The Good, The Bad, The Ugly of Hello Fresh
When I received my textbooks this semester from Chegg, they came with a little surprise. A free week of Hello Fresh. For those of you who don’t know Hello Fresh is a food delivery service. Basically, you go online or download the app. You decide what meals you want from their list. They send you the ingredients to make the meals along the instructions. They even break it down to what pots and pans you should use.
I picked out my meals and delivery date. I was disappointed because I was promised a week of free meals, but only got meals for three nights. However, they did send me enough to prepare food for two people. My delivery came in about four days. When it arrived it was in a box with ice packs and all the food was frozen…even my vegetables. I placed the meats into the freezer and the vegetables into the refrigerator to keep them fresh.
The first night I made pork tacos. The instructions were so easy to follow. I had every ingredient sent to me except for salt and pepper. I followed the directions step by step. It helped me to make the pork, salsa, and a fresco sauce. I was really pleased by the size of the portions. They were fairly large, and honestly tasted delicious. The presentation was really pretty too. Honestly I was surprised I had made them.
The next meal I made was a mozzarella and zucchini gnocchi. I was really excited about this meal because I LOVE gnocchi. Just as the last recipe the instructions were very easy to follow. When I had the tacos the vegetables were frozen from being shipped, and it wasn’t and issue. The zucchini from this meal however was frozen so much so, that by the time it defrosted it was completely water logged (pictured below). I was really upset because there was no way I was going to be able to salvage the zucchini. I prepared the gnocchi anyways, without the zucchini. This dish was okay. I felt like the seasoning was a little off; plus i was already disappointed about the dead zucchini.
The final meal I had was the baked ziti with stuffed meatballs. This dish was excellent. Again, the instructions were straight forward and I had every thing that I needed to successfully prepare this dish. The flavors and seasonings blended together so well. I had never made stuffed meatballs before; and this recipe card walked me through it precisely. I stuffed the meatballs with mozzarella cheese. I absolutely loved it!
Overall, Hello Fresh was a fun experience. It was nice to be able to make the dishes on my own and not have to go the grocery store. If I were to have paid for this meal plan I would have paid about $50 for 3 meals a week for two people. It is not a bad price, however a broke college student doesn’t have any business buying Hello Fresh for fun. I would probably do it again in the future, however it would be more of a fun thing for me to do vs me making dinner every night. I prefer to cook whatever I want whenever I want. I don’t like having to choose items from the menu. I would recommend Hello Fresh to someone who doesn’t have a lot of time to plan out meals and cook on their own.
For more information about Hello Fresh go to: https://www.hellofresh.com/
