April 2016 Hello Fresh Vegetarian Subscription Box Review + $50 Coupon

Hello Fresh is a meal kit subscription box with complete recipes and ingredients to make 3 meals every week, with each meal feeding either two or four people, depending on the plan you choose.

Though it is a subscription, you can pause your deliveries when needed — whether you are out of town, have other dinner plans, or just aren’t in love with that week’s selections. The standard subscription provides high-quality meats (free-range chicken, anti-biotic meats, etc.) to use in the recipes. Though we do eat meat, we cook vegetarian three times a week. Thankfully, Hello Fresh has a vegetarian subscription for both casual and dedicated vegetarians. This review covers the vegetarian box, which featured a recipe by Jamie Oliver!

The boxes used by Hello Fresh keep all the ingredients for the recipes in order, and they stack nicely in the fridge. Within each box, everything but the largest vegetables is separately packaged. Condiments and canned goods are provided in high-end, commercial packaging. Hello Fresh usually provides spices in their own, pre-measured branded packaging.

Hello Fresh has great instructions, and they are easy to follow even if you are an inexperienced cook.

There are even some kitchen tips included in the information card. This one includes tips on ingredient substitutions.

Each recipe includes several pictures so you maintain a sense of how the dish should look as you go along. There is also information provided on everything you need to know about the dish — nutrition info, prep time, and even which recipes are best to make first. Note that the recipes created for Hello Fresh by Jaime Oliver, an English celebrity chef and healthier food advocate, are written slightly differently than the normal Hello Fresh recipes.

Jamie’s Vegetable Spaghetti Bolognese With Golden Herby Bread Crumbs. 45 mins, level 2, 730 cal per serving.

This took a bit of cooking with the boiling the pasta, lentils, cooking the sauce and toasting the crumbs but with my husband’s help we managed to get it done. I think what takes the most time of all is the stripping the thyme from the stems. That is a pain in the hind end but so worth it in the end (no pun intended).

The sauce with noodles was delicious, I used the red wine, which just enhanced the flavor by bunches. When I mashed the sauce my lentils didn’t mash but then I was using a hamburger masher not a potato masher. So my lentils show in the picture but we enjoyed them that way. I’m wondering if my sauce would have been thicker, maybe I should have put them in my Bullet to mash them? Oh, well, enough of the lentils.

You top this dish with a mixture of bread crumbs, thyme and a drizzle of olive oil and then toast it. This added so much flavor and crunchiness to the dish. And then top the whole thing with Parmesan cheese. The two toppings, crumbs and cheese put this dish over the edge of tastiness.

We gave it a 9.5.

Roasted Vegetable Quesadillas With Chiptole-Chili Mayo and Guacamole. 35 mins, level 1, 590 cal per serving.

Delisioso!! Normally I cook the Hello Fresh dinners for dinner but today because of commitments I cooked it for lunch. And I’m so glad I did, I ate every bite of my serving and am stuffed which is a good thing because this was 590 calories and I’m on a 1000 a calorie a day diet. Let me say it again, I’m glad I ate every bite, worth every calorie! Salad for dinner.

You really have 2 things going on here, the quesadilla and the guacamole. Loved the roasted vegetables and I piled almost all on the tortillas but it’s the chipotle-chili mayo that adds the special zip to this zinger! Then you have the simple guacamole, mashed, and add lime, cilantro, and tomato. It just doesn’t get easier or better than that.

When you put these two phenomenal items together you get a mouthful of wonderfulness! This was a 10 on our scale.

Chopped Greek Salad With Cannellini Beans, Olives, and Toasted Pita. 30 mins, level 1, 572 cal per serving.

It was time to visit with my family friend who is 94 at her house. There were six of us, I being the youngest of the group at 56! So anyhow, knowing I would be going I selected to make the Chopped Greek Salad, easy to make, transport and serve to a group. I sent my parents to a local Greek restaurant to pick up eggplant paninis and some hummus. Additionally, we served a dill cheese and an Asiago cheese and fresh pineapple. This was our dinner even though we put all the food on the coffee table, sit around it and use dessert plates for the food. Of course, good wine was had by all.

Very little cooking in this recipe which was nice for a change. Because I’m blogging I like to stick to the recipe as much as possible BUT raw red onions are way too strong for me. So when I sauteed the beans I also added in the red onions, just 2 minutes but that was enough to take that strong bite out of them. The comment around the table was about the beans.

Everyone liked them in this salad. And there was very little left, just enough for the 94 year old to have the next day for dinner along with some of the other items leftover. I particularly liked the pita crisps, all you did was cut them in strips, drizzle a little of EVOO, bake, and you’ve got yummy crisps that were great for dipping in the hummus! This recipe rated a 9.5.

Everyone in this group likes when I bring a Hello Fresh dish. They know it will be healthy and delicious.

Have you tried Hello Fresh?

Visit Hello Fresh to select your box for next week! Currently you get can a $50 Discount on your First two boxes with coupon code HELLOMAY50! If you just want to try one box save $40 off your first box with coupon code 7UT7K8.

The Subscription: Hello Fresh
The Description: Each week Hello Fresh delivers beautifully photographed step-by-step recipe cards, with the exact fresh ingredients needed to create a selection of new recipes.
The Price: $69 per week for 3 meals (59 vegetarian)

See Hello Fresh in the Hello Subscription Box Directory!
The Categories: Meal & Dinner Kit Subscription Boxes.
The Reviews: See all our Hello Fresh Reviews.