Anyone try those meal-prep delivery services? Blue Apron, HelloFresh, etc?

Have you found any where the people that design the meals actually know what the hell they are doing?

The wife and I usually do HelloFresh about three times a week just so we don't have to plan for half the week, and we try to choose decent meals, but other recipe we get we end up needing to add spice or something because the end product is just so bland.  Worse of it is that once a month I'll end up with some of the worst heartburn in the world due to how much oil they recommend.

We love the ease, but is there a better choice out there?

We started with blue apron, disappointed.  We eat a lot of vegetables, and the blue apron kits were far too limited in the volume of the produce. In my opinion, the four serving box held about 1 1/2 servings of any vegetable that was included in the meal. The produce wasn't in good condition either. 

Then we went to hello fresh, less disappointing. 
 

That said, I've been cooking for 50 years, so I don't really need a kit. It was my wife's idea to get some variety and new ideas.
 

Ultimately, it wasn't worth the expense. I can get a lot fresher ingredients locally, spend a lot less, and get the size/volume of the meal that I want. 

We did Blue Apron for a little while. I liked being "forced" to try new dishes, but it never seemed as good an iteration as if I'd have gotten the recipe somewhere like Spruce Eats or Food Network or a good cookbook.

The win of not having a bunch of excess food going off in the fridge (and portion control) seemed to be more than ruined by the level of packaging required. It was pretty disgusting how much packaging was involved per amount of food.

The enforced portion control and not having food go bad in the fridge are also draws for us as well.

Packaging is a grey area for us.  HelloFresh does a great job of making sure almost everything can be recycled, but there is so much in the box that it near completely fills the recycling bin.

Expensive way to try new foods. You're better off taking an extra hour a week planning. 

mtn said:

Expensive way to try new foods. You're better off taking an extra hour a week planning. 

Thanks for the input.  Not really what I was asking, though.

I'd forgotten about the excess packaging. That bothered me, too. 

Did Blue Apron, didn't really care for it, as it didn't really fit our kitchen style. 
 

My wife is not really capable of making more than one dish for a meal at a time, and the way the directions are set up to actually prepare a meal and plate it all at once (like normal people) made it far too stressful for both her and for me attempting to assist. 
 

This is a personal issue-- your results may vary. 

We did Hello Fresh for a few weeks.  Meals were good and you can cancel the membership and just make them on your own by getting your own groceries since you have the recipe now.  We only tried it for a while cause we were tired of thinking up of things to eat and meal planning was kinda the same old stuff so it gave us a little variety.

Mr_Asa said:

mtn said:

Expensive way to try new foods. You're better off taking an extra hour a week planning. 

Thanks for the input.  Not really what I was asking, though.

You're right, not really a helpful post. 

I've tried a few of them. They all send my wife a free week now and then, since she is a Dietitian (even though she's clinical and not outpatient - she doesn't really deal with every day eating anymore, she deals with TPN and tube feeds. It would be like Bayer sending Aspirin to an ENT). I've found all of them to be "OK", though like you I was always reaching for more garlic/salt/pepper/cayenne/etc. We discussed them very briefly, until we realized that we can make better food for a lot less money, and the big reason that the discussion was brief was the "better food" part rather than the cheaper part. She's never known anybody to continue with it for longer than 6 months or so.

EDIT: Still didn't really answer the question. No, they're all relatively bland. I'm pretty sure that, based on the popular chain restaurants serving nothing but Hot Brown, the average American cannot handle any seasoning that isn't some form of butter, salt, flour, or sugar. And these companies have to cater to that same basic palate, because if that steamed carrot is too spicy they'll never get another repeat customer.

We did hello fresh and had similar experiences to many on here. The biggest complaint is the produce quality, there were several times where the produce was marginal at best. 

