Hello Fresh April-May 2016 Subscription Box Review + Coupon

This week’s Hello Fresh featured meals that felt both light and hearty at the same time — perfect for rainy spring weather!  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.  Each dish makes plenty of food for two, and we always a bit of leftovers to save for lunch.

Our 3 meals for 2 people.  Hello Fresh also offers a 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 that box and cook things twice for two. Or, try out the 4 or 5 meal box.

As always, there is plenty of ice to keep everything cold — especially the meat, as it arrives buried in ice packs at the bottom.  Apart from the meat, all the ingredients for a recipe are packed together in a single box which stacks easily in the refrigerator.

Hello Fresh recently added a new feature, an “In a Pinch” reference chart.

This week, it’s all about perfect pairings between food and herbs!

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 pictures of all ingredients, as it makes it really easy to make sure you have everything in front of you when you start to cook.

This is an example of a typical HF recipe. They’ve wisely departed from a strict mis-en-place prep order, instead focusing on longer lead-time items first and delaying some washing and chopping so you can do it when you would otherwise be staring at the food cooking.  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.

Everything in this week’s box!

Spanish Steak Salad With Roasted Red Peppers & Rosemary-Garlic Vinaigrette. 25 mins, level 1, 701 cal per serving.

This was my kind of salad!  Sure, there was lettuce, but it was buried beneath a stack of sweet roasted peppers, creamy cheese, and a pile of perfectly cooked steak.  Crunchy and chewy slabs of oiled bread stood in for croutons and made great mini-trenchers for the flavorful steak.  I liked the easy of preparation — the peppers, bread, and steak all used a single cookie sheet, limiting the number of dishes needed for prep.  The above pic shows both servings.

Herby Pan-Seared Chicken With Farro Caprese Salad. 30 mins, level 1, 618 cal per serving.

I really enjoyed this dish.  The chicken had so much herbe de Provence on it that it was like cooking a blackened filet.  The farro has a really nice chew and hearty flavor, somewhat like brown rice, but nuttier and chewier.  This is like a version of tabbouleh for giants, with giant flavor.  This dish took a little effort, due to the separate preparation of the meat, chopped ingredients, dressing, and farro.  Both servings are pictured together.

Roasted Pork Tenderloin With Lemony Potato & Zucchini Hash. 30 mins, level 1, 434 cal per serving.

We were very impressed with this dish, and it showcased a flavor profile that we hadn’t seen before (which is a rare thing).  The combination of garlic, lemon, and cilantro was bright and fresh, and it was actually quite unique — it didn’t have the spice to make it Caribbean, the fruit or olives of a North African dish, or the parsley of a chimichurri.  I loved the disparate texture of the crunchy potato squares and the tender zucchini.  The meat was flavorful and tender, the pork pleasantly brightened by a spritz of lemon.  This dish took more effort than the others, as multiple ingredients required both frying and baking.  The pic above shows both servings together.

This Week’s Hello Fresh was, as always, very tasty, with a light aspect to the dishes.  Each dish had a well thought our combination of textures and flavors, making for a very satisfying trio of meals.

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 APRIL50HF! If you just want to try one box save $40 off your first box with coupon code 7UT7K8.