happy with. The sending of planned meals in a box is enticing, it takes a lot of the weekly meal planning out of the equation. I may try another service similar to this one, so if you have any recommendations, please send them my way.
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