Unless you’ve been living outside of the social media bubble, you’ve probably come across advertisements for meal kit delivery services a time or two while scrolling through facebook or Instagram.
The concept started to become popular a few years ago, when people realized that after a long grueling day at work, it was so much easier to skip the hassle of grocery shopping and instead, come home to meal kits delivered to their front doors. Although the services doesn’t cut all the grunt work out of cooking entirely, the packages include everything that the average busy millennial who feel as though there just isn’t enough hours in the day to cook and eat healthier would need to bring healthy delicious dishes to life, right in the comfort of their homes.
For this reason, I jumped at the opportunity to try out HelloFresh. I’m currently training for a bikini fitness competition in March, and I needed some new food options to try outside of the poultry and veggie combos that was currently filling up my meal plan.
I admit, my skepticism around these meal kit services were very high because prior to HelloFresh, I had tried a few meal prep services that promised to deliver my meals for the week packaged and ready to go, and I had been extremely underwhelmed at the quality and taste, and overwhelmed by the many containers filling up my fridge. With these services, I didn’t have to cook the meals — they came already prepared — but they just didn’t taste very good.
As a matter of fact, a few years ago, I tried out a meal kit delivery service and cancelled after my first week because the food showed up in a big bulky box, the packaging was unorganized and I had to take the time to figure out which ingredients went with the three recipes included. I was overwhelmed, and even more flustered once I realized that storing the food in my fridge was no easy feat either.
HelloFresh picked up where that Meal Kit service left off.
I was impressed that it came in a medium size, neatly packed box with three smaller boxes inside that contained all the ingredients you needed for each recipe.
All you really had to do was open the box of choice for the meal you wanted to make that night, and everything was pretty much laid out for you.
The recipe instructions included photos and were easy enough for a twelve year old to follow.
I settled in on making Pistachio Crusted Chicken…
And although my final product didn’t come out as beautiful as the sample photo, my tastebuds were thanking me for the much needed switch up in my dinner plan.
As someone who has to count her macros everyday, what really sealed the deal for me was the nutritional info of the recipes was readily accessible. At just a quick glance, I saw that the Pistachio-crusted chicken was 570 calories, 17 grams of fat, 52 grams of protein, 52 grams of carbs and 10g of sugar.
The other two meals included in my kit were a Protein Packed Rice bowl and Cod over Couscous. All of the recipes are included on the HelloFresh website, so if you ever misplace the recipe pamphlet that comes in each kit, you can quickly reference the HelloFresh site for photos, the recipe and everything you need get a delicious dinner ready.
My overall verdict: These meal kit delivery services have been around a few years, but I love that HelloFresh perfected the idea while providing healthier dinner options. I will be continuing the service.
If you’d like to give it a try, use coupon code xoNecole at checkout for $30 off your first order.
If you tried meal kit delivery services before, let me know your thoughts in the comments!
Hi, I'm Necole!
