Hello Fresh Recipe and Meal Delivery

Ken and I are always trying to find new ways to keep dinner exciting. We’re both pretty busy at work so grocery shopping is the last thing we want to spend time doing, especially on weeknights. Ken’s coworker mentioned Hello Fresh, and we signed up for a free week of meals. Hello Fresh is similar to Blue Apron, Plated, and the other recipe and food delivery services that have popped up in New York. We’ve tried Blue Apron a few times but decided to stop because the recipes took too long to actually make. I also burnt some of the ingredients once because I overcooked them (but according to the directions on the recipe card).

Hello Fresh arrived at our apartment on a Tuesday morning and was packed with lots of freezer packs for the proteins and vegetables. One thing I really like about Hello Fresh is everything is compartmentalized; you get three boxes that have everything except the protein, which is packed under all of the boxes with the freezer packs to keep them cold:

With Blue Apron, sometimes it was a hassle to separate out all of the ingredients and figure out what went together (and to put everything in the fridge, it was annoying to have little pieces of garlic or herbs just sitting around).

For our first week’s delivery, we received three different types of proteins and ended up liking two of them. The third option, the mahi mahi, had a prepare by date that was before we got to it so we decided to throw it out just to be safe.

For our second week, Ken and I made the steak with cabbage and a Pastrami-like sauce:

We weren’t sure about this recipe because of the cabbage that required cooking down, but it ended up being really tasty. I love Sir Kensington ketchup (and all of their products) and this delivery included a travel size ketchup and mayonnaise AND a coupon for a full sized version of either! The recipes are very straightforward, which I appreciate (although one of my friends that has tried it said he thought the recipes were a bit on the bland side). The steak was easy to prepare as was the cabbage and the accompanying sauce. We seared the steak while we were sautéing the cabbage and then plated it with dill:

The steak was very tasty (it included a Pastrami-like rub that was also sprinkled on the cabbage) and the meal was so easy to make. We really liked the two weeks we did Hello Fresh but ended up canceling it (for now) because our travel schedules were unpredictable and I didn’t want the food to go bad if we weren’t going to be home. The portions were also a little more generous than Blue Aprons, which meant I had enough to bring them for lunch the next day! I definitely recommend trying Hello Fresh if you’re looking for a recipe and food delivery program and I think we’ll be back in the fall!