Hello fresh- somewhat underwhelmed - alternatives?

[BigButtons]

Okay- so I am an empty nester and living on my own( love it) BUT have been struggling to find the impetus to feed myself properly- ie cook. I can cook well but just CBA after 26 odd years of it.
so I got a voucher for hello fresh and I only had to pay the postage.
I chose my meals and they arrived etc etc.
i don’t know what the hell so was expecting really. I still had to chop up shit and cook and most of the spices and food I already have in the house.
There was also a horrible amount of packaging and I notice that it is bulked with cheap starches- potatoes and rice.
it clearly isn’t for me. I thought it would be all prepped for me and I could just throw it in a pan or something.
I need something that is easy and tasty. I need to get some vitamins in me .
ideas?
from a moany empty nester ( who used her soup maker a lot but it broke )

@BigButtons think sharwoods do them too.

The Waitrose easy to cook range is 3 for £12, you get something like beef koftas in a sauce, or lemon and garlic chicken breasts, heat it up and can do a rice pouch or their mash for 70p or pasta or whatever with it.

But it sounds like you can cook, so why not stick a podcast or a TV show on or something music and a nice cuppa and just make cooking enjoyable again, at least a few nights.

Maybe you need to get into batch cooking. Since you're a good cook, you'll get meals you like for a good price, but you only have to cook once every few days.

Honestly I would do a combo of a couple of nice ready meals a week then a revolving repertoire of things that require little chopping and can be in the oven in 10 mins. Veggie prob easier than meat. Gnocchi tray bake (delicious bbc one with lemon ricotta), pulled mushroom and artichoke gyros thing with flatbreads and salad, soy butter noodles etc. Picking recipes that use veg like baby plum tomatoes, olives, tinned sweetcorn, frozen peas, jarred artichokes, oyster mushrooms that you just tear to minimise chopping. Plus frozen chopped onion and garlic paste!

We find the portion sizes huge with hello fresh especially the carbs always have to cut them down by half and still often have leftovers for lunch!

Buy a packet of multi-vitamin and mineral tablets - one a day. (Make sure it has the minerals as well as vitamins).
Then stop worrying about what you eat.

Supermarkets sell pre-chopped vegetables, although they come in plastic. Just open the packet and chuck in a pan or steamer or microwave. You would need to combine with protein, e.g. something fried or grilled.
A knob of butter is quicker than making instant gravy or sauce from granules.

I agree quality of hello fresh has been nosediving for a few years. So much bloody basa fish which is horrible.

If you don’t like cooking and don’t have to avoid any ingredients, and money isn’t an acute concern I’d just go to M&S and get their pre prepped stuff. It’s still excellent quality and lots isn’t UPF, loads of pretty fresh stuff. Their Asian range is great.

Mindful chef. Less beige food and they don’t require adding sugar to recipes unlike hello fresh

We have Gousto at the moment its been really good, we did try hello fresh and I did not think it was as good. There are lots of little packets but my bin is a lot more empty then when we didn't have a meal box and food waste really dropped.

Simmer for sure

We have loads of local healthy prepared food businesses in our area. Look for them. You can either go in or get delivered. Minimal packaging and can recycle all the packaging.

That sounds bloody amazing- please come and cook for me!

Loads of ready meals meet that criteria and not just the posh expensive ones although they of course taste better and have more protein in them

I really rate Simply Cook. Yes it’s just spices but the recipes are so tasty and easy. It’s got my teens cooking and has expanded their palates. Minimal packaging - Hello Fresh is awful for packaging plus more flexibility as I found with HF I’d order them I’d be out and the food would be wasted.
free box trial x
SimplyCook are on a mission to fight food boredom and are giving you a SimplyCook trial box for free!
https://www.simplycook.com/invite/KAW4WG?via=app

Simmer keeps throwing ads at me on Instagram, but no personal experience. They are healthy microwave meals.

M&S High Protein ready meals range.

As far as I can tell they're all real ingredients and are actually nice. You can also get them on Ocado and there's sometimes an offer that makes them a bit less expensive.

I also like the frozen Merchant Gourmet veg and grains with a piece of salmon.

