Time for week 3 of HelloFresh orders! For the third week, I apparently did the same thing on my week 2 order and didn't save my changes, which isn't surprising since I modified them at the same time. Here are the meals received for week 3:
I never made the crispy Parmesan chicken: I just never had the energy to make it.
Packaging
This is the same as week 1 and 2. The meals are packed in a cardboard box with bio-degradable and recyclable cooling packs on top of the food and at the bottom of the box. The non-meat ingredients are packed in their own separately labeled bags. The meat is packed in vacuum-sealed packs below the other ingredients. Along with the meals, the package includes marketing materials and nice instruction cards for each meal that you can keep for future use.
Rating: 4/5
Cost
Without discounts and coupons, the meals are about $9.99/serving with the smallest option being 2 servings. Ten bucks per person for a dinner is comparable to a meal at a restaurant for two people, but how does it compare to buying the ingredients yourself to make the same meal? Just like the first week, I'm going to look at buying the ingredients yourself at Wal-Mart. I'm sure if you live on one of the coasts, the price of ingredients will be higher, so HelloFresh might be a more affordable option. I've looked up prices for the same items sent with the HelloFresh meal; the price can be higher or lower, of course, if you already have some ingredients on hand or find a cheaper option.
Meal 1: Crispy Parmesan Chicken
Since I didn't make this meal, I don't have a picture of the ingredients, but I can price them out still.
This one is pretty close in price, but buying the ingredients yourself could be cheaper if you already have some of the ingredients or substitute a different couscous and get regular smoked paprika instead of hot smoked paprika. However, as usual, you can get more servings out of the ingredients purchased yourself.
Meal 2: Melty Monterey Jack Burgers
So this one looks cheaper through HelloFresh! Wow. Now, if you already have the spices and a few of the other things (like mayo and ketchup) on hand, you can cut that down by about $8 - $10. Also, buying these ingredients yourself will get you about 4 servings instead of two, so per serving overall, buying it yourself is cheaper.
Meal 3: Pork and Veggie Bibimbap
It looks like the bibimbap (at least this recipe) can be made much cheaper and get more servings out of it if you buy your own ingredients.
Overall, this week was pretty close on pricing even though your could get more servings out of the ingredients if you bought the ingredients yourself. So, we again have a pretty big discrepancy between the meals, so this is a tough one to rate.
Rating: 2.5/5
Meal Variety
Just like last week's assessment, there is a pretty good mix of meals available for selection with pork, chicken, beef, or vegetarian as options—about 20 meals available. There are also add-ons available to add to your delivery each week for varying costs: quick lunches, sides like bread, desserts, or extra protein items. If you want a specific diet, though, like low carb or keto, you're out of luck. Lots of the meals seem to be high in calories, too.
Rating: 3/5
Taste
Meal 1: Crispy Parmesan Chicken
I didn't make this one. I've been struggling with motivation to do anything for the last month or so, and the motivation to make this one never materialized. However, I did make a Parmesan-crusted chicken in week one, so I imagine it's somewhat similar.
Meal 2: Melty Monterey Jack Burgers
I really enjoyed this meal a lot and will make it again as soon as Wal-Mart's meat department is stocked with the burger patties that I want. I was a little hesitant about the red onion jam, but it was really, really tasty with the garlic mayo and the cheese. I didn't use ketchup on the burger because I don't really care for ketchup all that much, but man, this was a really, really good burger. They get really good quality beef in their meals, so it was quite good.
I was also pleasantly surprised at how good the fry seasoning was on the potato wedges, too. Dipping the potato wedges in some garlic mayo is the way to go.
I would recommend opening the bag and taking the buns out since those don't need to be refrigerated instead of just throwing the whole bag in the fridge like I do: I needed to toast the buns a bit longer to make sure they didn't have any cold spots in them from being in the fridge.
Meal 3: Pork and Veggie Bibimbap
No. Just...no. As many of you know, I lived in Korea for 5 years, so I've had real bibimbap. I didn't put the pork on mine since I prefer it with just the veggies. This wasn't awful, but I wouldn't make this version of it again. The sesame oil mixture gave it a very tiny bit of authentic flavor, but the vinegar overpowered the flavors of everything else. If you want to make bibimbap on your own, look up a real Korean recipe and go buy some gochujang (Korean chili paste).
Overall, this week is a tough one to rate because the burgers were amazing, but the bibimbap was awful.
Rating: 3/5
Ease of Prep
Meal 1: Crispy Parmesan Chicken
Beats me.
Meal 2: Melty Monterey Jack Burgers
The burgers weren't too difficult to make. I used my George Foreman grill to cook the burgers, so the cook time was even a little less than what is on the card. Cutting the potatoes is probably what took the longest, and even that didn't take very long. The instructions for making the red onion jam were pretty straight forward and it was pretty easy to make.
Overall, this one wasn't difficult to make and didn't take long at all. I have actually made the burgers with the red onion jam again on my own since it was so tasty.
Meal 3: Pork and Veggie Bibimbap
This one wasn't the easiest to make. Cutting the zucchini, fine; using a peeler to get carrot ribbons, no. Just no. I will never do that again, and I think I only did 1 and a maybe a half carrots. I would rather just buy a bag of shredded carrots and use that or shred the carrots myself. The prep time says 10 minutes, but I think it took me more like 20 minutes with everything that needed to be chopped and such.
Doing all of the prep could be done while the rice was cooking at least. Cooking the rice and the vegetables was fine and didn't take too long, and assembling the bibimbap wasn't difficult. I just would never use their recipe to do it again since I didn't care for it much.
Rating: 2/5
Overall Rating
Man, week 3 was a weird week. the burger would make the week a really highly rated week, but the bibimbap makes it super low, and I didn't make the chicken to give a 3rd one to skew it one way or the other. As with the other weeks, you could get more servings out of purchasing your own ingredients at the store and might even have a few ingredients on hand already to make the price per serving ratio lower than with HelloFresh. The Monterey jack burger was a highlight of the week, and I learned how to make a red onion jam. Trips to the grocery store and meal planning were saved, but still, I just don't know if it's worth it.
My extreme dislike for the bibimbap really hurt this week's rating, unfortunately, since the burgers were amazing.
Week 3 Overall Rating: 2/5