Hello fresh - is it worth it?

[oliveaa98]

Yes I am a bit to this type of 'trend'!

Im only asking as someone in work today raved about it and I asked more and it made me intrigued. Ps this person pays for it fully no sort of ad deal like they hand out to influencer lol

But I am kind of fussy, I'm not a good cook! I was never taught it. My worry is my kids will be like this. Again I'm not majorly fussy and love to try things! I have coeliac but heard you can ensure your boxes are gf only recipes?

It was more to help me and the kids try new things and love the cooking process.

DH is extremely restricted and won't try new things but is ND so I dont try to stress him out and push things onto him (in case anyone asks why I only mention me cooking etc)

If you can get the money off deals then I think it’s worth it. I’m a reasonable cook but old fashioned I guess and Hello Fresh gave me ideas that have helped me make tastier meals and given me ideas that have made such a difference. So I’d say give it a go but keep on top of the admin for your account otherwise you could forget to cancel or skip deliveries as I did a few times!

The portions are pretty small. I work a physical job and walk a big dog - I need more food!

They once sent me the smallest lime I’d ever seen (before or since). It was the size of one of those big marbles. Not much bigger than a grape.

See? Stingie!

I found HF to be many variations of stir fry, and lots of mince based dishes. Gusto was much better IME, but only really worth it with a deal.

My SIL had to cancel her HelloFresh when she was diagnosed with coeliac as they advised they cannot guarantee gluten free so it may be a no go for you unfortunately

I enjoy both Hello Fresh and Gousto, I’m only cooking for one so it keeps evening meals a bit more interesting (even though the recipes are a bit repetitive!).

I find the portions to be big and you can order sides and extra veg if you have a bigger appetite.

If you don’t fancy any recipes available in a week you can skip a box.

For me it’s good value as it stops impulse food shopping but I think it would get quite expensive for a family. There’s always a deal on though.

Just checked the Hello Fresh app there and you can filter by “wheat free” if that’s any use to you OP.

It's OK but I find Gousto much better in terms of freshness, portions and quality.

Hello Fresh is definitely smaller in recipe selection and portion control.

I won't spam the board but can give anyone who wants it a code for 70% off your first box if you want to try it. In the interests of full disclosure I'd get £30 credit for my next box for anyone who uses it 😁

The basic subscription is quite expensive, it's only worth it if you can get a deal - the more interesting meals are usually extra money on top as well.

Agree with lots of recipes being mince or stir fry (we don't eat lamb or beef). Gets wearing. The stuff with spices wasn't very spicy either.

Occasionally I would forget to update the box & we'd be sent stuff we didn't want.

Most recipes took longer than the instructions said to cook properly - sometimes significantly so. Which is no good if you're not a confident cook & you don't realise

With the benefit of hindsight what I would have done instead is buy a top of the range air fryer and an air fryer cookbook for ideas. I mostly use mine for tray bake type dinners but it's 20 minutes instead of 30 plus 15 minutes for the oven to heat up. Much quicker and cheaper - the air fryer would pay for itself over a month of Hello Fresh boxes.

I haven't tried Hello Fresh but did use Gousto and now subscribe to Mindful chef. It's five days a month we don't have to think about what to make for dinner. The recipes are straightforward, nutritious and most importantly for me as coeliac - completely gluten free. We pay approximately £100 per box. DH cooks it because he enjoys it. Servings are ample for us.

(Gousto wasn't 100% GF and therefore not suitable for us. It was very good though)

I liked the meal boxes when I was single. I used to change providers with the deals. No way where they good value on full price. 6 days a week I had meals sorted. I ate a meal over 2 days.

when DP arrived it got expensive so stopped. I am a good cook, but liked the different meals to choose from. I still use the recipes

@OllyBJolly Im surprised about that with Gousto, because so many of the recipes are naturally GF, so even with coeliac I'd have thought it would have been safe, so clearly I'm a twit!

There are 58 recipes on there right now which they have marked up as GF - and in clicking through to the full allergens on a few of the recipes, it does seem to be accurate?

Beware. If you give Hello Fresh your personal details you will never ever get them out of your life. Worse than David Lloyd gyms for hounding you.

I found hello fresh to be tiny portions. I have two teenage sons and the food just wasn't enough. I could have ordered extra size meals but it was too expensive

Its only "worth it" if your alternatives are ready meals and deliveroo and your larder and fridge will be otherwise empty. If you are capable of following recipes and organising a supermarket click&collect shop it's really expensive.

