How to Stop Eating Out & Save on Home Cooked Meals: a Hello Fresh Review

Ever get tired of meal planning and cooking? Me too! I found a way to make family meal time easier without eating out and wanted to share my experience with you. This Hello Fresh review isn’t a sponsored post or a hard sell. This is my personal experience, photos, and opinions about their fresh meal delivery service.

Disclosure: There are affiliate links below for Hello Fresh, a product I highly recommend. I only recommend products on this site that I have personally used. Read more in Policies and Disclosures. 

Cooking from scratch is one of the easiest ways to make sure your family is eating healthy. It allows you to avoid unnecessary food additives and lower food costs. Unfortunately it’s not always convenient to cook a from scratch meal every-single-night.

As a busy parent, I know it can be nearly impossible to cook dinner when pressed for time. It’s oh-so-easy to slip into a restaurant and grab something quick when mealtime is looming.

You know what I’m talking about, right? The quick sub sandwich or pizza stop that creeps into your dinnertime routine.

I have found an easy solution that allows me to:

• Cook from-scratch meals in less than 30 minutes.
• Reduce my grocery shopping time and budget.
• Save on monthly food costs by not dining out.
• Stop worrying about meal planning.

Meals Made Easy

My easy fix for dinnertime dilemmas is Hello Fresh meal delivery (this link will give you $60 off your first Hello Fresh order).

Check out one of my Hello Fresh weekly packages in the pictures below. Each meal is carefully packed with a recipe book. Refrigerated ingredients are packed in ice.

Hello Fresh Review

I thought I would share my experience using Hello Fresh since our family uses the service. I'll explains how the meal delivery service works and why I think you should try Hello Fresh as well!

Why I Love Hello Fresh

There are eight things I love about using Hello Fresh meal delivery service:

1. The grocery shopping and meal planning is done for you. I first ordered Hello Fresh because I was tired of being responsible for all the dinner planning and preparation. Hello Fresh is like having a personal cooking assistant who selects and delivers your dinner supplies. The box on my porch always brings a smile to my face and lessens my workload!

2. The meals use seasonal, healthy ingredients. Each Hello Fresh dinner we have tried comes with fresh fruits and vegetables, top quality meat, interesting grains, and minimally processed ingredients. For example: last week the only processed foods in our entire box were chicken stock, hoisen sauce, pasta, rice, and soy sauce. All the other ingredients were fresh. Bonus: The meals include fresh herbs, since I normally use dried it’s pushed me to be a better cook.

3. You chose the meal option that best suits your family. Hello Fresh has three menu plans: classic, family, and vegetarian. We have tried and enjoyed both the classic and family boxes. The classic is a bit more expensive, but has more meal options. The family box includes recipes that both kids and adults will enjoy. The vegetarian box sounds delicious, but my husband prefers meat at dinner so we have not tried that box… yet!

4. Each recipe is quick and easy to prepare. Each Hello Fresh meal takes 30 minutes, tops! The instructions are clear and concise with great photos. It’s seriously easy, my kids (10 and 13) often do the cooking.

5. Hello Fresh meals are cheaper (and healthier) than restaurant meals. Taking our family of four to Subway cost about $40 dollars, and we are eating at a fast food restaurant! Our favorite sit down meal costs around $65. A Hello Fresh meal for 4 costs about $35 and we’re eating a home cooked meal. Each Hello Fresh box saves us between $20-65 dollars.

6. The portion sizes are generous. Each meal has to feed myself, two hungry kids, and a 6’4” husband with a hollow leg (Seriously!). Each of our dinner selections has left us with enough leftovers for my husband to take for lunch the next day. These leftover lunches save us another $8-10 each. I love not having a lot of food waste as I am not a fan of leftovers.

7. The interesting menu options get you out of an eating rut. I love cooking but often find myself preparing the same meals over and over again… hello taco Tuesday! Hello Fresh has a creative menu that gets us out of our normal eating pattern. Did I mention that Jamie Oliver is a chef partner, I love his recipes!

8. Hello Fresh makes me feel like an amazing chef. Every time we eat Hello Fresh my husband and kids have given me great compliments about dinner. High praise from the people who generally mutter, “it’s fine” for any meal I prepare! The recipes use a variety of cooking techniques from grilling to one-pot meals that gently push me to try new things in the kitchen. You can recreate your favorite entrees since each meal comes with a complete recipe.

Before You Order Hello Fresh…

There are a few things you should keep in mind to get the most out of meal delivery:

• You have complete control over the meal delivery schedule. Each week you log on to select the number of meals and menu options. You can also pause your account at anytime. It’s really that simple, I am no technical whiz kid.

• The meals cost a little more than selecting a recipe and buying ingredients yourself…  but you don't have to go to the store!  Meal delivery costs a bit more because you are paying for convenience. We receive three family meals for four each week for about $100. (Get $60 off your first order) I don’t mind the cost because our family still saves money by not eating out. Let’s face it, it’s easier to cook when an easy and delicious meal is ready to prepare.

• You do the cooking. Hello Fresh meals are home cooked meals, not frozen entrees. Each meal requires you to chop produce, herbs, and/or meat then prepare the recipe. At first I was a little disappointed when I found out I had to do the prep, but after our first meal I was convinced it’s the right way to go. The ingredients are fresh and tasty, not dried out and wilted. Plus it’s nice to have a bit of family time while we cook.

What if you’re not satisfied with Hello Fresh?

There is no contract with Hello Fresh and no minimum number of meals to order, so you can leave at any time. You can see all the meals you are going to receive when you sign up for an account so you should have no surprises.

If you are interested in Hello Fresh, click here to get $60 off your first order (I earn a small commission when you use my link, but this review is 100% my personal experience with Hello Fresh, my personal photos, and my unbiased opinion… Well, I am a little biased I LOVE not having to meal plan and grocery shop!)

Our family has tried both the Classic plan and the Family plan. We enjoyed both. Pick the one with the most recipes your family would enjoy!

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