There's also the option of omelettes with frozen peppers and onions or spinach.

Cook is also good and has healthy options.

I was going to post Ocado links to the above but kept getting an 'unexpected error' so here I'm trying to post without the links and you'll just have to look on Ocado yourself.

One of the things that put me off Gousto was how much sugar was in the recipes.

Plus like the OP, the packaging and the fact that I already had most of the ingredients.

Also the cost, even when on offer, its expensive compared with just buying fresh ingredients from the supermarket and using a basic store cupboard.

Other ideas for the OP - figure out what you can and cannot be arsed with.

For example I'm done with chopping up onions finely and frying and simmering them for ages for a curry but I can stretch to roughly chopping a pepper and an onion, marinating some chicken in yogurt and spices and throwing it all in a roasting tray or air fryer.

The Roasting Tin books might be worth exploring, lots of ideas on this theme. Also, even if you prefer not to eat the same thing twice, the advantage of not having to cook so often if you cook 2 to 4 portions at a time shouldn't be overlooked .

Finally, could you just buy another soup maker if that's what worked for you? You could always look for a second hand one as lots of people buy them, decide they're not for them and sell them to regain the cupboard space and some of the outlay.

If it worked for you before then why not fix your soup maker or buy a new one.

I don't live alone but do have to cook just for myself for long spells when DH is away for work (can be weeks at a time) and DS is at University.

Like you, I don't want to completely rely on ready meals but I really cba cooking for one and I am pretty tired of cooking even though I'm competent (and a bit of a foodie). So what I do is promise myself I'll cook properly twice a week and make my usual 2 or 3 portions, and either freeze what I don't eat or have it as left overs within the next two days.

I'll have a good quality ready meal from Waitrose or M&S a couple of times, but always with fresh veg or salad or fresh fruit salad afterwards.

Once a week I'll treat myself to a lunch out - a local noodle bar is a favourite - so only have something quick for dinner like egg on toast.

And after that there's always the bare minimum effort quick meals like jacket potatoes, omelettes, pasta pesto, a small quiche and salad, ham egg chips and peas, roasted veg & cous-cous with something like lamb chops or oven baked salmon.

I'd love to never have to cook again though! But I value my health too much to eat rubbish. I hear your dilemma OP.

P.S. I often make home made soup in the winter. We don't have a soup maker, large pan does the job fine.

M and S for some ready meals and other things May carch your eye to throw together easily

The Spice Tailor?

We quite enjoy Hello Fresh, and have chosen foods we would not normally eat. I agree about the packaging, but think the portion sizes are huge, and flavours good. It has got us out of a rut, got my daughter cooking but we will stop once our introductory offer is over as we can't afford it.

My DS uses the Sorted Food App. It’s kind of like the meal prep boxes, except that they provide an online shopping list so you get the ingredient from your own supermarket and it’s geared for minimum waste. I’ve been impressed by what I’ve seen.

I agree with how a PP framed it - what can and can’t you be arsed with?

Cooking altogether - Field goods, good takeaway, Simmer etc
Chopping - either do in one go and freeze or buy chopped onions, garlic, soffrito etc
Etc

Thank you all so much.
starting this thread has made me realise that it is all much more complicated than the hello fresh recipes!
I need to try and find a new rhythm- nog just in my life style but in the way I feed myself.
I need to stop rebelling about food and start putting some effort into planning.
At the moment I am still buying-albeit on a much smaller scale- fresh meat and veg for the week, but there is no thought behind what to do with it. The meat goes in the freezer and stays there and the veg moulders away in the fridge.
I don’t have a microwave anymore but I do have a basic airfrier which I love.
I should investigate some of the better quality ready meals- after a life time of eating fresh that feels all kinds of wrong, but as many have pointed out, there is some really good stuff out there. Even semi prepped stuff.

I got my soup maker when I had a horrible and prolonged virus in Jan/ Feb. It was so easy just to roughly chop stuff and literally throw it in and 20 mins later I had a nutritious, hot meal.
we are moving out of soup season now, but I will look out on Facebook for a second hand one or get another new one.
I also might invistigate the simply cook spices.
🙂