Hello Fresh - anybody tried it?

My wife ordered a weeks worth of of meals for three from Hello Fresh.

It was on special offer so it cost just over £30 which is a bargain and even at full price, it’s still good value.

The concept is a good one I’m my opinion, you get almost all of the ingredients and a recipe card with cooking instructions.

So far we’ve tried two of the meals but probably won’t have any more. It’s not that they aren’t nice and you get decent size portions but they aren’t particularly healthy (which is not what you’d expect from their USP).

Each portion is 800-1000 calories and there are plenty of unhealthy ingredients (30% fat mince, creme fresh, cheddar cheese, chorizo etc).

As I’ve just had a stent fitted this week, my wife is understandably somewhat over cautious and hyper sensitive about what we’re eating at the moment so we’ll be using the fresh ingredients to make more healthy meals and refrain from future purchases from Hello Fresh.

Has anyone else tried HF or another one of these schemes? If so, I’d be interested to hear your thoughts.

My colleague gets Hello Fresh regularly and rates them. We were actually discussing trying them about an hour ago coincidentally.

We’ve had Gusto a number of times and that’s good. After a while you can easily make a lot of it yourself as you have all the recipe cards and many of the store cupboard ingredients can be replicated over a number of meals.

I tried HF for 2 months at the start of lockdown on 40-50% off (when I was stuck on my own for 6 months as couldn't get across to my family) and it was reasonable value at discount - but I wouldn't pay full price. The ingredients were not always that fresh, and the portions were small (but that says more about me probably!). I now prefer Simply Cook (spices only).

I highly rate Hello Fresh.

They provide very high quality products with the meals (meat/veg/condiments) that makes all the difference and found meals I would not normally enjoy, taste great.

Each meals comes with its own hard copy of a step by step guide that are easy to follow and range from 20 - 35 mins, preparation to cooked. The instructions are useful because you can collect them up and when you establish a favourite meal it lists all the ingredients you need so you could source the ingredients yourself.

It's been a great way for me to expand my meal base.

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Originally Posted by jukeboxs

I tried HF for 2 months at the start of lockdown on 40-50% off (when I was stuck on my own for 6 months as couldn't get across to my family) and it was reasonable value at discount - but I wouldn't pay full price. The ingredients were not always that fresh, and the portions were small (but that says more about me probably!). I now prefer Simply Cook (spices only).

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I agree the portions were small but then I like a hearty meal.

We use them on and off. Nice food and having everything present is great as you don’t have to think. Most recipes are quick. Give them a go if you get a discount offer.

Seems like their designed for the lazy…sorry short of time. It’s really not hard to buy ingredients and create dishes. Recepie cards…ever heard of a cook book?! I can recommend Stanley Tucci’s new book amount others. All it requires is a bit of forward planning. If you’re going to do this might as well just go to ‘Cook’!

Dave not tried Fresh , but more importantly good luck with your recuperation , nows the time to dig out that Kawasaki project and finish it :) Steve

Hi Dave.
We tried them when Mrs Kojak was on slimming World. Bit of a waste in my opinion, they were OK but vastly overpriced compared to buying the stuff yourself. I'm more than happy to plan out a food diary and organise a weeks shopping.
That said... in lockdown (lots of time to shop and prep meals) we were fantastic at this. Since work has started again the laziness has set back in (almost 3 stone of laziness on my part!!)

If you're an organised sort then I'd recommend just designing your own food diary and buying the stuff yourself.
If you'd prefer to pay a bit of a premium to save some time then Hello Fresh is one of the best options out there.

We use them and find them excellent

We have 3 meals a week for around £30, my missus does add extra to pad them out if need be but for the most part they are Very tasty and worthwhile

We have had a few problems but their customer service is excellent and most often they just refund the weeks order in full

We do forget to actually place an order from time to time which means you get hello fresh meal Russian roulette but even then the meals they pick are normally ok, although last week they sent us a couple of butternut squash meals, but we ate them and simply substituted the squash for something else and fed the squash to the buns

Next week we are away so we have paused the delivery on the app and it will start again from the following Monday

All in all highly recommended


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We use them 3 weeks out of 4, only the vegetarian option (wife is veggie), but with this and other meals, it means I am now vegetarian approx 5 times a week. I think the variety and the meals are excellent.

We’re liking it - been using for 3 weeks or so. Good way to try out new recipes and get new ideas, kids love following recipe cards and helping out. Don’t think we’ve had a bad one yet, literally just sitting down after a stellar butternut squash and Parma ham linguine.

