A nutritionist’s review of Hello Fresh!

Oct 30

I have wanted to try Hello Fresh for a very long time and after a recent slump of – what the hell am I going to cook tonight – I thought now was a good time to give it a go. A friend gave me a discount code, which gave me 50% off my first box, making it also very affordable. So for the last 5 nights, we’ve had a different Hello Fresh meal and to be honest, it was better than I anticipated…

If you want to try Hello Fresh – please drop me an email at Rachel@empowermenutrition.com or reach out to me on socials as I have 10 free boxes to share. *Please note that I do get a $15 account credit if you decide to sign up.

Without further ado, here is my review!

Ordering and cost –

From memory, I had to order about a week before my order arrived. Where I live, orders are delivered on a Wednesday, in the middle of my usual shopping week. Due to the discount code I received from my friend I paid $55 for 5 different meals for 2 people. Essentially 10 single serves.

Selecting your meals is very easy – you select a plan based on how many people you want meals for and then how many days per week you want meals. You can select from 2, 4 or 6 people and recipes per week are 3, 4 or 5. You also select what kind of meals you like eg. Classic, vegetarian, family-friendly, calorie-smart, protein-rich etc. There are also 25 new meals each week. There are also swaps you can make to particular cuts of meat or swap out protein sources. I chose to add halloumi to one of the vegetarian meals we had and swapped chicken thigh for breast too. To make ordering even easier, each meal has various tags you can use to make selecting meals easier, such as kid-friendly, quick prep, ready to cook, under 650kcal, takeaway faves etc.

You can order online through an app or their website . The site does encourage you to sign up and if you want to cancel your automatic deliveries, I am pretty sure you need to do this on a browser, as it won’t work in the app. When you sign up, you automatically go onto a weekly recurring plan and you can skip weeks, but there are cut-off times for this – so be aware of this if you only want to try and aren’t ready to commit.

These are the meals I selected

Sesame honey prawns and veggies with garlic rice
Aussie spiced barramundi with cherry tomato salad and cheesy potato bites
Fiery Mexican bean and veggie pie with potato mash and panko topping
Chermoula-spied pumpkin with garlic fetta yoghurt and pepitas
Chipotle chicken & buttery corn with sweet potato salad and ranch dressing

How it was packed & delivered –

At first, I wasn’t sure they would even deliver to my door as our house is in a private estate and no houses are visible from the road. We don’t get any parcel deliveries here either, so I was pleasantly surprised when they literally delivered it to the door. You can select where to leave it when you finalise your order.

The delivery came in a large brown box with all of the cold items in a separate bag with ice bricks in it to keep them cool. Here in QLD though, I wouldn’t want to leave it on the doorstep all day. You can see when your delivery is likely going to be delivered within a 1-hour window which helps to ensure that won’t happen.

Each meal has its own corresponding brown paper bag with a label so you know which meal it is for. Then any cold items are separated in the cool bag. You also have recipe cards and some other offers like a wine voucher and we also got an NIB health insurance offer. Because we ordered 5 meals, it does take up quite a bit of fridge space, so bear that in mind! You don’t want to just take everything out of the brown paper bags (even though they take up more space), as this makes it really simple when it comes to cooking each meal.

Inside each bag are all the ingredients you need for that meal, except any pantry items like olive oil, butter, honey, and vinegars (these were on my recipe cards). There is quite a lot of packaging, but because things are portioned out, you do expect this. It would be great if the packaging would become more sustainable.

Freshness of ingredients –

This is something I was pleasantly surprised by. I chose 3 meat meals and 2 vegetarian meals. On the recipe cards, it recommends that you eat the meat meals early in your Hello Fresh week to ensure freshness. The meats were individually packed and had use-by labels on them. I would recommend checking these and ensuring you are using them within safe time limits. This isn’t visible unless you look inside the bag.

The veggies were really fresh and tasted great!

The meats were all use by the 5-day period of our meals, so we ate those first and left the veggie meals to the end of the week. Some veggies were cut and ready to go, others required more prep. The salad and herbs were all individually packed which helped maintain their freshness.

Preparation –

I highly recommend that you read through the instructions upon ordering if you are time-poor. Some meals will obviously take longer to prepare than others, so keep this in mind. You can read all about the description, prep time, nutritional values and ingredients you’ll get on each recipe card (available online when ordering, or on their website if you’re curious).