Not really the answer to you question, but we took a different approach to adding variety to meal planning by adapting recipes we like to different cuts, by using spice blends by companies like Epicure, or by using bottled marinades to try new/different flavors without a lot of effort.  The bottled marinades aren't  necessarily the healthiest, but if you like the flavor then you can search out healthier recipes  

As an example, sometimes I'll make wings and have Garlic Parmesan wings (air frier) and Buffalo flavors to pick from, other times are make garlic Parmesan thighs. We also done a bottled sesame ginger marinade for the chicken before grilling and then having it over salad. 

Sometimes a new type of pan or appliance can help spark creativity. We recently added a pellet grill/smoker to the cooking appliances and that has been driving new ideas and recipes.  It's a new toy so there is more enthusiasm to search out ideas for using it.

I don't use it daily, but on days I work from home or weekends I use it to put a new twist on our meal planning. Instead of doing the chuck roast in the slow cooker. I used this recipe last week and there were no leftovers. 
 

Poor mans burnt ends

My wife and I tried using Gobble. It may be a bit more to your liking - they use a bit more salt than I'd care for, but very little of their food ever turned out bland. The downside is that about 90% of their meals are sauted in a skillet - quick cooking but tends to make a mess, and with a fair amount of spice, also tends to leave the odor in the kitchen for days. Also I have occasionally run into problems with deliveries showing up after dinnertime or even the next day (keep in mind, that means they've spent the night in a non climate controlled warehouse or on the truck) or vegetables not always being fresh.

I'll add to mtn's unhelpful reply

I walk into the market with no plans and just see what sea food looks good and is on sale.

From there, I go to the ethnic food isle and buy some weird stuff I've never tried before.

There you go...cheap, healthy, interesting & culturally enlightening.

Anyway, I've never tried meal kit delivery but I've bought a lot of them from Target when I'm on the road (I stay at Marriott Residence Inn's that have pretty decent kitchens).

I think they're OK but not amazing...the draw is that I can unwind while cooking and drink wine without worrying about driving back to the hotel plus I'm usually in Minnesota

so I stock up when the weather is relatively nice and avoid battling -20 degrees to get a meal.

Ops, still not helpful - sorry.  

We've used Hello Fresh for at least 3 years now. Over that time we have occasionally shopped around and tried the following: 

• Blue Apron. Pro: box returns meant less waste. Excellent customer service. Con: recipe selection had TOO MUCH variety. They tried too hard to make every meal unique and use unusual ingredients. Sometimes you *do* want to make the same thing again. I can only eat so many kinds of farro salad. 
• Green Chef. Pro: best in packaging. Con: food was...aggressively trying to be healthy and just not as good as it could have been. 
• A vegan service...not sure about the name. Sun something? Maybe it was Purple Carrot? This one was good on packaging too, but was expensive and like Green Chef regarding food. 
• Hello Fresh . Pro: recipe selection is very good. The right level of repetition to make the same things if you choose. Con: Customer service isn't awesome. They forgot to send one of the protiens? Shrug. Here's $15 off the next box. 

We're a family of 3: two adults and one 10 year old child. My wife was never much of a cook and doing these meal services has seriously taught her a ton and she's now a competent cook. We're lousy at meal planning and shopping to align with our plans. We're small people and we don't eat much as a family, so without a meal service we often found ourselves with more leftovers than we wanted combined with a lack of discipline to make what we planned resulted in regular food waste. 

Hello Fresh works very well for us and we keep coming back to it. We get three meals delivered per week and it's just the right amount. We make 1-2 dinners on our own, three meals from the service, one takeout night, and one fend-for-yourself. This practice has greatly reduced our total spend on food each week because we eat out much less and we waste less food. 

Bottom line: All of the above services were at their best when prepared by a knowledgeable cook. I season everything. My wife usually cooks, but asks me to season. If you can't read between the lines when choosing meals to ensure you're getting things you know you will like and if you're not editing the recipes slightly as you go, then none of these services will be a home run for you. My daughter throws a fit for most of the meals and we're happy if she eats one of them per week. 

Floating 

 It was my wife's idea to get some variety and new ideas.
 

