Food Drink

We Put This Vegetarian Meal Delivery Service To The Test To See If It’s Worth The Hype

Ever wondered what HelloFresh was or what it’s like? Is it actually worth it? What about for vegetarians?

Alright, we’re really starting to get the hang of this whole meal box delivery thing and the general consensus on HelloFresh has been overtly positive. Adelaide foodies including My Kitchen Rules Champ, Bree May, have trialled HelloFresh in their households recently to find out if the box is worth the hype, if you get value for money and whether or not it’s actually sustainable. They played around with the Classic HelloFresh Box and the HelloFresh Family Box, so we thought for good measure, we better see what the Veggie Box is like. Enter On The Chopping Board.

Ps. If you’re following along at home and you’re interested trying it out to see if this type of meal delivery service works for you and your family too, the guys at HelloFresh are taking $35 off your first box order – just choose which box you’d like by clicking here. 

Here’s how Taylor from On The Chopping Board went…

After a long and busy day at work, stopping off at the local shops to try and find inspiration for dinner that night is often the last thing I feel like doing! That’s why I was excited to try out the HelloFresh box that arrived on my doorstep. I have never tried a food box delivery service or even ready-to-eat meals before, so this was truly a new experience for me.

The HelloFresh box I tried was the Veggie Box for two people, which included three meals of a Roast Pumpkin, Fetta and Sage Tart, Speedy Jacket Potatoes and Indonesian Fried Rice. Alongside all of the conveniently portioned ingredients in the box was a colourful step-by-step guide to each recipe – all of which looked so good that I found it hard to choose what to cook first!

Indonesian Fried Rice

While there’s certainly flexibility to get creative with the ingredients provided in your box, I decided to stick to all of the recipes that came with my HelloFresh box, so that I could get a feel for the complete experience. I was pleased to discover that all of the recipes had the exact amount of each ingredient needed, which showed how well the recipes had been developed and tested. Each of the three recipes included simple, healthy ingredients that still packed a punch in flavour, including lots of great fresh herbs and spices to liven things up! It’s always great to see such interesting recipes that get you excited for dinner, especially for vegetarian meals.

I think one of the beauties of the HelloFresh boxes is that they really can be whatever you want them to be, and are easily adaptable to different people, lifestyles and cooking abilities. Although I didn’t choose to change the recipes this time, each recipe I cooked could easily have some extra veggies added to them if you happened to have spare ingredients lying around that needed to be used up.

The HelloFresh recipes also seemed suitable for cooks of all different skill levels, including those without much cooking experience who wants to get started cooking at home. Likewise, as a keen cook myself, I still found that the recipes were interesting and tasty enough to impress anyone.

HelloFresh’s ingredients are delivered straight from the producer and then portioned for each HelloFresh box, rather than travelling to wholesalers, warehouses, storage facilities and supermarkets before reaching our kitchens. I could definitely tell difference in the quality of the produce supplied in my HelloFresh box compared to what is found in a typical supermarket, especially with the more fragile ingredients such as fresh herbs, mixed greens and tomatoes. These factors play a huge role in the quality of produce delivered to our door, and, of course, in the tastiness of a meal at the end of the day!

I honestly can’t think of any challenges faced while cooking the recipes from the HelloFresh box.

Speedy Jacket Potatoes

The HelloFresh box arrived for me in a particularly busy week, which couldn’t have been more perfect. Each meal really didn’t take more than 30 minutes to prepare, and the biggest time saver was having all the ingredients ready to go right in front of me. There are so many times when I think I have everything to prepare a meal, and then realise at the last minute that I’m missing a crucial ingredient. I also love how customisable HelloFresh is – there is the option to choose 3, 4 or 5 meals to be sent in a week, which means you can plan your cooking around your routine and other commitments.

After following all of the recipes the first time around, next time I would be interested to see how I could make a few of my own additions to the recipes. As a huge veggie lover, I have large salads or steamed veggies of some kind with every meal, which I might add onto some recipes depending on what they are. However, all of the recipes turned out so well and were extremely tasty, I would be happy to follow the recipes in future again!

Out of all three recipes, the Roast Pumpkin, Fetta & Sage Tart was definitely the favourite in my household. Although the flavour combination is a tried and tested classic, it is always delicious and never disappoints. The filo pastry was light and flaky, and it felt like such a treat to have a tart for a quick weeknight meal!

Pumpkin, Feta and Sage Tart.

Apart from the obvious convenience, what I loved most about HelloFresh is their approach to food and their use of ingredients with good, natural flavours. The inclusion of great herbs and spices helped to create some really appetising meals. Having the exact ingredients portioned out for each recipe was also much more of a help than I originally expected it to be, as well as helping to reduce food waste by up to 40%. Food waste is becoming more of an issue every year in Australia, so it is more important than ever to consider when making food choices and purchases. Similarly, most of the food packaging in the HelloFresh box was also made from biodegradable PLA plastic – meaning it will break down naturally and have less of an impact on the environment.

If you want to give HelloFresh a go for yourself, you can grab $35 OFF your first box here.

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