It's easy to find hellofresh recipe cards and other recipes that are similarly easy with a bit of googling and it really doesn't take a lot of effort to put the ingredients into a shopping order. I tried it for a bit but got very frustrated. Especially with being given a sachet of honey containing 2tsp, and the recipe calling for 1½ tsp, when I have a whole jar in the cupboard (repeat for half a dozen other ingredients where the units supplied are just inconvenient, including one time I was told to use ⅝ths of a sachet of something or other)

From my experience, I thought Hello Fresh and Gousto were very poor value for money even with the large reductions you can get with their introductory offers. I found the portion sizes were TINY, and none of the recipes would have been particularly complicated to have made without the fiddly little packs of pre-packed ingredients. I can’t remember whether it was Gousto or Hello Fresh where all ingredients for the four meals I had selected all came together in the same pack and it took ages to sort them out. But the main reason I wouldn’t use either again was the quality of the ingredients; the vegetables and fresh herbs were not fresh at all, and the quality of all the meat was just awful. Most of the dishes I bought were nothing special at all, and I could have made much nicer versions using ingredients from my cupboards and freezer. I ended up throwing a couple of the Hello Fresh meals away when I had cooked them because the quality was so awful.

I got it for a few months, but stopped when I twigged how much of the sauces etc are UPF. Lots of flavourings/colours/emulsifiers and thickeners in the sachets you add to make the meal what it is.
i try to be as UPF free as possible.

The quality of Hello Fresh has been really poor for me when we’ve tried it. Id never go with them again despite almost daily spamming with deals.

Gousto we get the odd box when they send a particularly good deal through - it’s worth it when it’s basically half price but I wouldn’t pay full price. We get a box for 4 people but we’re two adults and a child, portions are fine that way there’s almost always leftovers, though I usually add a bit extra veg. Our current box was about £26 - 4 meals for ‘4’ and that definitely feels like a great deal. That’s 60% what it would have cost otherwise, I wouldn’t have paid full price.

We have tried Hello Fresh, but prefer Gusto - though we've not used HF for a while. We tend to get when on an offer, or if we are self catering on holiday - 4 or 5 meals over the course of a holiday that we don't have to think about. Often buy the upgraded more expensive recipes if we are on holiday - still much cheaper than eating out, which we do on the other days

Tried twice far to small portions for our family so stopped and tbh ended up saving more than I realised

I have tried Green Chef, which seemed good value for money whilst I had a deal, the meals were tasty and recipes easy to follow, portions also fine, I cancelled once it went to full price. I enjoy cooking and it encouraged me to research new recipes etc, I wouldn’t feel the need to subscribe again as I try to eat clean, it feels good knowing exactly what ingredients are being used. Worth a try!

I liked the fact it took away some thought and effort. The recipes were nice and delivery waa efficient. However, the ingredients weren't always very fresh (ironic!) and, the main reason I stopped after 2 deliveries, was the amount of packaging was ridiculous. Lots of unrecyclable materials and an insane quantity of them.
Gusto recipes look good and there's more choice, but after the issues with HF, I wouldn't pay more for the same problem.

This.

I got HF as a gift for an elderly relative. Sadly she was hospitalised not long afterwards and never came home. It took me 3 YEARS to get them to stop emailing her (actually emailing me but they didn't know that, was all in her name) to 'come back'.

I think the concept is good, but that experience put me off for life.

First delivery rotten veg that was not part of a recipe. No idea of provenance so cancelled.

We use it but I have to say im
veget and it can be monotonous. Also if you do t choose your meals on time they send you the cheap ones which aren’t very nice.
we’ve done mindful chef which is better but more expensive.
The benefits are that it’s all there (apart from a growing list of things they expect you to have in the pantry) and you don’t have to think about ‘what’s for dinner’

I found Gousto good when I was going through a stressful stage and just needed to not think about what’s for dinner and food shopping. Portions were fine but I did add extra veg because they were a bit light on that front. I separated each meals ingredients into separate freezer bags and the kids could then pull out a bag and make a start on dinner.

I stopped when I needed to pay full price (not good value for money) and some of the meals were incorporated into our usual weekly menu. It can be worth it if you’re in a bit of a rut or not a confident cook.

It’s been a couple of years since we did Hello Fresh, but a couple of things made us stop: every other option was a curry and it all tasted the same after a while. Then it took me ages to get them to stop calling about starting the subscription again.