It's Been 2 Years Since Our HelloFresh Review - Why We're Still Using HelloFresh

The following post is written by Jared. If you'd like to try HelloFresh, here's his referral link and receive your first box for free!

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Nearly 2 years ago, we did a review of HelloFresh and while we’ve tried other services like Sunbasket, Home Chef, and Factor, we’ve mainly stuck with HelloFresh. So while most reviews talk about using HelloFresh for a few weeks or maybe a month or 2, we thought it would make sense to write up why we’re still using the service after 2 years.

Yes, 2 full years of HelloFresh for nearly every week.

Besides, if you’re reading a review and debating about trying something, I’d hope that you’d trust someone that has been doing something for years rather than a few weeks.

In the original post, I broke down the review in to categories; if we were saving money, how much time it takes to cook a meal, if the service really is sustainable and eco-friendly, if the meals are healthy, and a section telling you things I’m not a fan of. If you don’t want to read the original article, here’s a quick recap:

1. Yes, we’re saving money using the service. Prior to using HelloFresh, our average grocery bill each week was around $250. Now we’re about $140; $90 for HelloFresh and $50 for other things like fruit, snacks, and items to make for lunch.
2. The meals typically take 25 minutes from start to finish. I’ll swing back on this topic in a bit because after 2 years, there are some tips I would recommend when choosing your menu for the week.
3. Other people say it’s sustainable. I will say that we’re definitely not wasting food and the packaging for HelloFresh is better than the other services we’ve tried.
4. With regards to the meals being healthy; yes, but it requires you to be mindful of what you choose. This’ll be another topic I’ll dive into during this updated review.
5. Things that I’m not a fan of. In the original review, I commented that the quantity of veggies wasn’t what I was expecting. This has improved and I feel like most dishes now come with more vegetables, The other thing that I wasn’t a fan of was the lack of fish options. I can tell you that this has definitely improved with way more fish options being offered. So kudos to HelloFresh for improving some of the things that I originally didn’t like. And there is nothing I can really reasonably add that I don’t like about the service. Early on, you’d get a lot of free samples of various things, like in one order, we got a free sample bottle of Herdez Taqueria Sauce Verde and I loved it so much that I pick it up regularly. But now, the free samples are pretty infrequent, but that’s not something that HelloFresh can probably control. Companies are probably not as willing to give HelloFresh free stuff to dole out.

With the recap out of the way, let’s talk about why we continue to use it.

First and foremost, the variety. Take a look at this picture. I keep all the recipe cards we get, but I do throw out the duplicates. So this stack here? These are all unique meals. There may be a few in this pile where a side is swapped out; say instead of potatoes, it’s served with rice, but overall, there is enough variety to keep things interesting.

Another reason we continue to use it is that over the last year, we’ve really tried to reduce our consumption of pork and beef, and HelloFresh has made an effort to not only increase its amount of fish offerings, but also its vegetarian and vegan options.

Before HelloFresh, we did talk about moving more of our meals to vegan, but it wasn’t easy. We’d buy whole packs of vegan products and then realize we didn’t enjoy them, so now we’d be stuck with stuff we didn’t like that would end up being thrown out. We are consuming less animal products and we feel that HelloFresh has made that transition more obtainable.

This is one of my favorites!

We typically do four meals with HelloFresh and usually two meals are vegan/vegetarian, one is chicken, and the last one is a fish dish. For example, next week we have zucchini and tomato flatbread (vegetarian), vegan Szechuan broccoli-carrot stir fry, Cajun blackened tilapia with red beans & lemon rice (pescetarian), and a chicken burrito bowl.

And what’s also nice is that you can try a meal out and if you really like it, there is nothing stopping you from buying the ingredients at the supermarket and making it outside of HelloFresh. For example, we tried one of their vegan bean soups and it was so good that I actually make it regularly for my lunches. I physically feel better when consuming less meat. I used to make turkey or ham and cheese sandwiches typically for lunch, but now I get more excited for a hearty bean soup.

Another thing about using the service for this long is that you find ways to be even more efficient. For example, get a rice cooker. I use the rice cooker for not just rice, but also couscous (just set the rice cooker to brown rice and the couscous will be fine). What’s nice about using a rice cooker is that I can start the rice or couscous ahead of time and do something else while it cooks. When it’s done, you just leave it in the rice cooker until the rest of the meal is ready. It may not seem like anything special, but having one part of the meal as a “set it and forget it” take some pressure off.

Something else to do when your choosing your meals for the week is to focus on ones that are either single pot or single sheet pan. The more passive cook time a meal takes, the more time you have to do other things. Plus, a single pot or a single sheet pan makes cleanup much faster and easier. I honestly don’t spend more than 30 minutes in the kitchen and part of that time is spent cleaning so as to not have any major clean up after we eat. Don’t underestimate how much more relaxing it is to realize that after you eat, all you have to clean are the dishes you used for the meal and not everything else you used to make the meal.

Lastly, the other reason we’ve stuck with HelloFresh is still the original reason of being free of meal planning. I really hate putting together a list of meals I’m going to cook for the week, then going grocery shopping for the ingredients and having a situation where either something is out of stock or something doesn’t look good enough to buy. Once I have a plan, it’s very hard for me to pivot. By choosing the four meals and having them delivered, I free myself from that process of planning, making decisions, and having to drive to one or two supermarkets. I have other things I need and want to do with my time and if there is something that will enable me to utilize my time more in line with how I want to use my time, I’m all for it and HelloFresh fits that bill.

If you would like to give HelloFresh a try, you can receive your first box for free with Jared's referral link