Just tried first Hello Fresh...I don’t get it....

[GiraffeNecked]

So a potato some mince, a carrot, a glove of garlic and some mince arrives. All stuff I have in the house already ..... you still have to chop, cut, cook and it was nice, but no nicer than something I’d have come up with by myself.

I had a few boxes over the summer, I had an offer so didn't pay full price. I picked meals I wouldn't normally cook and I have since replicated them at home many times. I had a few issues with missing items and the quality of the meat.
I enjoyed the trial at a reduced price but it's far too expensive for me!

Gousto is fantastic for veggie recipes. My son has turned veggie and we have learned some great techniques in cooking tofu and lentils to make them delicious. Well worth it.

I've found it useful for giving me confidence when cooking. DH is a great cook and enjoys sorting out meals etc, and before lockdown I had a very long commute and he was working from home so he tended to do most of the cooking.
Now he's out working long hours and studying at home too, I'm WFH but also studying and things are generally just so busy and stressful. We've had Hello Fresh and Gousto in the past and in our old circumstances it didn't really work for us, but I ordered a few for a particularly busy patch a couple of months ago and it helped me feel more in control and just get my head around the idea that I'm a good cook when I follow instructions, and also that I can experiment with things too. I've ordered one for next week as we've both got a really heavy week on and it helps to know there will be a decent, interesting meal at the end of the day that I don't have to think about. But it's also helped me get my head around meal planning.
I don't think we'll order again after this one. I might do Gousto again, occasionally, it does seem a bit better.
The packaging waste is really awful and that's the thing that puts me off most.

Dont know Hello Fresh but have tried Gousto which is the same principle. In effect you choose a recipe and they in effect have done the shopping for you.

I am not sure why you would choose a recipe for something that is already in your fridge. Why not choose something a bit more adventurous?

My experience of Gousto is that the recipe's are foolproof and the quality is very good. Yes its a bit expensive and I tend to think of it as an alternative to eating out rather than a ready-meal

Try something you would never previously cooked before

I was bought a package- a weeks worth.
The meals were OK, a bit on the small side, but adequate.

What I found appalling was the amount of packaging, so wasteful, and so bad for the environmemt.
Small sachets of mustard, soy sauce etc in foil/plastic , tiny amounts, packaging unrecyclable. The wrapping and insulation inside the box was all plastic, a huge amount of ice frozen inside bubble type plastic.
The waste from the box and contents filled nearly a black bag of rubbish- mostly plastic.
Plastic is clogging up our planet- we don't need to use more.
I now have a plastic free bathroom and looking to do the same in other parts of my life.

We used a few times for a few reasons.

It got us out of a rut of eating the same old meals week after week.

You only get what you need, so ideally less waste, especially when it comes to random spices or sauces.

We were able to mix and match - so Dh and Dd had a meat menu and I bought a piece of fish or veggie equivalent to accompany it. Usually the amount of accompaniment was enough for three.

It also helped with portion control and made us take a look at how much constitutes an actual 'portion.'

We have tried both hello fresh and gousto. Enjoyed them both but preferred the latter.

It's been really good for me in terms of the mental load of having to think of something to cook every sodding day. It's meant we've eaten a lot less takeaway too.

The kids each take a turn at cooking which has been really good for them and they've eaten things I never thought they would.

Oh and I'm a very good cook and love making huge impressive feasts. I just can't bear the everyday drudge of thinking up something to eat. It's totally got us out of a rut.

I agree about Hello Fresh but I really like Simply Cook which is a pack of recipies and then three pots including the herbs, spices, stock all ready mixed and preped. This makes cooking a tasty meal really quick. You buy 4 ingredients e.g. mince, a red pepper, sour cream etc... As detailed in the recipie card and then follow easy steps to have a tasty meal in 20mins.
It means you don't need to spend time getting and preparing lots of herbs and spices. I alter the quantities of the main ingredients so can feed more people per recipe and the kids love it too. They choose some of the dishes each month and it's easy enough that they can cook dinner for the family too.
Also long cupboard life so you can get one pack to use gradually over a few weeks on evenings when time is short.

Oh and I can already cook.
But for after work meals when you've been at work all day you can't always be bothered to think about it. Hence the rut of eating the same old stuff every week.

We deliberately chose meals that were different to the stuff we'd normally have in.

Obviously if you chose a meal which is mince and potato based but you already cook meals with those things then you're not going to get something different are you?!