I usually cook exclusively with our Thermomix and Webber (instead of our oven) and sometimes use the gas stove. So going back to pots and pans was a bit different, but I did adapt the recipes to use these appliances. Anytime I needed to cook rice, I did so in our Thermomix, and instead of an oven, I used our Webber.

I probably spent about 30 mins prep each night in total – as an estimate. Each recipe card has time for prep and ready-in on it so you can plan your week accordingly. Read the recipe card before you get started and get out everything you need. This saves a lot of back and forth to the fridge and time wasting. If you are time-poor, you could chop any veggies you need in the morning while doing the kid's lunches to save a bit of time in the evening.

The recipe cards are really detailed and there are also online instructions if you prefer to look on your device. I prefer the recipe cards, as I look at screens often enough during the day. Anyone could cook these meals; they are very simply written and easy to follow. Some of our meals required having a few things on the go which can be tricky during an evening when the kids are hungry and you feel knackered, so again read the recipe first so you know what you’re going to be doing. I skipped a couple of things due to distraction, but it didn’t impact the meal. I’m a pretty intuitive cook and rarely follow a recipe so this was very different for me.

Taste & Nutrition –

I am going to break down each of these separately to make the most of this. I will also write about the changes I made to make the meal more nutritious. One thing I noticed overall was the amount of sauce and seasoning for each meal was A LOT. This is why their meals have such high sodium content (ours ranged from 787mg-2539mg per serve – note that the upper limit of recommended dietary intake (RDI) is 2,000mg for an adult). The nutrition panel also assumes you add in all of the ingredients, but I never added in all of the seasoning. We have at least half a packet of each seasoning to use another time – which is great because I can replicate these meals another time. The recipes also used quite a lot of oil and butter, which I didn’t use much of at all. Only a spray of olive oil instead of a drizzle where needed, if needed at all.

· Sesame honey prawns and veggies with garlic rice

Yum! This was delish. The recipe included jasmine rice, but I prefer basmati and we had this on hand, so I used that instead. I also added more veggies (more carrot and some broccoli) to this to increase the veggies. The recipe used a lot of sesame oil, so I only used a tiny bit of this as I don’t like really oily dishes and I used only a little of the oyster sauce (again very salty). Nutritionally, this is very high in sodium as per the recipe with prawns, coming in at 2539mg/serve. The amount of prawns was also great, I didn’t feel ripped off here.

· Aussie spiced barramundi with cherry tomato salad and cheesy potato bites

This was so tasty. I love fish and this really hit the spot. Simple to prepare and cook, this was a fave. The Aussie spice blend was perfect on the fish. The salad in the recipe was a little lacking so I added a small tin of 4 bean mix. I also served ours with some cooked baby broccoli, and added in some sweet potato and zucchini to the ‘cheesy potato bites’. This was also a huge hit with Ms. 11. The barramundi portions were adequate, about 3/4 the size of my hand.

· Fiery Mexican bean and veggie pie with potato mash and panko topping

I love beans and this was a great take on a traditional shepherd’s pie. Looking at the recipe and realising that the sauces etc are usually in excess of what’s needed, I decided to turn this 2 serve dish into 4 serves by adding an extra can of beans, another 2 potatoes, and extra celery and I also added in some capsicum to the bean filling to bulk it out a bit more. We served ours with a quick salad (tomato, caps, spinach and avo) which wasn’t included in the recipe. I didn’t add the panko breadcrumbs on my half, but did throw some light cheese on top. With my recipe modifications, this easily made 4 servings and Ms. 11 also devoured this one. This is a dish I will definitely make again.

· Chermoula-spied pumpkin with garlic fetta yoghurt and pepitas

This dish had some newer flavours I probably haven’t tried together. There were 2 spice mixes in this, ras el hanout and chermoula. Each spice went on separate ingredients. The serving size for these were quite large and super filling. I cooked the rice in my Thermomix here and didn’t add any butter or garlic (as per the recipe). I chose to add halloumi to this but used a low-fat one in the fridge instead of the one they sent which was a lower-sodium variety (I’ll use this another time). The serving of halloumi as per the recipe and as provided was a LOT. I used less in my version. I didn’t receive the pepitas with this as per the recipe, so I used a seed mix I had at home instead. I’ve got lots of these seasonings left and can’t wait to make some more roast veggie dishes with this.

