My First Recipe Box Experience – Hello Fresh

Having been a long time lover and follower of the hilarious beauty that is Cate in the Kitchen (get yo’ little tush over to her site and click follow!), I’ve been forever in awe of her food reviews, most especially of which has to be her recipe boxes. Being pretty keen amateur chefs ourselves, we’ve never felt the need to buy a recipe box as we often come up with recipes and buy individual ingredients accordingly. I really like the idea of a recipe box, but for three meals, the Hello Fresh boxes at £39 seemed quite steep.

However, when I was offered a box to try out by my cousin, it happened to fall on a weekend whilst we have been trying to save desperately and we aren’t the sorts to turn down free food! #Perfection

Friday night was a late one, so we actually had all three meals between Saturday and Sunday, but as they’re pretty speedy to cook, it was really great having an exciting lunch as well as dinner! The box was jam packed with ingredients, with recipe cards for each meal, and I loved the fact that although the box sat on my porch all day Thursday when it was delivered, in the fridge all night and all day Friday, and there was still ice frozen in the ice packs inside the refrigerated bag when I unpacked it all on Friday evening. That biodegradable wool stuff is amazing at insulating!

Meal 1 – Creamy Chivey Smoked Haddock with Crushed Potatoes and Buttery Spinach

Initially I thought the portion would be a bit unbalanced with what seemed like LOADS of spinach, and barely any potatoes. However, it was literally delicious, and there was far more food than I’d thought at the beginning, which came as a nice surprise. Perhaps we just usually cook far too much? Who am I kidding – we definitely always cook far too much! The fish was soft and smokey and flakey, the sauce was incredible, seeing as it was basically just milk, creme fresh, chives and butter cooked with the fish, and the spinache and potatoes were a fresh accompaniment. With a realistic  predicted cook time of 25 minutes, Hello Fresh wins round 1!

Meal 2 – Tender Stir Fried Pork with Black Bean Sauce and Cashew Nuts

For Sunday lunch we treated ourselves to some stir fry, which actually Adam isn’t usually a fan of. This was the only recipe that took longer than the Hello Fresh card predicted, but I think that’s possibly due to my pedantic slicing of my veg into tiny thin slices. It was actually pretty therapeutic so there wasn’t any issue with it taking longer, I just thought I’d add that aspect in for scientific accuracy…!

The ingredients created an enormous meal, though we did still add a few extra cashews as we’re big fans! I thought the pork was delicious and it was a nice touch that the recipe box even came with a little sachet of cornflour! In fact, the whole box was very cleverly produced, with exact portions of each ingredient so there was no weighing, measuring or fuss involved and you can just get straight to the cooking! I also especially loved the ginger kick this recipe had!

Meal 3 – Jamie’s Grilled Steak with Herby Brown Rice

Having another meal with rice, I was worried it would be too much, but the difference in textures was great and didn’t feel boring. Plus, gluten free = yipee! I will admit I’d had a particularly bad afternoon so Adam cooked this up for me whilst I had a stiff G&T and watched some trash TV. The steak was really good quality, and cooked up a treat. Another great tip was that the pepper was grilled under a flame and then peeled. It was a taste revelation, trust me! So sweet, and combined with the bite from the rice, the soft feta and crunchy pistachios, I love love loved this meal. With the combo of lemony yogurt, and taking a little less time than the instructions suggested, I think this recipe was my favourite from the box!

I’d be really intrigued to try any other recipe boxes and see how they compare, as Hello Fresh really exceeded my expectations, both with recipes, ingredients and ease of cooking. I really liked how imaginative the meals were, and how easy the whole system was. I reckon if you wanted one for just the weekend meals, or perhaps a special occasion. Or even if you were going away self catered for a long weekend it would be fantastic as they literally include everything you need! If I wasn’t saving every penny I have and living off beans on toast each weekend, I’d definitely buy a Hello Fresh box again. We’ve spoken about it quite a bit actually, as we were both really impressed. The only recommendation we think would be a great addition is possibly having the option to add dessert (though maybe that’s just because I love a pudding!!). 

The box was sent to me as a gift from my cousin, but I enjoyed it so much, I thought I’d give it a review regardless!