I find it helpful as I am working full time and husband has just retired. He isn't a good cook so he likes following the recipes and I get a hot meal when I get in. There are four of us so the cost per meal is not that high.
I get them every two or three weeks. I might try gousto as well now and start alternating.

I use Hello Fresh most weeks. Not because I can't cook / am lazy / wasteful with money etc... but simply because I don't want to always carry the load of meal planning and associated grocery shopping. My partner is a perfectly fine cook but doesn't think about anything in advance, so that doesn't help either.

Yes it's expensive for what you get, but if you go into that knowingly, I can't see any problem.

Are there any others similar to Hello Fresh and Gousto as I’d like to swop between them for variety. Cook is the best ready prepared I’ve had but more choice the better!

I get Gousto when I get a hefty discount code sent through. It is overpriced on normal full price but as a FT working parent (who knows how to cook) it is purely for reasons of not having to think, shop, forget one vital ingredient and have to go back for it etc etc. What it has done is introduce to the family a couple of recipes we have made regular favourites and have now invested in the larger size of spices, Chinese sauces etc for repeated cooking. Also as someone who doesn't like Worcestershire Sauce it introduced me to Henderson's relish which I prefer. They have also substantially reduced the packaging over the months since I last ordered. It's a nice treat. If you can afford it weekly at full price then go for it!

When I tried Hello Fresh I was really (really!) disappointed by the flavour of the dishes at the end - I might well just have been unlucky with those 3 specific recipes, but they were all bland and basic. We found the portion sizes very inconsistent, too. One recipe only really fed my partner and another we had plenty of leftovers of.

I got a very good deal with an introductory offer, so I can't really complain, but I'd never use them again and certainly not at full price.

Simply Cook is really great - delicious food and you only have to have a few basic ingredients. First box is £1 and then every time you get a friend to order a trial box, you get a free box too. My friend gave me hers as well so I've now had 12 recipes for £1!

How expensive is it. I looked on their website and there isn't a clear indication of price. What is the least you can spend a week, I'm a bit disorganized and would forget to cancel so would the meals just pile up. Thanks. Maybe it's not for me.

It saves me thinking about what to make
How? Don't you have to order a specific thing?

Yes, but you're picking from a 'menu' rather than starting from a blank mind.

On flavours etc, I found them OK (we went for a couple of Thai and other Asian things) but I did take issue with the timings – you were meant to put mangetout into a curry and cook it for WAY too long. They came out a bit grey and no longer with a nice bite.

Simply cook free box code simplycook.com/invite/RS5769?via=app

It has also been absolutely brilliant when we are going away for a weekend. Just take the box with you and you know you have everything you need for dinner.

Why did you get stuff you already have? The whole point is to choose things a bit more interesting or exciting than you’d normally eat. I’d like to do one a week. I find doing 3 or 4 can be a bit of a faff depending on what you choose. All their recipes are online so you can follow them without buying the ingredients.

My children (11 and 13) cooked the recipes during lockdown when I was working full time plus a lot of overtime and massively struggled to get to the shops. Gave them something to do and made my life easier. We dont use it now but hello fresh was very useful at the time and fun for the kids.

I used them for a while during lockdown when I had a voucher and have had a couple of boxes since. I wouldn’t have considered it but was having such a nightmare grocery shopping and everything being out of stock and it was a godsend in those circumstances. The kids cooked a meal a week each from it and it was ideal for them.
I only chose meals that looked different to what I’d normally cook and a few of them we’ve continued to cook since.
Some of the portions were plenty big enough but others a bit small. I usually did extra veg alongside

I’ve also been comparing shopping prices since starting gousto to when I would buy to make meals every night, we are saving money now as we only buy perishable and cupboard things now, I have a stocked freezer as well which I top up occasionally

My DS had gousto for a while. He booked (I think) 4 meals a week, and for 2 people, on the basis he could have the 2nd portion for lunch the following day.
He chose the recipes from their range.
This worked for a while. (obviously pre covid). But due to working late, he found he arrived home from work, but was then too tired to cook, even those meals that were fairly easy to do.
Gradually, the ingredients piled up, and some items had to be thrown away, although he still has all the little portions of herbs, and other 'store cupboard' items.
In the end, he discontinued.
He still has the recipe cards.
I like to think that the recipes he used, gave him ideas of making his own meals in the future, and maybe realise that it is not as difficult as he thought.
The main benefit is that the ingredients are packaged. ie; unusual ingredients often come in large quantities (unusual herbs and spices, of recipes he is not used to), so it eliminates waste.
However, buying in this way is more expensive