Editor’s Note: This post is NOT sponsored by Hello Fresh. Neither Red Stick Moms Blog nor Cassie received any type of compensation for this article — she simply wanted to share with you how much she loves the service for her family!
Hey Mamas, Cassie here! Today I want to share (read: GUSH!) our love for Hello Fresh. Not only its convenience but how it truly has saved our dinner routine and kept us healthy and happy!
I’ll start with this: I am a mom to four boys — four very active and involved little boys. I am also a wife to a husband who works a ton of hours. At some parts of the year we are scrambling to shuffle everyone around in the evenings between practices, ball games and track meets. Needless to say our busy is BUSY. And because of this I found myself in a rut. While we were seemingly pulling off shuffling the kids around, homework, baths and bedtime there was one part of our evenings that was falling way short. Supper. We had fallen into the category of takeout or bust. We had a new dinner mantra, and boy was it a crappy one.
Not long after I realized how terrible of a dinner routine we had gotten into, I stumbled upon Hello Fresh. I remember ordering my first box and being SO excited. I called my husband and told him about this new dinner-in-a-box thing and he ended the phone call with an apprehensive, “Sure, we can give it a shot.” Little did we know how much we’d actually love it.
To start off, the process is oh-so-easy! Upon ordering our first week’s worth of meals we were given a ton of choices. Options like Paleo, Family, Vegetarian (in addition to so much more). We were given the option to choose what we wanted and what best fit our family … and if it didn’t work, we could cancel, pause or edit our box whenever we’d like! And THAT my friends, works for families. I dug around on their site and decided on the family box for four people with three meals a week. I chose my delivery day and clicked “order” and patiently awaited my box of fresh to be delivered.
The following Wednesday rolled around and I dove into this huge box filled with goodness. When opening a box you are greeted with a recipe book filled with the week’s recipes along with a fun envelope filled with coupons to other companies. Below that is insulated wrap, then your meal boxes. Each is labeled and all divided for you. Put these directly in your fridge and pull out when you’re ready to cook! No digging in the pantry for anything; it’s all right there for you! Below that is a cardboard separator, frozen freezer packs and your meat. We stick ours in the freezer in case we don’t get to cooking in time (lesson learned). After opening everything up all doe-eyed and giddy, we decided to whip our fam up a meal and see what this Hello Fresh thing was all about.
Let me just say that I have never seen prettier produce in my life. Our veggies had a color to them I’d never come across shopping at a local big 
box store. The meat was the same way. Grass fed and pasture raised, free of any junk that isn’t good for our bodies. That first night we were so incredibly pleased with the entire experience. Brent and I both love to cook so getting to prep and cook everything ourselves was something we enjoyed together and in about 30 minutes’ time, we had an amazing home cooked meal ready for our family to enjoy. After that first week of meals we realized that the Family box wasn’t quite for us. While the meals were amazing, we are foodies and wanted a few more options! With a click of a button we swapped to the Classic box for the next week and chose our favorite three meals out of the five provided and were eager for our next delivery.
Fast forward a few months (seven to be exact) since that first delivery and we have been happier and HEALTHIER than ever. Aside from the amazing meals we get to cook and enjoy with our family, there are so many more reasons we love Hello Fresh as a whole…
- They package GREEN. From the box all the way down to the ice packs, everything is recyclable! Read more on just how Earth friendly it all is here!
- ZERO food waste. Do you know the feeling of running to the store and getting an entire bunch of cilantro just to use a quarter cup of it? Or the fact that it likely sits in the fridge and goes bad days after? With Hello Fresh, crisis averted. They send you only that quarter cup of parsley or a single teaspoon of honey.
- Hello Fresh eliminates the middle men. Ever considered how many times your produce changes hands before it makes it into your grocery cart? It’s a crazy long journey. The fact that HF sources straight from family owned farms and serves as the only link between them and your doorstep is pretty neat, if I say so myself.
- Their fresh from the source motto is one to live by. They focus on every step of their ingredients’ journey. From the farm to your cutting board, they strive to deliver the best ingredients to your door … and it shows!
- Customer service is amazing. Whether it was a missing ingredient here and there or a delayed delivery out of their control, they have been nothing short of pleasant and handled any situation promptly and above any expectation.
There is only one true downside to Hello Fresh and it’s that you’ll become a total food snob. Your normal spots to grab dinner just won’t cut it after a good run with HF. #truestory
Supper to me is so much more than a meal on the table. It’s Mom or Dad chopping veggies or sautéing onions. It’s tiny hands helping roll out dough. Supper is a family gathered around the table, enjoying a meal and talking about their day together. And Hello Fresh has delivered just that for us. Today we are truly a healthier family because of Hello Fresh. My husband and I are back in the kitchen doing what we love together, and the boys have since taken on a new love for cooking themselves. All thanks to this little meal in a box thing called Hello Fresh.
