So I have been so busy with work and so has my husband, which lead me to research some food delivery options. I've been using Amazon Fresh for about a month but because I wasn't browsing the grocery store any more, I was buying the same things over and over. I wanted to mix up dinners, but with as little effort as possible. Here is my review of the meal delivery services I tried out!
Hello FreshCost: $29 after 50% discount for first subscription ($9.99 per meal after)
Plan: 3 meals for 2 people.
Ease of ordering: Option of 6 meals where you can select 3. You can pick the delivery date. You can also easily skip the following weeks. Cancelling was easy as well. There is a veggie option that is separate too if you are a vegetarian. You can select which items you don't want included, for example I did not want lamb or certain fish sent.
Packaging: Came in a box with all 3 meals and ingredients separated. I loved this because I could pull a box from the fridge and have everything needed at my finger tips. Also included recipe cards. I accidently threw away the meat at first. The meat that goes with each meal is under a cardboard layer on dry ice. I figured the meat was in the individual meal boxes and the rest was packaging so I put it out in the garage. Thankfully my husband asked "where is the meat?" and we were able to save it!Prep: So easy! Recipe cards are very clear to follow. You were even told what kitchen items you needed, like a sauce pan or a fry pan. Each meal took on average a half hour to prep/cook. My husband was even able to make a meal, although full disclosure the fire alarm did go off. But it still ended up tasty and looked as pictured.
Ingredients: Every ingredient is pre-measured for the most part. If they give you too much it will be noted. The items you needed to have on hand were pretty much just olive oil and water. All items were fresh and used within 4 days of delivery.Taste: We enjoyed all the meals. The recipes were not crazy or gourmet things we would never consider eating, but they were prepared differently then we would have done in the past. The meals we selected were things we would typically eat and not totally out of touch with what a normal dinner may be. There were a few ingredients we would have not eaten on our own, but we tried the complete recipes. We even ended up liking the snap peas and I had collard greens for the first time as well!
Portion size: Each meal was plenty for each person. Cooking for 2 can be a pain because there are leftover ingredients and then leftover cooked items, and while we can eat things for lunch the next day you get sick of eating the same things over and over.
Overall review (scale of 1 to 5): 4. Meals were easy to store, prep and eat! Full cost of $60 a week though is what makes me hesitate to continue. It's cheaper then a meal out though so if you like to have higher quality meals and eat out, this might be a money saving option. Meals were things we would eat normally, but with a twist, and we felt like we could recreate them if wanted.Blue Apron
Cost: $29 for first order with discount ($30 off first order). $59 a week after.
Plan: 3 meals for 2 people.
Ease of Ordering: There is no separate vegetarian option, so just like Hello Fresh where you have 6 meals to pick from, 3 are veggie options. As a meat eater I didn't love that because it limited what my husband and I would agree on. There was no option to deselect certain categories like lamb. We ended up with 2 meat dishes and a pasta. I have nothing against pasta but it was like paying $5 per person to eat pasta, with the discount. At full price that would be $20 and so it's really overpriced as I can cook pasta on one of the nights I don't have one of these meals to prep. It was easy to skip weeks but I had to search in the help section on how to cancel my account. You have to send an email and then follow the steps in the email to cancel. Kind of annoying. 
Packaging: Items were not separated by meal and came all together. I was confused as each meal also had a little brown bag of knick knacks and I didn't know if it had to be refrigerated or not, so I stuck it in the fridge just in case. Ingredients: Everything was fresh.
Prep: Ingredients were not split per meal. Meaning if you needed half a tomato in two of the meals, you received 1 tomato to split. Garlic came peeled and ready to be chopped in the Hello Fresh box, but with Blue Apron you received a garlic clove. Not a big deal, but it increases prep time. You have to search for the items you need for each recipe since it's all packed together. Also, you had to figure out what pans/bowls you need and you needed a lot for every recipe. Tons of clean up to do after the fact as well for these recipes. Honestly, one night we were like do we have to do this, can't we just order pizza! But we opened a bottle of wine and got to it. Honestly, we have a baby and preschooler and I don't have time to prep for 20 minutes. It's hard to chop veggies with a baby clinging to your leg.
Taste: Ok. We felt like it was "add salt and pepper" a lot. Some of the items would be pretty flavorless without that. We altered some recipes by adding some things from our pantry, like additional pepper flakes and more cheese. Sometimes we left an ingredient out - for the pasta dish we didn't even both making the side which was roasted carrots, olives and some other ingredient we didn't want to eat by itself, let alone combined with these other items.
Portion Size: Decent, we finished our meals and felt full.
Overall review: 3. Cost is high considering that you are likely to get a vegetarian option which were overpriced. The meal options seemed more gourmet then Hello Fresh. The prep could be more labor intensive depending on the ingredients. I also didn't like that the ingredients weren't split up by meal. By the end of this trial my husband was asking me to sign up for Hello Fresh again, but we had one more company to try...
Home Chef:
Cost: $29.70 with discount on first order. $59.70 a week after (or
9.95 per serving). Although, after your first order you earn a $15 credit towards your next purchase.
Plan: 3 meals for 2 people.
Ease of Ordering: This service provided the most options. I selected what I prefer to eat and could also select items not to send, I was able to get rid of beans and mushrooms. They even asked if you were on a low cal or a low carb diet. I was able to skip weeks easily. There were 10 options available along with add ons. This was the biggest selection out of all the services. It was a good mix of vegetarian, gluten free, non diary - you could easily find something you liked. Also, each week you can select between 2-5 meals and you pay based on your selection. So if the next week you will be out of town a few days, or you only like 2 of the options, you can pick the number of meals to send. Easy to cancel.Packaging: All items per meal were bundled together, but everything was in the main box not separated. I do love that the recipes we received had what ingredients and the amount they sent so you can actually re-create the recipes. They send you a binder so you can store your recipes for easy reference.
Ingredients: Everything was fresh.
Prep: This was not as easy as Hello Fresh, but not as complicated as Blue Apron. Garlic clove came whole, but the items were easy to identify. The steps were easy to follow in the recipe even though my husband said he felt like he had a lot going on at once.Taste: Yum! We liked all the meal options and didn't alter any of the recipes.
Portion Size: We felt the most satisfied from these meals. I usually didn't take my "half" and my husband had more on his plate.
Overall review: 5. We were surprised to find we liked this service the best! With more options to pick from each week, and ease of ordering, this is the reason for the high rating.
Overall, even though the packaging from Hello Fresh was the best and easiest to prep with, we found the service comparable to Home Chef. We went with Home Chef because there were more options weekly to choose from and you could easily alter how many meals to send a week.
Want to try for yourself?
Hello Fresh
Blue Apron
Home Chef or consider using my referral link: https://www.homechef.com/invite/KMEQAc48XpJK
What are your thoughts? Have you tried one of these services? Which did you like better? Share any feedback in the comments section!
