Hello Fresh - worth a try?

[AhhhThereWeAreThen]

In a bid to mix up our household menus, I'm thinking of giving them a try - household of 3 adults. What are the recipies like - any favourites worth a try?

Also any discount codes anywhere?

I preferred Gousto over Hello Fresh but both are worth a go. Been a few years since I tried Hello Fresh but it was a bit too mince based for me, it felt like they were trying to not use premium meat to save money.

I really enjoy them OP. We have a caravan which we go to every weekend, we get HF 3 meals and take them to the van knowing we've got a weekends worth of evening meals sorted. They're nice but after a while they do get a bit samey!

I'd also agree with @Goldenphoenix they do love a bit of mince!

Another vote for Gousto. I find it so much better than HF. More flavour, fresher meat and veg tbh. Better portions usually too.

Code for 70% off first box and 20% for the next two months on Gousto -
ALLIS33205208.

Gousto is better in my opinion. I put a code on the promos thread recently for discounts

Nope. Way too expensive and portion size too small

Way too much plastic waste 😔

I think they are worth doing when you have a decent discount code but the quality of meat has gone down over the years. I much prefer Gousto but just go for whichever one is doing the best discount and switch.

I think HF has 10 minute meals which I was rather fond of.

I’ve tried hello fresh, wasn’t impressed.

We used them consistently for two years and they were good. Decent portions of tasty food, but they’d often miss ingredients out of the box - a huge faff when you don’t live near to a supermarket. We stopped using them after too many instances of missing items, and have since heard that the portions have become smaller, a lot of the dishes use cheaper meats and you have to spend more if you want the good recipes they used to offer.

Most veg is in its own skin, no plastic. Protein is indeed plastic wrapped like in a supermarket, but most of the other things requiring wrapping are in paper sachets now. Plus tins.

If you treat it as a way to inject a bit of fun into the kitchen they are good.

We did Gousto loads during lockdown and really enjoyed the process of choosing and preparing the meals. It was something to break up the boredom of lockdown.

They are not brilliant value if you are just looking at the cost of the food. It's the experience you are paying for.

The meat and fish portions would often be cheaper cuts/type of fish ( lots of chicken thighs and Basa fish)
After lockdown I used the recipe cards and bought the ingredients myself.

I also bought the hello fresh cook book and made quite a few nice recipes from that.

Not sure I'd go for it again but it introduced us to a few new recipes that we still enjoy.

Awful overpriced gimmicks for anyone who already has any cooking experience and a collection of staples (herbs, spices etc) in their kitchen.

Might be alright for people who don't usually cook but for me, hard pass.

Some of the recipes are nice but you can get them online anyway if I remember rightly.

I used to switch between them and Gousto. Whichever was doing the better deal at the time. Gousto used to have more choices.

To be honest, I didn't find them more expensive than grocery shopping normally. It came with a the bits, so it stopped going to store as regularly and picking up bits I didn't really need.

I’ve always cooked from scratch but I’ve been in a rut lately, making the same things week in, week out. I have done hello fresh for a few weeks to mix things up a bit. I’ve enjoyed it.
I have a lot going on in my life at the moment and am on the brink of burnout but it’s taken the decision making and thinking out of weeknight teas.

I did Hello Fresh for a couple of years and enjoyed it, but as others have said, found that the quality declined and the best meals all required a substantial extra payment.

Now I'm using Simply Cook, which requires a little more work in that they provide the sauces/spices and a recipe card (with a detachable shopping list), and you shop for the ingredients, but I like it as I can easily substitute things I don't like (they give you suggestions for subs) and the kits themselves keep for ages - I found with HF stuff was going off if I didn't cook it quickly enough.

If anyone wants to try a free Simply Cook box (with four recipes in), here's a free code (disclaimer - I get a free box too!)

SimplyCook are on a mission to fight food boredom and are giving you a SimplyCook trial box for free! www.simplycook.com/invite/57H9RH

excessive packaging, you have to plan for and add almost all of the veg, and the meals took much longer to prepare than stated. Tasted fine.

I agree that gousto is better generally than hello fresh. Hello fresh meals tend to be quite basic and bland - and a bit samey. Sometimes they just don’t seem to have vegetables where veg should be. In particular, a recurring short cut is to omit the onion (or mirepoix) that would usually be the base of the sauce in a meal. That might not bother you.

I found that the boxes were always missing ingredients and it was infuriating. Carefully checking to make sure you’re not missing stuff and then having to remember to pick something up at the shops so you can actually make the recipe is not really what a recipe box customer is looking for.

these boxes are great forgetting out of a rut.
I prefer the boxes from the veg section of my supermarket though.

I much prefer Gousto who have more interesting recipes. I will get a Hello Fresh from time to time if they send me a 50% offer for a limited time. I'd never pay full price for a box.

I like the recipe kit boxes because they give me more ideas for ingredients I usually have in my cupboard anyway. The price per meal probably could be got cheaper but I often get bored of my usual meals. i usually keep the recipe cards for meals I've liked and regularly reuse them.

A final downvote for Hello Fresh is they tend to use much more non recyclable packaging than Gousto.

Hello Fresh use a lot of mince and the meals get very samey - some sort of mince with a sugary sauce, rice and a tiny bit of greenery.

Gousto is really good though

Hated it. Maybe just unlucky but out of date ingredients, missing ingredients. Meat quality very poor. And then when we cancelled something went wrong and we ended up with a debt collection letter for a single hello fresh box!

I can't see the point of paying through the nose for a recipe card and a bunch of basic ingredients.

I loved the idea but couldn't stomach all the mince HF have.

Guosto is better but more expensive.

I tried it but really didn't like it. If you can cook they're really not worth it imo.

I do like Simply Cook for new ideas though.