We went through that too, but I think it was just a phase

Is there a Dream Dinners near you?

https://dreamdinners.com/main.php?page=locations

In reply to Mr_Asa :

I don't remember the names of the few companies me wife was having shipped to me, while she was taking care of her mom, and I was on jobs in a small camper without her. So no real help here. They were decent companies to deal with, and worked out well, but not really very good tasting meals. But they made up for it by being expensive! 

Still, better than the junk food most ate. 

In reply to mtn :

Being one of the folks that, by personal choice, does not care for spicy food (you can put too much black pepper on something for me!), I never understood why people that DO like spicy hot food, act like they are the only ones that are right, and there is something wrong with someone that does not care for hot heavy spicing. I don't ever insult someone for liking something I don't.  

P.S.

Most of the recipes you can find for free online. If you want to try the food just make a grocery list for the ingredients of the dish you want to try.

Are there any that are more specialized? Maybe more international or traditional ethnic varieties?

I have a hard time getting proper spices and veggies for a lot of stuff we like to try, getting them in a kit would be nice.

03Panther said:

In reply to mtn :

Being one of the folks that, by personal choice, does not care for spicy food (you can put too much black pepper on something for me!), I never understood why people that DO like spicy hot food, act like they are the only ones that are right, and there is something wrong with someone that does not care for hot heavy spicing. I don't ever insult someone for liking something I don't.  

I realize that my snarky response did call out hot food, but Spice and spicy (meaning hot) are not synonymous. Most spicy things are spices, but some are standalone food (fruits, i.e. peppers) that double as spices. And even among those, there are many that are not spicy - bell peppers and pimento, for instance. And pepper, by which I mean black pepper, comes from a vine is not spicy in the same fashion as a chili pepper. Different chemical compound. 
 

I don't need spiciness in the sense of heat - I enjoy many of the flavors it provides, but that's the part I enjoy - the flavor. Tons of spices, probably most spices, definitely the herbs within the category, have no heat at all. I'm talking cumin, turmeric, mustard (may or may not be hot), mint, basil, oregano, cilantro (for those without Ashkenazi Jewish heritage), dill, vanilla....

Our spice cabinet is enormous. It's why we are able to make almost any cuisine at a moments notice, even if our only base ingredients are the spices, random veggies, rice, flour, butter, oil, and some basic veggies and some frozen ground Turkey. 


 

RevRico said:

Are there any that are more specialized? Maybe more international or traditional ethnic varieties?

I have a hard time getting proper spices and veggies for a lot of stuff we like to try, getting them in a kit would be nice.

Try to find an Indian or Mexican grocery store in your area. May be inside a gas station. 

we did hello fresh a bit but after 5 or 6 boxes quit. To us, it was infuriating that the 'prep times' of the meals were all useless (as well as the packaging waste and poor quality of produce). Ok, yeah, we get that a pro chef can cook this in 15 minutes if the ingredients are all prepped fully ahead of time in cute little glass bowls like on TV. We can't. Takes me 15 minutes to read the instructions twice.

BTW, why do recipes always have the amounts divorced from the instructions? Fine to list the ingredients and amounts separately and first, but would it be too hard to then say "Melt 2 oz butter in a pan" instead of "melt the butter in a pan" and expect me to go look for butter on the ingredient list and decode it? 

Anyway, we still do something called imperfect produce. It's a grocery delivery service instead of a meal delivery service, but they will often throw in stuff we didn't order because of a last minute surplus and we get to try new stuff. Also, tiny watermelons are much better than normal huge watermelons. 

In reply to Robbie (Forum Supporter) :

Mom has been doing the imperfect produce thing for a bit.  She loves it.

RevRico said:

I have a hard time getting proper spices and veggies for a lot of stuff we like to try, getting them in a kit would be nice.

See if you can find a place that sells Badia spices.  Florida company, so they're in most of the local stores here, but the large ones like Target carry it as well.  Generally a fraction of the price of McCormick or whatever other company you're buying spices from