HelloFresh March 2016 Review and Coupon

This week we opted for three relatively light offerings, including one recipe by Chef Jamie Oliver!  Hello Fresh is a meal kit subscription box where you’ll get the recipes and ingredients to make 3 meals for two (or 4) every week. If needed, you can pause your deliveries and choose alternate meals (at least for the Classic box). There’s also a vegetarian box available. This is a solid meal subscription box with easy and accessible recipes.  We typically get a dinner for two, plus a bit for lunches the next day (or the better part of a meal for our young kids, when the food is mild).   

FYI Hello Fresh has a new family box – 3 meals for 4 people that at 8.75, is the lowest price per meal on the market.  If you don’t crave too much variety you can always get this box and cook things twice for two. Or, try out the 4 or 5 meal box.

Our box arrived with a reflective bubble-walled cooler bag to insulate the food — I suspect that is the insulation of choice for when the weather is either very hot or very cold. Each recipe is boxed separately, nestled atop ice packs within the outer shipping box.

Hello Fresh‘s menu cards have detailed instructions are super easy to follow.  It has nice illustrations, is clearly written, and even lets you know nutrition info, prep time, and which recipes are best to make first to optimize freshness of perishables.  I like the boldface on specific ingredients — it makes it easier to grab everything you need at each step.  Hello Fresh sends all the spices, sauces, bouillon and such in Hello Fresh branded individual serving packets or in off-the-shelf brand name packaging, so there are no repackaged items to leak or pop open in transit.

Our three recipe boxes.  The separate boxes organize the ingredients and protect the more delicate veggies from freezing and bruising.

The meat is packed separate from the rest of the ingredients.  It is always buried under a pile of ice packs.  Even in the warmer months, the meat stays super cold.  
Dukkah-Roasted Chicken with Sweet Potatoes, Snap Peas, and Citrus Sour Cream. 30 mins, level 1, 510 cal.

This dish was really straightforward to make — I hate pounding cutlets, so I butterflied each breast in thirds rather than halves (you do the top third from one side and then make the second cut from the other side, resulting in a Z-shaped breast instead of a book-shaped cutlet).  The dukkah had a nice flavor, and the balance of spices and seeds made it noticeably different than curry, za’atar, and other blends.  The zesty lime-creme, creamy sweet potato, and crisp snap peas made for a dish that hit all the bases without being too heavy. And yes, our kids loved it!

Chimichurri Steak with Roasted Pepper, Tomato, & Couscous Salad. 30 mins, level 1, 624 cal.

The chimichurri was really intense and a superb blast of flavor.  The steak was perfect cut for this application, as it was tender and had pronounced grain that really grabbed the churri.  Sweet pepper and tomato couscous was a great counterpoint to the bold impact of the steak and sauce.  The chopping required was pretty standard, making this dish a breeze to put together, considering the amount of flavor it packs.

Jamie’s Roasted Chicken with Lemony Bombay Potatoes. 55 min, level 2, 418 cal.

The lightest and brightest dish of the bunch (both in flavor and color), this offering was designed by Jamie Oliver, a pioneer of the Better Food movement.  It gets its flavor from a crazy dose of ginger and a combo of lemon and cumin, sparing the fat.  This dish had tons of flavor, and it was easy on the stomach — it was light and packed with digestion-aiding ginger.  I wasn’t thrilled with the big dose of turmeric, though — it adds a little bit of musty flavor, but it also creates one of the worst-staining sauces, so I avoid it unless it is already mixed in.  This was a nice change of pace option.

Our big surprise was how different the two chicken dishes were, since they looked so similar on the recipe card (we joked that we had two recipes for “yellow chicken”) — they each had a great, unique profile and made this trio an exciting tour of flavor!

Visit Hello Fresh to select your box for next week!  Take $40 off your first box with coupon code 7UT7K8.