Hello Fresh Review – Cooking up a storm

We’ve been getting Hello Fresh boxes for about two months now and have cooked over 24 meals, so I thought now would be a good time to write a bit of a Hello Fresh review.

This by no means is a sponsored post, it’s totally genuine and is aimed at you fellow foodies and anyone considering the food delivery boxes…

Hello Fresh Review

The Process

First things first in my Hello Fresh review is talking you through the process of how it works. We all know subscription boxes are the thing of the moment and if you’re anything like me, you could do without another direct debit going out of your account each month! You might also worry about signing-up for something, that you have to remember to cancel so you don’t get charged or don’t become subject to penalty fees. Well worry not with the Hello Fresh Box…

Yes, you sign-up with your direct debit account. Yes, the money goes out every week and rolls on until you cancel it. BUT, there are NOT any cancellation fees. There are NOT any minimum sign-up clauses. And it’s really REALLY easy to stop, pause or re-start your boxes at any point.

You do it all online, or even better, via their free app on your phone. Once you’ve signed-up, you’ll be able to log-in to your account, see your up-coming deliveries, change them, pause them or stop them. All at a click of a button. It really is that simple.

So, if like me, you were worried you might decide that some months it’s an unnecessary expense, you can pause your boxes with a few days’ notice and no money leaves your account! You can then re-start them without having to go through the sign-up process again.

Value for money

Now, this is obviously a subjective thing, but in my opinion, I’d say the Hello Fresh boxes represent good value for money. For the purposes of my Hello Fresh review, here’s how much we pay and how I equate it to our usual shopping bill:

Classic Box for 2 people = £39 p/wk and gives you 3 meals. This works out at £6.50 per meal. 

Now I’d easily spend c. £100 a week on groceries for the two of us, give or take and a large portion of it would end up in the bin as it would go off or we wouldn’t have planned our meals properly to account for days we were out, working, away etc. So I’d say we probably wasted up to £30 per week some weeks.

With our box, we have food sorted for 3 nights of the week. We’ll then get 1 take-away per week. Which leaves me with 3 nights to shop for. There’s no way 3 nights of shopping costs us £60. In fact, it’s probably less than half of this. But for the purposes of my Hello Fresh review, lets round up and say I spend another £30 on food for dinner for the week.

So in total, on average, I’d now say I spend £39 + £30 = £69 per week on groceries. SAVING ME APPROX £40 PER WEEK!

So that’s definite value for money in my books.

The food – what’s it actually like?

In all honesty? Bloody good! I was skeptical when that Hello Fresh Brand Ambassador turned-up at my door and started asking me what food I like. I was doubtful when I was told we’d receive hearty portions and great quality produce. If I’m totally honest, I was too polite to send him away and signed-up, with the whole intention of getting my first couple of boxes and then cancelling.

BUT, when that first box rocked-up, I couldn’t contain my excitement as I unpacked everything, discovering all the new ingredients and perusing the recipes that I’d be creating that week. In fact, I filmed my first Hello Fresh experience and you can see the video here.

What I love about the boxes is that you get a good variety of food. I was in a total rut of cooking the same 5 or 6 dishes on a loop, over and over again. Not only was this boring, but I was losing the enjoyment of cooking and my weight-loss had plateaued. And I found it a chore thinking about what to cook every day. So much so that we were more routinely eating-out and ordering take-aways. Not good.

So I love that with the Hello Fresh boxes, the thought is taken away as you get your recipes for the week and we are eating a much richer variety of foods.

Plus, there are foods I love, but never cooked at home, as getting the ingredients in would prove difficult, or you know those ones where you need a mix of 15 spices and you look in your spice rack and realise half of the jars date back to 2008? The beauty of Hello Fresh, is that you get the exact ingredients, the exact amount for that dish and none of the shopping around!

The results

I never cease to be amazed at my culinary skills with the boxes and we’re always impressed by the flavours and portion size of the dishes we make. None take more than 30-40 minutes to make and if any take longer, it’s just in the oven and the prep time is fairly minimal. This means that if you’re working and/or a parent, those precious moments of your evening aren’t wasted.

And guess what? No wastage! We always clean our plate, but are happily full and satisfied and I never chuck away bags of vegetable or meat that I’ve not managed to cook that week.

What about Slimming World?

Those of you that follow this blog, know I’m on Slimming World. Well I was super happy to find out that the Hello Fresh boxes are really easily adapted to be on-plan or are really low syn. My advice would be to substitute any olive oil for Fry-light like you would usually and syn anything like the fresh pasta for example. It’s worth doing it properly and the meals are either syn-free or low syns, as their portions of cheese etc. are often round about the size of your Healthy Extra.

So there we have it, my Hello Fresh review after approx 2 months and 24 meals cooked. Bloody loving it!

Money off?

If you want to give it a go, then sign-up for your first Hello Fresh box and use the code JFYGL3 to get money off your first box.

If you do, let me know and tag me in your pics on Instagram (@_hollygoeslightly) so I can see you cooking up a storm.