HelloFresh, Even For People Who Can’t Cook

In the first few frantic weeks of mumhood, HelloFresh was a lifesaver. Thanks to easy recipe cards and exact, idiot proof ingredients, my non-cooking, Deliveroo-loving husband was able to cook fresh homemade meals – without any help. Nearly nine months on, we’re now both cooking HelloFresh three times a week.

Our HelloFresh Story

When Your Partner Can’t Cook…

The closer we got to my due date, the more we argued about the fact that Dear Husband can’t and won’t cook. His argument was that we would simply order in. My argument was that a breastfeeding mum needs better nutrition than pizzas and burgers.

The idea to try HelloFresh came while we were performing this pointless argument before a friend, who suggested we try it. Apparently, it was a lifesaver for someone they knew who had been in a similar pregnant pickle with a non-cooking partner.

I remember the first time I heard about HelloFresh a few years back from a fresh-faced promoter outside Canary Wharf tube station. “Hi! Have you heard of HelloFresh? No? Can I have a minute of your time? Just a minute!” 

So I gave him a minute, while faking an interested look, nodding and smiling politely while internally mocking everything he said. Here’s what I was thinking: Recipes, ok, well I already have plenty of those, with the exact ingredients you need, hmmm so no leftovers, delivered to your door. It sounded like the solution to a problem I didn’t have.

As someone who loves cooking, I didn’t get it. For me, half the fun is shopping for ingredients, combining what I see a thousand different ways in my head, then giving in to whatever I crave the most. Cooking for me is spontaneous, social, creative; and I love leftovers! Some of my best (ok and admittedly some of my worst) recipe ideas have come from using leftovers.

But maybe HelloFresh isn’t for people like me. Maybe it’s for people like my husband, who feel nothing for the carefully selected ingredients and tempting deals to be found in the supermarket aisles. People who, like him, do not combine ingredients in their heads, neither stimulating memories of taste and texture nor satisfying any particular cravings.

My husband doesn’t even care what he eats for dinner. I could literally cook the same thing two, three, even four nights in a row and he wouldn’t even comment (whereas I’m cringing simply at the thought). This is not a man familiar with the art of cooking, and up until now, that’s been his prerogative. But what happens when I can’t cook, when I’m away, sick, or have a newborn baby to look after? What happens, is that it was time for him to learn.

A Tale of Two HelloFresh Customers

Fast forward to the present day, and I’m happy to report that we’ve now been getting a HelloFresh box containing three meals for two delivered every week for the past 9 months. Officially making us HelloFresh converts.

Like witnessing a miracle, Dear Husband was not only able to follow the HelloFresh photo instructions, cooking up delicious meals from the get-go, he also said that he enjoys it. In the beginning, he needed a little supervision as some recipes are more challenging than others, but quickly he gained in confidence, transforming into a regular cook; exclusively Hellofresh for now, but I have hope for his future. Meanwhile, Negative Nelly over here also jumped on the HelloFresh bandwagon and to my surprise, found myself more – not less – inspired to cook.

I hadn’t realised just how set in my ways I was, with a limited repertoire of ingredients and techniques. HelloFresh has taught me so many new cooking methods and recipes I wouldn’t have otherwise tried. When I’m not cooking HelloFresh, I find myself cooking “HelloFresh-style.” Zesting away, slicing up shallots instead of onions, frying and not boiling gnocchi, cooking risotto in the oven, and popping my butterflied chicken breasts under the grill.

In addition, we are often impressed with the quality of produce compared to our local supermarket, and it’s also helped us introduce more vegetarian meals into our week. I usually choose at least one vegetarian meal out of the three, one pasta dish, and something else, a wildcard.

Since we’re open-minded and like to try things we normally wouldn’t go for, we’ve discovered new tastes we really love, and other meals we care less for. I find the 40 minute recipes taste better than the rapid meals as you can cook better food with more time, but that’s the tradeoff. Those days when I’m so tired I don’t even want to think about cooking, a 10 minute meal from HelloFresh is exactly what I need.

My only critique is that I wish there was a way to reduce the amount of packaging. Although HelloFresh use a lot of recyclable materials, I still wish there was a way around sending big new boxes with ice packs every week.

To conclude, I think it’s interesting how my husband and I, who couldn’t be more different from each other when it comes to cooking, have both taken to HelloFresh. I was wrong to think that it wasn’t for me. In fact, I think HelloFresh is precisely for people with an interest in cooking. The variety of recipes is impressive and you have to prepare everything from scratch, from washing and chopping to mixing up sauces.

How It Works

HelloFresh do a fantastic job explaining their service on their website, so I suggest you pop over to them for more details, but in a nutshell, it works like this:

• Choose your meals every week from a changing menu
• Easily skip a week or cancel at any time
• There are meals for all tastes, time allowances and diets
• Premium meals available at an extra charge or add extra meals at a discount
• Each meal comes in a separate paper bag with a recipe card and the exact amount of ingredients needed
• Follow the step-by-step instructions with photos and hey presto, bon appetite!

£20 Off Your First Box

Hard to believe, I know, but this is not a sponsored post, which means that the good people at HelloFresh have not asked me to write this. I genuinely wanted to share our story because I didn’t think HelloFresh was for me and well, I was wrong. Whereas if you’re struggling with cooking or have a non-cooking partner, I definitely recommend you give it a go!

If you sign up using my code (which every HelloFresh customer receives to share with friends) you’ll get £20 off your first box, giving me £20 off my order too. Still need convincing? Click here to check out some HelloFresh recipes, which are freely available online.

Here’s one of my favourites:

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Featured Image Photo Credit: Daria Shevtsova from Pexels