I never thought I would be someone to do a meal kit subscription, because I am a fairly capable cook. But being stuck in a pandemic, and not actually going to grocery stores to wander around and come up with new meal ideas has gotten us in the most terrible food rut.
So after doing a series of stories asking for meal kit subscription advice and recommendations, I decided to try out Hello Fresh. Over the last month we have received three deliveries, total of nine meals and I have decided we will not be continuing with it. But, under the right circumstances I think it certainly has some merits.
What I wanted to get out of it: I wanted to spice up our meal routine, I wanted to learn some new skills, I wanted my toddler who loves to cook to have a great time with it, and I wanted it all delivered conveniently.
Did it deliver those things? Yes. We tried new things. I learned a few things I would do again. My toddler had a blast, she loves doing the HelloFresh boxes. And, it was all conveniently delivered.
So why am I not continuing with it?
- It’s just too expensive. It works out to be almost $150 for three meals (4 portions) with the delivery, and it was not enough for leftovers, I can buy enough food for a whole week if I bought just the groceries myself.
- My kids didn’t like most of the meals. They were pretty hit and miss with my picky kids.
- It wasn’t particularly filling. Even with four portions for our family of four (and our two kids under 5 barely eating) I ended up having to make an extra carb dish every time because it just wasn’t enough for us.
- There is just so much packaging!
- By the time we got to making the third meal, the salad or herbs were all wilted.
- It was actually quite a bit of work, preparing the meals with my kids and then having them refuse to eat them, making them something else, then having to clean it all up. It ended up being way more effort than an average meal.
I personally actually enjoyed most of the recipes quite a lot. Of the nine recipes we would make five of them again I think. We all particularly enjoyed the Mexican inspired dishes.
The best things we got out of this were
- It was a fantastic experience for my toddler. It was exciting for her, the box arrived, and then following the card, and her learning. A chance for her to work on life skills, on reading, on following procedures, fantastic. Honestly that was the best part of the whole thing, and if we do order another meal kit, it will 100% be for this reason alone.
- My husband actually made a couple of the meals himself, and he doesn’t cook at all. So it was actually a wonderful break for me to have him be able to get into the kitchen and make something not from the freezer, and he came out of it with some new skills!
So do I recommend you try HelloFresh?
Yes if you feel like you’re stuck in a rut, I actually think it shakes things up. But for us personally as a family, it isn’t something sustainable long term.
Check out the reels below of my 2.5 year old Willow doing a couple of the HelloFresh meals. She really did have a fabulous time with it. Educational value alone on this was great.
Read With River 