July 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, antibiotic 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.

There are new cut-off days to make changes before deliveries.

This month’s cards included a recipe for fresh fruit sangria!

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

 Stuffed Zucchini Boats With Mushroom Duxelles, Quinoa, and Parmesan. 35 minutes, level 2, 493 calories per serving.

Before I begin on the bodacious boats I’d like to mention  something about Hello Fresh’s packaging.  At my house we recycle everything we can, unfortunately, it’s limited in our area.  BUT, the freezer packs that come in the Hello Fresh box are easily disposed of in my community.  I’ve given them to a friend who has medical issues to carry her medications from place to place.  I’ve left some in the church freezer for leftovers and when I can’t find someone who needs them, Goodwill will take them. The rest of the packaging goes to the recycle bins.  I love helping the environment.

We had family come into town last week and went out to eat every day.  I live in a very touristy area, you’ve probably heard of this town in an infamous way but anyway,  there’s plenty and I mean plenty of great eating establishments around.  Seriously though, I was tired of eating out and so glad when my Hello Fresh box came last night.

Now about those bodacious boats.  There’s nothing left after tonight’s dinner not even the stuffing that wouldn’t fit in the boats.  All gone!  This was a great meal and as usual I learned a new trick about how to bake the boats.  I’ve baked them before but never put oil on them and with the oil they brown so very nicely.  Who says an old dog can’t learn new tricks!

So few ingredients so full of flavor!  BTW, did you notice my serving plate that I used?  It is actually a cheese tray but it showcased these boats in a totally awesome way.

This rates a 10.

 Zesty Corn & Red Bean Salad With Roasted Sweet Potato, Feta, and Tomatoes. 30 minutes, level 1, 553 calories per serving.

Tonight at dinner my husband and I had an interesting conversation.  He said, “this isn’t zesty.” And thus it began.  His idea of zesty is hot as in peppers.  My idea of zesty is food full of spices and zest, like sour as in lime or lemon.  If you look up the definition I’m much closer than him…yea me.

So anyway, this was very zesty and I’m glad I added only 1/2 the zest and 1/2 the lime juice.  The flavors were very good together.

Now the next thing we discussed was who in their right mind would ever put sweet potato and tomatoes together?  Not me in my wildest cooking dreams/nightmares.  But in this recipe iT works and it works well.  I found the whole mix of ingredients very weird but it works.  I’ll repeat myself to make sure you get the point…it just works.  The tastes blended together for a surprisingly delicious and very filling meal.

This gets a 10, kinda weird 10 but a 10 nevertheless.

Peach and Mozzarella Flatbread With Walnuts and Balsamic-Arugula Salad. 30 minues, level 2, 702 calories per serving.

Dinner, appetizer or dessert?  For us peaches says dessert but the balsamic-arugula salad and flatbread yells appetizer but basically, Hello Fresh is sending you a meal/dinner.  So you get to decide which you’d serve this flatbread for.

We decided we weren’t too keen on it being dinner, it’s meh, maybe I’m stereotyping what my dinner should be.  But we did think it would make a perfect appetizer.  It’s a real conversation starter with the peaches and salad on top.  With that being said we did eat it for dinner and ate every bit!  It was very tasty with the sweet and salty contrast.

Warning…I did have to sop up the juice that ran from the peaches, so be aware you might also need/want to do this as you might not want your flatbread to get soggy.  My husband really liked the flatbread so keeping it crisp was a good idea for this house.

As an appetizer, we give it a 10.

Have you tried Hello Fresh? Currently you can get a $50 Discount on your First two Boxes with coupon code HF50SUMMER.If you just want to try one box save $40 off your first box with coupon code 7UT7K8.

Visit Hello Fresh to select your box for next week!