Meal Kit Delivery Services

 June 2022 - Toronto ON

We get so many promo offers for prepared meal kits (aka food subscription boxes) in magazines and online orders.

This one came with a clothing order I bought from The Bay.

The premise: skip the shopping cart and sign up for a weekly delivery of pre-portioned ingredients and step-by-step recipes. 

 I set up an account, entered the discount code. It worked like this:

Box Price: Shipping cost: Recurring Price: $73.00 $9.99 $82.99

Box Discount: Shipping discount: -40.01 9.99

Order price: $32.99

3 meals X 2 people = $83/6 = $13.83 per serving

3 meals X 2 people = $33/6 = $  5.50 per serving with $50 discount

I selected the option for three meals.

Then I realized they picked my three meals. Okay...but these all have gluten. John is not super sensitive, so he said it's fine.

However, this is not worth $83! You can choose more orders individually priced as add ons.

It is cheaper than eating out but more expensive than cooking yourself.

I got into it and realized that the $100 discount is divided over 4 orders, $50 first box, then you have to place three more orders with the remaining $50 prorated.

 I do not want three more pre-determined orders. It was easy to cancel but I will get the first order, which I'm fine with as I am curious. And of course, they give me the option to sign up again to use the rest of the credit. I used the gluten issue as my reason for cancelling.

This is what our HelloFresh order looked like. A hardy, insulated box with cooler packs arrived at your building. It was packed with three meals, with the meat separated and on ice packs. It had every item (aside from a few household basics like milk, sugar, cooking oil, and salt) that was needed to cook a meal.

I followed the recipes exactly and did not add any ingredients. We didn't make the potato wedges with the burger.

This was Tuesday's dinner - Reuben inspired burgers.

The recipe cards are big and easy to follow.

The beef was delicious as were the artisan buns. John used one of his gluten free buns. 

I thought the cabbage mixture was a little stale. The recipe said to sauté the 

mixture with the red wine vinegar, water and sugar and then chill. Not impressed as this did not resemble sauerkraut at all.

The "secret" sauce was mayo, ketchup and pickles. Not so secret, it needed some spices.

We didn't cook the potatoes.

Wednesday cheesy chicken Milanese with apple salad, again very basic. 

Chicken breasts coated in mayo then breadcrumbs with a simple spinach apple tomato salad and a dressing made of white wine vinegar, oil, Dijon and sugar.

 I would have liked more dressing. But it was very tasty.

Thursday pork enchiladas with DIY enchilada sauce.

The green pepper was very big compared to the small red onion. The recipe put half the onion in the vegetables and half in the salsa. I ended up not using all the pepper to even it out. The salsa was delicious.

I substituted gluten free tortillas for John while I had the included flour tortillas. It comes with six tortillas.

Gluten free tortillas do not roll well for this recipe. 

Another tasty easy recipe.

Hello Fresh has all their recipes online. Click here for the links to the above recipes.

PROS AND CONS (for me)

I found these pros on a review site and added my comments.

ZERO stress when it comes to the idea of dinnertime. That means no worries about grocery shopping, forgotten ingredients, thawing meat, or planning meals! This was true on Tuesday as we were driving home and I was wondering what we would have for dinner and suddenly remembered (received delivery notification from the concierge) that it was solved.

Big-time money saved on eating out several times a month. Other than going for a burger or picking up sushi for lunch we do not eat out much. When we do we like to try upscale or "new to us" cuisines.

No food waste to feel guilty about or stink up our fridge. I like this idea and we didn't have any waste or leftovers. I didn't like all the little plastic packets.

Constant new ideas and tasty recipes to add to our regular “supper rotation.” I like to try new recipes so this wouldn't be a huge incentive. However these are super easy.

Instant healthy eating that doesn’t sacrifice taste. We eat healthy meals most of the time.

Easy-to-follow recipes and instructions. I'm an experienced cook so following a recipe is not a problem. However, the instructions are easy to follow. 

No need to have specialty items in stock. Since I like to cook there wasn't anything in the kits that I don't have available already.

FINAL THOUGHTS

• Would need a gluten free option.
• The fresh produce doesn't stand up well. We had three meals on three consecutive days and the cabbage on day 1 was blah. Day 3 the cilantro was turning brown. 
• Don't love having my meals preselected for me, however, it does give you new ideas.
• I can see the convenience and I did like the no brainer approach.
• They are just the right size.
• At the end of the day it comes down to cost and I think it is very pricy.
• It would be great to order these for a weekend at the cottage or when renting a vacation place. Having visitors?
• I like the idea of trying different companies with a discount code and then cancelling.