Hello fresh.... is it worth it?

[howdyougetin]

I'm toying with the idea of hello fresh but I'm unsure if it's one of those things that isn't as good as what you hope it is. If you use it, is it worth it and is it easy to use?

We stopped using it when DS was born as i didn't want to spend the time cooking. My biggest bugbear before that was that I could never make the meals in the time it said, which, as someone that doesn't enjoy cooking was infuriating. The good thing was when we did it I didn't have to think about meals and we ate a more varied diet.

Do we used this a little bit during Covid . The meals were really nice but I did feel that the quality of the meat provided was not great . Also lots of ingredients missing each week which was annoying. Gusto seemed to be the better option out of the 2 .

Sorry so we used . Typing to fast

Not really. Meals are ok but while i dont think we are fussy eaters we seemed to have similar stuff alot from it. Plus i got annoyed the only red meat (other than premium) was mince.

We used it for a couple of months to get us out of a rut of eating the same dinners every week. I never had an issue with delivery or items missing. The recipes were very clear and nice to have them to keep.

It gave us some good dinner ideas but it's not life changing.

We did it for a bit when I had an offer code which made it so much cheaper. It did the job and I've kept the recipes which we like and are able to get the ingredients for easily. I only ever chose recipes which were supposedly less than 30 mins as I always take much longer than any recipe says.

We did it during the pandemic but the same recipes kept being recycled and I found us just choosing the same stuff again and again and it got a bit boring.
The cuts of meat were limited too as someone else mentioned. Red meat always seemed to be mince (though occasionally there was a recipe with beef strips).
But while we actually had it we were saving so much time and money and I’m considering getting it again

I use gousto because I find their recipes more appealing but have used hello fresh in the past and liked them. Just me and one adult DD at home now so get 4 recipes for 2 people and I think it's worth it because there's no waste and it means we get a more varied diet - e.g. l really enjoy the fish/seafood recipes and buying fish portions for two in the shops is a pita and l know, if i freeze some, it'll never see the light of day again! I'm not a very imaginative cook so we'd end up with a lot more freezer stuff and ready meals otherwise! We're both shift workers and don't get a box every week, just when it fits around our shifts and whoever isn't working will cook for when the other gets in. Gousto are good in that you don't have to keep an active subscription and can order as and when. Don't know if hello fresh are the same but you can always pause your subscription or change the dates around to suit you.

When it was me, ex and three DC at home, I loathed the whole meal planning/shopping/cooking process so the boxes really broke up the monotony!

I'd say give them a try - there are usually special offers for your first few boxes so you can see if they work for you.

On special offer (and you can pretty much get a code everywhere! I have millions) it's good value but otherwise it's v expensive. We have it on busy weeks and when we feel in a rut

We use Gousto which I think has a much broader choice , more interesting recipes and less that you end up having to pay extra for. Not the cheapest but gets us out of a food rut and makes my vegetarian daughter try more veggie meals

We tried it but didn't get on with it. The menus were quite repetitive and the most appetising ones were additional cost (approx. £3.99 pp extra for premium) The ones we had were tasty enough but as a pp said, the quality of meat wasn't good. Even with significant discount it wasn't worth it for us

Nope too expensive and portions too small

We use Gousto as the choice of meals each week is greater. We've been using it probably for the last 18 months and it's great to be able to have a variety of dinners and not have to try and think each week 'what shall we have for dinner this week' and then end up having the same as last week. Yes we have issues with boxes (we've had some squashed ingredients and occasionally something missing (usually herbs, not usually main ingredients)) but Gousto are really quick to resolve by applying a credit towards your next box. I also find it good as we buy for 4 people (there's 2 of us plus a child) which gives left overs for a lunch which means I tend to eat a 'proper' lunch instead of reaching for crumpets and Nutella!!

I tried it, but found that some of the recipes are actually quite fiddly to prepare, and it's a lot less trouble to roast a tray of vegetables with a bit of fish on the side.

We’ve used it recently as they came to the door with an offer.

Pro’s:

• lovely not having to go to the shops as much/having some meals sorted
• gets you to try some new things and do a bit more ‘proper’ cooking (adding in lots of herbs and spices etc) if you aren’t much of a chef
• a few recipes we will keep and reuse

Cons:

• If you forget to choose one week you get meals you might not want
• There’s not that much choice - a lot of them involve upselling or similar to each other. (Maybe just us).
• The meals are small so you end up adding extra veg/garlic bread/extra pasta etc (maybe just us again!)
• lots of wasteful packaging

Overall if you’ve got a good welcome off go for it! It’s fun to mix things up a bit. I think it’s easy to cancel.

I used it when I had guests staying to make meals more interesting. We all enjoyed them and had no issues with ingredients.

I'm thinking about having another try next month to get out of a rut. Only issue is that I'm on my own and meals are for two or four.

Definitely try it if you have vouchers, expensive without.

We tried a couple of times with an offer code. I found the meals were too carby for us - there was too much carbs in the meal and we threw out a lot of the pasta etc to begin with. A nice change but wouldn’t use again.

I've used hello fresh and Gousto and tend to stick to Gousto now as prefer the choice of recipes. I'd say for us they are definitely worth it though as I enjoy choosing my recipes each week and not having to worry about what we are going to eat every day. There are definitely more recipes with up charges than their used to be though, but definitely not as many as on hello fresh. Worth using all the new customer discounts/free boxes your friends are likely to have to share and trying them out to see if you like the approach and the recipes first.

I used it for a while but I'm vegetarian and quite quickly got tired of the same ingredients being the staple in every meal for a week Eg, one week options would be butternut squash risotto, butternut squash curry, and roasted butternut squash and cous cous. Ditto things like mushrooms or aubergine.

I did get some nice recipes and inspiration out of it though but I don't think I'd go back to it.

Also quite difficult to stay health conscious without the meat options as lots of the lower calories recipes have meat or fish so can't choose three Veggie and calorie smart meals

We use both Hello Fresh and Gousto, depending on which is currently offering me a discount. I'd recommend Gousto over Hello Fresh. There's more choice. Hello Fresh have you pay extra per person unless you want all your meals to be very similar. The main problem with gousto is that everything gets thrown into the box together, so it takes longer to check all the ingredients are there. Also gousto had more missing ingredients than hello fresh, but they were easy to credit back to your account.

I use Green Chef and love it so far. I don't use it every week, just once or twice a month.

Tried it with a voucher from a friend. The meals were nice enough, bit fiddly.

I could not live with the amount of non-recyclable packaging waste.

We kept the recipes, it's not hard to get the ingredients yourself from a supermarket.

I used Hello Fresh earlier in the year. I did like the recipes but many of the ones we wanted were premium. The lamb loins were very good, but the beef steaks disappointing. Also I had to keep remembering to upgrade to chicken breast as thighs were the default option and those portions were not big enough even for kids.
I stopped because the use by dates were too short most of the time, and despite the Hello Fresh name, the veg was not very Fresh compared to Supermarket.
I cancelled after a delivery included fruit and tomatoes that were bruised and unusable.

They’re OK for a change when there’s an offer on but I wouldn’t pay full price. The only meat is chicken thigh or mince and the only fish is basa which I imagine is a cheap version of cod or haddock. I also prefer Gousto (again when there’s an offer on).

Gousto was great - we just stopped having it because we got busyn

We decided to try Hello Fresh but didn't like it as much. It felt like worse value for money. There seem to be additional charges for add ons for every meal. And only the most basic of meals will be within the subscription amount so you end up paying over for every meal if you fancy something that isn't cheesy pasta. I found it a bit of a rip off.

Would recommend Gousto though.