Hi all, I would like to try the meal boxes. Would you recommend HelloFresh or Dinnerly or Marley Spoon? Who has the best recipes?
Meal boxes HelloFresh/Dinnerly/Marley Spoon
[Deactivated] on 26/09/2020 - 22:38
Comments
First used HelloFresh a for a while about a year ago and I was surprised about how good they were.
We tried them again a few months ago and was surprised about how much the quality of the fresh ingredient had gone downhill. I wouldn't use them again after that. YMMV.
Never pay full price for HF or MS. MS gives you $25 off first 4 boxes, then will give you discounts to get get you back every few weeks. HF gives you 1 free box, and you can refer your partner to get $50 off a box each.
Meals are pretty similar with both, I think MS gives better choice as a few HF stick around for a month at a time.
We have switched to downloading a ton of HF cards and just buying them ourselves using Woolworths online grocery lists which makes it easy to re-buy stuff.
Order The Hungry Kitchen
It works out to be about 10 dollars to 12 dollars a meal and all you do is microwave the food or heat it up
Good variety and no preservatives or additives like youfoodz
Every plate is also N option. I believe they are owned by hello fresh but are a bit cheaper. W have had them twice and enjoyed the meals.
Hello Fresh is disgusting. I've had it a few times and always regret signing up. The meals are truly awful.
I've hear Marley Fresh has the best recipes and quality.
I've had it a few times and always regret signing up.
Shame on you then
I've hear Marley Fresh has the best recipes and quality.
Did Marley Spoon and Hello Fresh merge?
I've found it to be the opposite. Hello fresh had much nicer meals with better flavours. Marley spoon never was quite as good.
Different from the masochists around, I like HelloFresh; food is tasty and I enjoy preparing the meals. Still, I only order when I get discount codes.
I've had occasional meal issues when I started ordering HF again this year (e.g., fish pack was wrapped once, vegetables were not fresh once), but I am usually happy with the resulting meals, which are delicious. I don't remember having these problems when I subscribed continuously between 2017-2018, so quality might have deteriorated a bit, but I don't see a pattern here, the reason why I still buy their boxes. I've prepared delicious risottos, pastas, burgers, and many other meals. Nothing that I prepared was awful… :)
If you subscribe, you have a pre-selection of meals every week, but you also have options to choose from.
I tried Marley Spoon years ago and was extremely disappointed, but I might try them again…
Hello Fresh vegetables are NOT fresh. Sometimes veggies are mouldy or mushy out if the box and sometimes they go bad within days of receiving them. Eg carrots initially look fine and then 2-3 days later they are limp and then 1-2 days after that they start to go black. Woolies carrots would take weeks to progress to that point. If you complain, they MIGHT give you a minuscule refund that is supposed to equate to the value of the vegetable concerned, but if it means you can't cook the meal on the night you are expecting to and have to have something out of the freezer or canned soup etc, then you have to go to the supermarket to get the item replaced before you can cook the meal, and maybe the other ingredients like the meat go off before you can cook it - that's worth way more than the tiny refund they give you after a fight. So I would never recommend Hello Fresh to anyone for this reason. Unless you're happy to still have to go to the shops and keep random veggies in your fridge for just in case. If they refunded the whole meal that contained the offending veggies I wouldn't care so much.
I found Dinnerly veggies much fresher.
The meals for Dinnerly are a lot more basic and simple. Help Fresh are more interesting and use more herbs etc. But Dinnerly is cheaper.
All of these providers are expensive for what you actually get, and don't get me started on the 'food miles' and packaging / transportation costs.
What people are really paying for are the recipes, which are usually just twists on standard dishes. From memory, you can download the recipes from a couple of these providers, so it is just a little effort to choose a few recipes for the week and plan ahead in your shopping.And if you get tired of those recipes, just search online for new ones. You will soon find a few sites that you personally like, that you can follow.
Contents of HelloFresh are nicely packed - each meal is separated in paper bags and includes paper recipe cards. Instructions can be misinterpreted easily at times. Some ingredients included (personally) feels like cheating, such as microwavable rice or coleslaw mix - otherwise, fairly fresh.
Dinnerly's presentation is on the budget end, which also aligns with its pricing - everything chucked in one box with no separation, forces you to download (and print-off) recipe cards. Food portions seems a little smaller than HelloFresh.
Haven't tried Marley Spoon, but they seem pricey?
Don't forget to ask for a referral code before signing up - gets you discounts for the first box.