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Originally Posted by higham5

Dave not tried Fresh , but more importantly good luck with your recuperation , nows the time to dig out that Kawasaki project and finish it :) Steve

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Cheers Steve, there’s no recuperation necessary really because you feel better instantly. They say to take it easy and I’m not allowed to drive for a week so I’m not supposed to do anything except potter.

I keep sneaking into the garage; I’ve currently three projects on the go but I can’t really do much with them.

I’m doing Mexican Style Beef loaded wedges tonight but without the cheese and draining all the fat from the mince. If we do it again, we’ll use turkey mince though.

I've tried it once for 4 meals.. I thought the food was pretty tasty and very easy to cook. Both wife and I are pretty good in the kitchen so although it saved on prep, it wasn't that much faster than cooking from scratch. On the plus side it was great to have all the ingredients to hand rather than realising at the last minute I'd forgotten something.

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Originally Posted by dougair

Seems like their designed for the lazy…sorry short of time. It’s really not hard to buy ingredients and create dishes. Recepie cards…ever heard of a cook book?! I can recommend Stanley Tucci’s new book amount others. All it requires is a bit of forward planning. If you’re going to do this might as well just go to ‘Cook’!

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Loads of good recipes online, and years back - Waitrose had loads of recipe cards available at checkouts, which were really good.

I cook from scratch almost always, and take pride in being able to cook. But, I also grew up without ketchup, because my mother could cook too.

I wonder if there are people who criticise BREMONT for not producing their own movements…………………

who themselves can’t conjure up a home-produced meal??

Just sayin………….:shame:

The girlfriend wanted to try this for a few weeks, especially as it was on offer. As others have said, some super tasty recipes, and very convenient, but christ almighty some of the recipes are unhealthy. The portion sizes are often huge too. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but I, like others, was under the impression they were supposed to be on the healthier side. It’s certainly got us out of a little funk we’ve been in when it comes to meals, but we won’t be continuing beyond the offer period.

Just buy proper ingredients from local shops and cook?

Just saying.....

That’s basically our opinion too. I’ve done the Mexican style wedges tonight and it was very tasty but I didn’t have the cheese so pretty healthy.

I’ll certainly cook it again with one or two alterations to make it more healthy.

Part of me agrees but sometimes you need some inspiration. Though I find YouTube good for that.

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Originally Posted by Chris_in_the_UK

Just buy proper ingredients from local shops and cook?

Just saying.....

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Is it just me or does the name Hello Fresh sound like a feminine hygiene product from the 1980s?

I’ve not tried HF, but pleased your feeling better after the stent Dave+63. 👍🏻

Not tried it myself but daughter and her partner have. They have since moved to another one called Mindful Chef which they rate better.

https://www.mindfulchef.com/

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We used Hello Fresh in the past (mainly as a source of inspiration).

However, I found that Gousto offered a better selection of options. https://www.gousto.co.uk/

Used it, loved it, great value and great food.
Post on FB and 25 of your friends will have a code for 50% off

i heard mindful chef was the way to go, but have no personal experience.

lots of packaging to dispose of too apparently!

If you saw the conditions they gave the staff working in and how they treat people…..

You wouldnt buy it

Appalling


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Had them for a month. Some delicious meals. Highly recommended.

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We tried HF but changed to Gousto which I much prefer.

Only use it randomly though, not regularly.

Tried them, and was suitably impressed at first, albeit we always made sure we had a lot more meat in to add to each dish. But then the quality of the veg dropped off a cliff and we stopped ordering with them.

Tried a few simply cook, where they send the spices etc. and you make your own with whatever ingredients you buy locally, and they were pretty good, but expensive just for the flavourings.

The benefits are that I’ve tried dishes I otherwise never would have, but I’m pretty much a creature of habit in regards to my monthly intake.

Had our first Hello Fresh meal last night. It was very good. We can knock up a reasonable number of meals to a reasonable standard but often run out of inspiration when cooking most days of the week for 5 adults so we thought we would give it a go. We are not enthusiastic cooks so this might help!

Having received our first meals I thought there was a lot of packaging - most is recyclable but not all. The ingredients are all there and the recipe cards are easy to follow and gave us a good meal.

I think that we will keep it going for a while, collect some recipe cards that they send and 'go it alone' again rather than subscribe long term.

