Hello Fresh Review (from Self-Confessed Food Snobs)

Before we get into this HelloFresh review, I have something to confess… We’re food snobs. There, I said it. I’m not proud of it and it often makes life more difficult, but a leopard can’t change its spots!

So, where does a meal-kit / food box delivery service fit into our lives? Not long ago, we talked to Flavour and Sensory Scientist, Dr Heather Smyth about how to deal with fussy eaters. What came up in that conversation is that many families (us included!) get stuck in a ‘rut’ of cooking a fairly limited set of meals week-in, week-out. So, we decided to explore one easy way to get out of our comfort zone and asked HelloFresh whether they would send us a box to review. As far as subscription boxes Australia go, HelloFresh is certainly one of the most highly respected, so we were excited to try it out!

What did these food snobs and our little fussy eaters think of HelloFresh? Read on to find out!

Ordering HelloFresh

On Wednesday, we placed the order for a family plan for 5 meals, serving 4-5 per meal. The family plan is designed to feed 2 adults and 2-3 children. The recipes are designed with little fussy eaters in mind. You can order 3, 4 or 5 meals in the box. We went for 5 – go big or go home, as they say! Ours is a family of five and we were keen to try as many meals as possible, but you can scale down and start with a small order. Each week, there’s 6 options to choose from, so that gives a bit of flexibility. There were quite a few options for delivery time slots making it easy to schedule a time it when you are home or close enough to getting there. You can even schedule for overnight delivery, so you can collect it from your doorstep as soon as you wake up. All in all, the ordering process was pretty straightforward.

Delivery and Unpacking

On Monday night we got a reminder via text message that our box was due to arrive the following day. On Tuesday, the big box was there, all nicely packed. Each meal is packed individually with the matching recipe, apart from meats, cheese and all things that need to be kept cold which are packed in an appropriate insulated bag with ice bricks – that you can reuse. When we opened the box, I feared that all those ingredients would send my head into a big spin, but no – it’s very well organised and easy to identify which ingredients belong to which recipes. In fact, apart from meats and dairy, the ingredients for each particular recipe are in separate bags, so everything is together when it comes time to cook that meal.

I forgot to mention that we also ordered an ‘add-on’ fruit box, which made fruit for school lunches very easy that week. There were mandarins, green and red apples, pears and oranges. We were really happy with the quality and freshness of the fruits that were delivered.

Hello Fresh – Nice to Meet You!

First up on the Hello Fresh menu was a ‘Herb-crumbed Pork Schnitzel with Pesto Dressing and Thyme-roasted Vegetables’. I must confess I didn’t know much about HelloFresh beforehand and the preparation time was a little longer than I expected and we ended up having a late dinner. The recipe was easy to follow and the meal was delicious and, doing justice to its name, very fresh. The other Hello Fresh Recipes we had in our family box were Teriyaki Chicken & Garlic Rice Bowl with Japanese Mayo, Creamy Cauliflower & Bacon Penne with Garden Salad, Tex-Mex Beef Meatball & Charred Corn Tacos with Cheddar Cheese and Sour Cream and, finally, Cheat’s Loaded Pork Jacket Potatoes with Sour Cream and Chives. Again, all the meals were delicious and fresh, and the recipes were easy to follow. A great bonus was that these meals aren’t part of our normal repertoire and the change was welcomed. Meals were generally popular with our three kids and we do have a couple of fussy eaters in the family.

HelloFresh Recipes Reviewed

Herb-Crumbed Pork Schnitzel with Pesto Dressing and Thyme-Roasted Vegetables

I am always scared of making schnitzel at home as mine tend to turn out dry and tough. This recipe has proven me wrong – it was juicy, tender and tasty. The veggies were fresh and roasted to perfection – the thyme was a nice touch that added a lot of flavour and something that I normally wouldn’t add to my veggies. Score 4.5/5

Teriyaki Chicken & Garlic Rice Bowl with Japanese Mayo

I was excited to see the garlic rice as part of this recipe as I always add garlic to rice and believe it’s the best way to do rice. The veggies were super crunchy and a perfect accompaniment to the chicken. But for me, the sesame seeds were the detail that made this meal go from good to excellent. They really added flavour to it. 4/5

Tex Mex Beef Meatball & Charred Corn Tacos with Cheddar Cheese and Sour Cream

Unsurprisingly, this was our kids’ top favourite and the adults loved it too. I seem to always learn something from HelloFresh and this time the revelation was to pan fry corn straight from the tin! As for the meatballs, we decided to put half of the tex-mex spice blend as our kids’ spice threshold is not very high. It was still very tasty and had perfect consistency. Also, a great meal to get kids to eat vegetables. 4.5/5

Creamy Cauliflower and Bacon Penne with Garden Salad

Full disclosure – I am from an Italian background and my pasta standards are ridiculously high! Whilst I loved the idea of the cauliflower added to the pasta, I thought the creamy sauce (cream + bacon + grated Parmesan) was a little too rich. Perhaps less bacon would have been better and the cheese could have been added fresh on top rather than mixed through the cream. This was our least favourite meal. 2.5/5

Our last meal from that order was Cheat’s Loaded Pork Jacket Potatoes with Sour Cream and Chives. As we were invited out for dinner by my mother-in-law and had plans for some weekend dining, I ended up giving this meal to a friend who was keen to try HelloFresh. We don’t have a proper review for it, but she did say that she and her son enjoyed it very much.

Hello Fresh Australia Review in a Nutshell

• Meals were delicious 
• It’s fresh! Indeed, super fresh quality ingredients
• Healthy meals (we are no health professionals, but meals seem to be well balanced with a good combination of protein, carbs and vegetables
• Recipes are easy to follow
• Good value for money
• Gets you to cook different things
• Your shopping is done and delivered
• Very flexible plan and easy to opt-out (you don’t get locked into an endless plan)
• It can be used to run MasterChef competitions, lol

Fun fact about HelloFresh: We mentioned to our extended family that we were cooking HelloFresh meals. We found out that our sister-in-law and (adult) niece are big fans of HelloFresh and went as far as to order the same meals to run MasterChef style competitions between them. Their partners had fun being judges!

• it is time-consuming. It took us longer than we would have if we cooked our usual meals. However, we didn’t need to go shopping (which is always a good thing…)
• We should have done 3 meals a week, for when we had more time. Some nights, our kids are at sport and we do need a speedy meal!
• If you change your plans (i.e. you decide to go out for dinner), there’s a risk of getting stuck with a lot food. Hence, my previous tip of starting with a small order.

We believe Hello Fresh works best:

• when you are the takeaways type of person who is keen to cook your own meals but don’t know where to start
• if you lack inspiration for cooking or need variety (research shows most of us rotate only through a handful of recipes)
• if you start with a small order and take into account those days/nights you have limited time. We did 5 meals in a week and felt it was a lot. Three meals would have been perfect.
• when you don’t have time for shopping but are still keen to cook delicious homemade meals

Overall, we were delighted with the quality of the meals and it really did get us to cook things outside our usual repertoire. One of the best-kept secrets of HelloFresh is that it’s very ‘un-subscription-like’! You can skip weeks without any charge, for any reason, at any time before the order cutoff. You can even cancel your subscription, and then if you want to go back to it, you can reactivate it. Try doing that with your mobile phone plan!

Perhaps the most telling thing about our HelloFresh experience is that these Food Snobs went and ordered a second box!

We’ve got great news for MumsDelivery readers! Click the button below to get 40% off your first HelloFresh box. There’s nothing to lose – you can cancel any time. I know we’re glad we tried it!