Being able to cook without having to do the shopping, a dream for most people! Hello Fresh makes this possible for you without having a butler at home :-). What Hello Fresh does it basically make you a food package for a 3 or 5 days (per week) regular or vegetarian with all recipes and fresh ingredients (from local growers) included to make the predefined dishes. There are some ingredients you need at home like olive oil or salt and pepper, but besides that you’ll find everything in the box. They even give tips how/ what you can put in the freezer or on how to storage the food to keep the food fresh.

My wife and I already tried a similar concept like Hello Fresh about 2 years ago, but we stopped it as it didn’t fit our lifestyle at that moment. We were never home at night which resulted in food being thrown away.  We did like the concept and we do still use some of their recipes.  When our daughter was born (about 4 months ago) and we knew we would be home much more than before it seemed like a good idea to start again with a concept like Hello Fresh.

Why Hello Fresh and not one of the others? When a new baby is born, the parents get a few boxes filled with coupons, samples and other baby related things. One of those boxes offered a coupon for Hello Fresh… and that’s why we decided to try Hello Fresh. After ‘using’ Hello Fresh for about 10 weeks (as we do sometimes still go out and on holiday 🙂 ) we can say we are still happy with our decision. I know it might seem that I’m not into cooking or shopping for food anymore, but that’s not true. I do still enjoy going to open air markets or the supermarket and cook my recipes. I still do all of that in the weekends. Now I’m just able to spend a bit more time with my family and not having to ask my wife over and over again what she feels like eating tonight or tomorrow (it made her crazy sometimes 🙂 there you have reason n°2 😉 ).

What I like about the recipes from Hello Fresh, is that they are simple and everybody should be able to make them. Another advantage is that no recipe takes more than 40 minutes to cook (most of them not even more than 30min). I must admit that you can sometimes tell the recipes are Dutch as some combinations seem rather strange like lasagne for example with a salad to go with it (as an Italian, that’s a big no no). What I then usually do is just leave the salad out and eat it during the weekend and buy a few extra ingredients. Or I also sometimes make recipes in a different way then described as I know it will just be better my way… (without adding extra ingredients that is). Nevertheless most recipes are very nice and we enjoy them. Another benefit is that their recipes are good for your health as they only provide the portions you are actually supposed to be eating a day. I must admit that when I see some of the portions in the box I think ‘that will never be enough’ and I’m wrong 98% of the time 🙂 Last but not least, another advantage of Hello Fresh is that you throw away less food. The recipes also contain a table with up to 6 people the amounts that should be used for the ingredients (including if they are ok to eat for people who have problems with Lactose or Gluten)

Hello Fresh also uses forgotten vegetables, from time to time replace the usual potatoes and pasta with quinoa, couscous or any other thing you can replace it with. Basically you get to eat stuff you usually wouldn’t buy or eat, but are now ‘forced’ to eat and in the end love it and think why you never tried it before :-).

I’m sure my wife and I will keep making use of the Hello Fresh services some more. BTW Hello is very spread out as it delivers in Australia, UK, USA, Austria, Germany and obviously Belgium and  The Netherlands.