I can’t help it: I like a deal!

I received a credit to try out two meals from Hello Fresh, and so of course I tried it.

We selected a family portion and tried Sweet & Sour Shrimp and a Penne Bake.

Pretty packaging & pictures, right? Did the meals taste as good as the pictures make them look?

The service IS nice. The box was delivered late afternoon, so I had plenty of time to get it inside and start my meal prep.  All in all, there is A LOT of cardboard, frozen ice and packing inserts, so I couldn’t help but feel it would be wasteful to do this EVERY week.

Okay, so the meals – I made the shrimp dish first, per the instructions. The ingredients were very fresh. My kids insisted on snacking on the snow peas before I could cook them up! That was fine with me! Go ahead & eat those veggies kids! This meal took a bit longer than suggested to prepare. I should have saved it for a weekend night versus during the week to have more time to prep.  However, it was a hit. We had a LOT of leftover rice, and some leftover sweet & sour shrimp too.

Compared to the first meal, the second meal was another story. First off, the chicken sausage was missing from my shipment, so I made it a vegetarian meal. Second, the thyme was a pain to use fresh. I should have just used the dried stuff in my cabinet…though maybe it wouldn’t have been as fragrant. Third, the seasoning packet warned that it was spicy. I used a small amount, and it still was a bit much. I couldn’t even serve this pasta bake to my kids due to the spice. My husband and I thought it was okay. We really had a lot of this leftover. Ugh.

I did call customer service at Hello Fresh to tell them about the missing meat in my shipment. They were very nice and apologetic and gave me a credit for my account. I will be trying Hello Fresh another time after these mixed reviews. There is a nice convenience to the service, but I’ll have to determine if I think it’s worth the higher cost of meal planning.