· Chipotle chicken & buttery corn with sweet potato salad and ranch dressing

For this dish, I selected chicken breast instead of thigh (which it comes with as standard). Another easy recipe that was mainly baked in the oven (Webber in my case) and came together really quickly. I also added a small can of four-bean mix to this along with fresh tomato and capsicum to add more plant variety and fibre to the dish. I actually forgot to use the ranch dressing on this, as there was another dressing used on the chicken, and I didn’t really think it needed it. The corn was so fresh and prompted me to use more corn on the cob in cooking.

Overall nutritional considerations

High sodium – use less seasoning and sauce to reduce this. High sodium is detrimental to health. All bar one of the recipes had ¾ to 1 full day’s RDI of sodium per serving cooked according to instructions (yikes). Mine would have been less due to using less sauce and seasoning. You can do the same!

Calorie-wise – you can make adjustments as I did with less butter, oil and sauce. I’m not counting calories so have no idea how much less mine would have been but I focused on adding more veggies and legumes to increase fibre and satiety.

Sugars – Basic rule of thumb, if it tastes sweet, it probably has added sugar (or sweetener). The sugar content was okay for most recipes and many would be innate sugars in milk, yoghurt sauces etc. The honey sesame prawn had added honey so that had a higher sugar content.

Fibre – unfortunately there is no fibre listed on the recipe cards so you don’t know, but by adding in more veggies and legumes I know I was getting more in.

Protein – each dish had more than sufficient protein, even the vegetarian dishes, min 27g per serving. Which for most people is great for a main meal.

Fat – most recipes were pretty high in fat due to using more olive oil, butter and full-fat options (cheeses etc). One way to reduce this and therefore overall caloric content of the meal is to use lower fat options or less of those high in fat.

Should you try it? If you’re sick of thinking about what to eat and need some inspo, go for it. Getting some fresh recipes is always great and you get to keep the recipe cards if you want to make them again. And as I said earlier, you’ll likely have some leftover sauce/seasoning to repeat a recipe.

If you are on a weight loss journey and are comfortable being able to make healthier changes to recipes, go for it. I find that overall, the amount of veggies is lacking in the meat meals, veggie meals made on beans and veggies (not meat replacements) seem to be more nutritionally sound.

If you are on a weight loss journey and aren’t confident straying from a recipe, ensure you make lower-calorie choices. Some recipes are close to 1,000 Cal per serving. Which for some of us would be about half our daily intake (everyone’s daily intake varies greatly!). The great thing is you can read through the recipes and nutritional info before ordering to make a more informed choice.

Is it worth it and did I save money? YES. With the discount absolutely, without a discount, harder to tell. We are spending between $350-$500 per week on groceries (myself, husband, three school-aged kids and a dog – husband works away on 7 on 7 off roster) and we don’t eat a lot of meat, but we eat a lot of fresh produce and dairy. My meals came down to $5.50 per serving. Without my discount, it would have been double ($11.00). Depending on what you usually cook at home, it might be cheaper or might not. Remember this is essentially a service you’re paying for, someone to do the leg work for you.

Did I save time? Yes and no, yes because I didn’t dick around in the afternoons wondering what to have thanks to the end-of-year slump that goes with three kids at school, extra activities, work etc. No, because I usually probably spend a little less time cooking – possibly 10 minutes saving each night. But likely because these are new recipes and I needed to spend more time thinking about what I was doing.

Overall comments -

Will I use Hello Fresh again? Absolutely. It won’t be something I rely on all the time, but there are weeks when I just CBF thinking about food. This might sound weird coming from a nutritionist, but with three kids who have varying food likes and dislikes, it gets a bit hard at times to meal plan and keep things interesting. The freshness was great, all the meals were really tasty and the variety has inspired me to use the leftover seasonings to make some new dishes. I would hope that in time Hello Fresh reduces the sodium content and perhaps makes some healthier options available to those who seek it. There aren’t a lot of meat-free options which might be a problem for those who want them.

Click on the images below to see how my meals turned out :)

* I have no affiliation with Hello Fresh and was not paid by them for this review.