The interminable problem of a busy life: you want to eat a variety of interesting meals each week, but frankly, you don't have the energy or time to conjure up something exciting. So you end up reverting to the usual tired tin of pasta shapes and some tomato sauce.
If only someone would drop all the ingredients you need to make tasty, healthy food at your door, plus instructions with what to do with them. You'd become an overnight Nigella.
Say hello to HelloFresh — the easy way to make delicious, healthy meals at home — without setting foot in the supermarket.
You can have these little boxes of wonder delivered and save £25 by signing up to Hello Fresh through Londonist.
We tried it for a week and we're impressed. It was goodbye to tense conversations and half-baked efforts to cook, and hello to fresh, flavour-packed meals.
The trial run involved a week’s worth of recipes, and these were our favourites: Korean beef bulgogi and chicken dosa pancakes.
Recipe 1: Korean Beef Bulgogi with Ginger Stir Fried Broccoli
Korean food is going to be huge in the UK soon and it looks like HelloFresh are ahead of the trend. Bulgogi is a Korean BBQ recipe and this clever adaptation means you can have a simplified version on the table in half an hour.
The punchy flavours of soy sauce, ginger, garlic and spring onions make this an interesting dinner that leaves you feeling satisfied. The portions are also really generous, which is a surprise, actually, and a relief. There’s no dumbing down on flavour or size and for that, HelloFresh, we salute you.
Recipe 2: Chicken Dosa Pancake with Sticky Mango Chutney and Cooling Raita
We’re perfectly happy to tell you that before this, we’d never made our own dosa pancakes, or even considered it for that matter. Surely they’re complicated to make? Not so. The HelloFresh recipe had us merrily knocking these out like pros and serving them up, hot and speckled black with nigella seeds, alongside curried chicken.
Together with the sweet chutney and cooling, minty yoghurt, this felt like a real treat. Did it really only take 40 minutes to cook? This meal that looked and tasted so impressive?
So the recipes were a hit; here’s a run down of why we loved the service:
- We’re cooking at home, rather than grabbing the phone in desperation, ordering unhealthy alternatives;
- The meals are completely doable after work, so we felt the satisfaction of cooking ‘real’ food, but without it draining the last of our energy;
- The meals are nutritionally balanced already – one less thing to worry about;
- It’s about as convenient as home cooking gets, with all the recipes and ingredients delivered to the door;
- The recipes are fresh and interesting, and we picked up new techniques and ideas that will stick with us.