We've been using Gausto for a good while now and highly rate it. Tried HF for a couple of weeks but the app wouldn't let us choose our recipes, the veg was pretty old and dead in a couple of days and one week they didn't send any cards and as we were locked out the app we had to improvise with the ingredients!

We tend to order 4 meals for 2 for the week. I cook for the kids and us at different times so that's 8-10 meals a week and with clubs etc after school the kids need to be fed quickly after they get in. Having a couple of 10 minute meals in the cupboard is really helpful. Not lazy, just time poor!

Tried Hello Fresh and Gousto, the latter is better for us. The ingredients are fresher and a wider better range of recipes.

We had a couple of bad experiences with them during lockdown so are in no hurry to try them again. Maybe it was down to increased demand at the time but we had missing ingredients and meat which was inedible.

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Originally Posted by Zephyr

I’ve not tried HF, but pleased your feeling better after the stent Dave+63. ðŸ‘�ðŸ�»

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Thanks Zephyr, I think the shock of them telling me that they were going to fit one (whilst already on the operating table) was worse than the actual operation.

Apart from the pain of the tube being pushed into my arm, well more discomfort really, and my arm being subsequently bruised on the inside so no external indicators just a constant niggle all the way up my arm.

Anyhow, I digress; I’ve just ordered sixteen meals (4x4) from Gousto for £21.58 (60% off your first order) and £16.50 cash back through Topcashback

There’s also a link to get 60% off and £30 voucher for me which I’ll happily donate to the fundraiser.

cook.gousto.co.uk/raf/?promo_code=DAVID42782986&utm_source=weblink

I keep looking at these types of thing, but never ordered yet.

Tend to scratch cook most evenings as it is my way to unwind after work. Therefore I have most herbs & spices required as I’m pretty varied in my meal types.

Nearly 3 weeks of not having a kitchen is taking its toll for sure, only having a tiny microwave-combi oven & no space to prep. Really gone off food & being full of my first full-on cold in about 20 months is not helping.


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Just get a slow cooker, prep the night before (10-15 mins) and switch on before work. Over a year you’d surely save hundreds of pounds.

Used to hear my team at work saying two things quite a lot - “I use hello fresh” and “I’m skint”.

We normally cook from scratch but sometimes run out of ideas. The new menus give us a bit of variety.

Also buying sixteen meals for a little over four quid was too good to pass up.

We've tried HF as an alternative to gousto but went back to Gousto, more variety and tastier.

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My son is in 2nd year of uni, and picked up a handful of Hello Fresh 50% vouchers at freshers week.

Ingredients are fair, portion size reasonable, but the packaging waste in shameful.

A large, heavy cardboard box, large plastic padded bag, many smaller plastic bags and disposable ice blocks which are simply sealed plastic bags.

The boy and his housemates are environmentally conscious, and will not be renewing even at another 50% off.

My ex used these. The first time went well, I tried a few of the meals with her when I was staying at hers and they were nice. The second time she used them it went a little wrong. Just about every week the box would turn up missing ingredients. They kept saying it wouldn't happen again but it never got any better so she stopped using them.

My daughter who’s a veggie uses it regularly. From what I’ve seen they’ve got really good veg options.

Don’t know about the carnivorous ones.


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I just got back off holiday, we paused it for this week but forgot to pick for this week so I have £30 worth of Hello Fresh Russian roulette


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Originally Posted by daver777

i heard mindful chef was the way to go, but have no personal experience.

lots of packaging to dispose of too apparently!

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It is…. The packaging is quite eco friendly and you’re not having to drive the Chelsea tractor the local Waitrose! Tried both and mindful chef is far better…. A completely different league (we have the odd vegan day and it’s fab)

I have no idea why people chip in with their “just buy stuff from a supermarket” comments…. It’s as if it’d never occurred to people??? (such wisdom!)

The truth is on a busy week, it takes the ‘thinking’ out of things and provides interesting and tasty meals without the hassle of thinking / planning/ listing and shopping

I like to do my own cooking too of course, so. Just keep it to three meals a week…

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Originally Posted by Wolfie

I have no idea why people chip in with their “just buy stuff from a supermarket” comments…. It’s as if it’d never occurred to people??? (such wisdom!)

The truth is on a busy week, it takes the ‘thinking’ out of things and provides interesting and tasty meals without the hassle of thinking / planning/ listing and shopping

I like to do my own cooking too of course, so. Just keep it to three meals a week…

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Nobody suggested that?

Useful on the housekeepers night off.