One of my friends talked about Hello Fresh on their Facebook page not too long ago.  She raved about how good it was, and I thought of looking into it at that time but did not.  A few weeks later, I received a delivery at work, and there was a Hello Fresh coupon in that package.  I kept it on my desk for a few days, then I decided to give them a try.

**Please note:  I am NOT getting paid for this review of Hello Fresh.  I just wanted to write of my experience!**

When I logged onto the site, I found it user friendly.  I knew that as a part of their promotional deal I would have to enter my credit card information.  In doing so, I was authorizing them to send meals to me every week of their choice, unless I selected my own meals.   After looking at their selections, I began to explore further options to get the meals I knew my family would love.  The selection was made, and now I waited in anticipation of the arrival of my package.  My day to choose meals was by the end of day on Monday.  My shipment information would go in on Tuesday, and my package would go to the carrier on Friday.  Then, my package would be delivered by the end of the day on Saturday.

The weekend arrived, and the first package was delivered around noon on Saturday by a smiling Federal Express worker.  This was perfect for us to make a meal for supper that night.

We unpacked the contents of the box and found ice packs/dry ice to keep the content cold.  The individual meals were placed in brown paper bags like you used to find at the grocery stores.  We inspected each bag to make sure all of the ingredients were there, along with the recipe cards.  Perfect!  All items were there, and we studied the time on each card to decide which to do first.  On the weekends, obviously, you’d have more time to cook a longer recipe vs. doing so in the middle of a work and school week.

After we all agreed on a meal for that night, we began the preparations later that afternoon.  We all pitched in to make this meal, and it was fun for the whole family.  We had to laugh at the person who wrote the recipes, though, as they loved the words “roast” and “drizzle.”   We found that you will “roast” the majority of your meals at 425 degrees, and you would need to “drizzle” olive oil on your vegetables.

On a few occasions, we were introduced to new concepts like “mincing” garlic or “zesting” lemons.  We have never done either of those before, but now we can say we’re experienced with them both.

~SMILE~

After about 40 minutes, our dinner was ready to be served.  We had enough for five plates of food.  This was perfect since my niece was coming over later that evening after work, so she got to try Hello Fresh as well as the four members of my immediate family.

We all thoroughly enjoyed our first taste of Hello Fresh!  We enjoyed it so much that we looked forward to making the other two meals in our package.  Later in the week when we prepared them, we were just as thrilled with the taste as well.  We were so pleased that we selected three more meals for the following week.

Since I am trying to watch what I eat, I chose healthier meal options.  When they did provide carbs, I either only tasted them, chose a small amount, or decided to forgo that portion of the meal for more vegetables or meat.  It was great for even the pickiest eaters!

Hello Fresh gave us free meals to send to our family and friends.  I chose my daughter and my friend, Greg, to be the recipient of those free meal vouchers.  My daughter excitedly went to their website to begin her process as well, and she was pleased with her experience with them also.  The meals were delivered on time, with all ingredients in her bags as well, and she had a great time making each recipe for her and her boyfriend.  I’m not sure if Greg ever redeemed his voucher or not, but if he didn’t, he truly missed out!

The only problem I had with Hello Fresh is that if you don’t log in to select your meals by a certain time, they select which meals to send you.  Also, you have the option of “skipping” weeks, but you have to remember to log in to “skip” those weeks.  Otherwise, an automatic shipment of their choice will go out to you.

Being that warmer weather is finally here – yeah!!! – and we will be going boating, RVing, and horseback riding, we decided to discontinue our Hello Fresh at this time.  It was easy to go into the Hello Fresh app and deactivate the account.  I followed up with an email to them as well, as I had read that people had trouble canceling their subscription.  I didn’t want this to be a problem for me and my credit card to continuously be billed.  That process was easy as well, and a nice representative responded acknowledging my desire to cancel.  When the cold weather arrives later in the year, we may reactivate our account again.

This was the first time we’d ever tried a food delivery service, but we were pleasantly surprised by them.  We have kept the recipe cards so we can make the meals ourselves later with ingredients from our local grocery store.  It was so nice to have everything delivered right to our door!   I could get used to that part, but it’s the waiting around that absolutely kills my husband.  Ha!  The second shipment was to be delivered by the end of day that Saturday.  While the first delivery came earlier in the day at noon, the second delivery came around 6 p.m.  He hated “waiting around” for the package to be delivered.  I didn’t have anything planned that day, so the wait really did not bother me as much.

We had a really nice experience with Hello Fresh. I had read a lot of reviews where people spoke of not receiving all of the ingredients with their packages or receiving spoiled food. Thankfully, that was not the case for us!