May 2016 Hello Fresh Vegetarian Subscription Box Review + 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.

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.

Everything in this box!

Caramelized Shallot Risotto With Zucchini Ribbons and Parmesan. 45 minutes, level 2, 517 calories per serving.

After being away from Hello Fresh for 2 weeks due to vacation time, went to Iceland, it was pleasant to get back into the swing of cooking again.  Food in Iceland is very expensive. While on a tour one day, we were stopped at a Geyser area and ate lunch at the cafe, along with a hundred plus other tourists.  One sandwich, nothing special, a cup of meat soup (lamb) was $26.00, no drinks. This is normal for up there, our lunches ran about $50 and dinner was $75.  So how nice it is to have 3 dinners reasonably priced from Hello Fresh.

My husband selected this dinner because of the risotto, he’s become an enthusiastic fan of it.  I liked the vegetables and the way they were cooked.  I especially liked the zucchini, never would have thought to make ribbons out of them.  And then top off the risotto with the ribbons.  I’m learning so much from the chefs at Hello Fresh.

This was a 9.5.

Mediterranean Butter Bean Salad With Feta and Black Olive-Sherry Vinaigrette. 25 minutes, level 1, 601 calories per serving.
I made this recipe for our lunch today as I’ve got a ladies group meeting tonight.  I’m glad I selected this for lunch as it’s a perfect lunch salad.  As a matter of fact this is the kind of recipe/dish you could make and take to a ladies group meeting or something where you need a dish to share.

Once again, I chose to steam my potatoes and green beans rather than boil.  It keeps all the good nutrients.  I put the potatoes on for 20 minutes, cut up the green beans and then threw them on top about 15 minutes, perfect.  I like my potatoes a little al dente.

The other direction that I changed was the 3 tablespoons of olive oil into the vinaigrette.  I’m always watching my weight, so I cut this down to 2 and as far as I’m concerned it was just right.  I didn’t tell my husband what I did and he made no comment about it lacking anything, so we’re good.  His only comment was about liking the butter beans.

We ate the whole bowl!  It was that good, no leftovers.  This rates a 10.

Open-Faced Portobello Sandwiches With Roasted Bell Pepper and Fresh Mozzarella. 30 minutes, level 1, 605 calories per serving.
I loved this sandwich for 2 reasons.  The first reason, ridiculous really, but at 56 I’m getting braces again and have spacers in my teeth.  One of my spacers broke while eating!  Darn, hate that it’s Friday and I can’t get in touch with the dentist until Monday to get another one. ha ha

The second reason I loved this sandwich was how easy and delicious it was.  We didn’t make them open-faced although we could have, but closed keeps the food in the sandwich and not on the plate.

After trying the first bite and determining it was good I decided to make it much better by putting my spinach salad on my sandwich, WOW.  All the flavors came together with a punch of the balsamic vinegar.  I did want to point out that before I added the spinach salad, I could take the garlic that I had rubbed on the bread, nice mild flavor that complimented the other flavors.  In the directions you are to use the chopped oregano leaves with the mushrooms and peppers.  There was a lot of chopped oregano left so I dredged the mozzarella slices through.  This added some more flavor.

There are times when I roast various vegetables and have some left.  I could make the same sandwich only using up the roasted veggies.  Any veggies roasted would make an awesome sandwich following the directions.  Oh, and don’t forget to pile on the salad!

This rated a 9.
 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.