Meal delivery services

azgreg

Anybody here try any of the meal delivery services like Factor or Home Chef?
They look like glorified TV dinners.

KCee

azgreg I think we tried HelloFresh and something else a few years back. Some stuff was decent; some sucked. We didn't like enough meals to continue. I thought it was all just ok, but my wife and daughter couldn't agree on the same meals. It's another huge box to deal with too and we have enough Amazon recycling. Better ingredients than a TV dinner, but some were not just heat & eat.

raggmann54

azgreg
Try looking locally...Several really good local, to me, people are doing a really great job at this...

darpar

We tried Ice Age Meals, as seen on Shark Tank.🤞
The delivery process was excellent, the food not so much.
Some was good, most were pretty bland to uneatable....and they were supposed to be gourmet quality.👎
And most packages contained an abundance of rice and not much meat or vegies.

PASS!!!!

azgreg

I've tried some of the Home Chef stuff from Kroger (got it from inside the store) and it was OK but a bit overpriced.

PA-PLAYA

Tried hello fresh years ago. Portions were small and certainly not the best quality. Discontinued after the second order (giving them the benefit of the doubt after the initial order).

I’m guessing that outside of Omaha Steaks (which are good quality meats but waaay overpriced) this is pretty much standard, at least based on most reviews.

rsvman2

I have tried and used Blue Apron, Home Chef, and now Factor.

With Blue Apron the food was always fresh and the flavors were excellent, but there was a lot of prep work, so it took a long time to prep the meals. We used to joke that if there corn in the recipe, the first instruction would be how to plant the seeds.

With Home Chef the prep work was less complicated, and some of the meals were pretty good, but over time we ended up getting a lot of boxes with spoiled veggies, for example, or food that was on the cusp of being spoiled. I got tired of taking pics of the bad food and waiting emails to complain.

Factor is pretty good. The food is consistently flavorful and well prepared. I never have to add salt or pepper. The chicken breasts are perfectly cooked every time, which makes me think they must sous vide them before putting them on the grill or pan for browning. Not all their food is pleasing to everyone, but they have something for everybody. Unfortunately, they are raising their prices right now.

I have heard a lot of good things about Cook Unity, but have never tried it.

Ack8236

We tried HelloFresh. It required some prep and cooking, but not too involved. The meals were pretty good. We tried it with a coupon for "6 free meals". We ordered and received the first 3 "meals". They were pretty good, so we ordered our 3 other "meals", and got charged what I felt was a bit too much, especially for "free" meals. When I contacted them and explained the coupon said "6 free meals", they said the "meals" serve 2 people, so with our first 3 "meals" we actually got 6 "meals". That's their story and they stuck with it. Seemed a bit underhanded to me, never ordered again.

Weirfan

Was given a number of Hello Fresh meals as a Christmas gift a couple years back.

being someone who loves to cook and takes pride in it I was very surprised as to how good the meals were. In fact I have made a few of the recipes again several times since ( they provide nice coloured recipe cards)

I think we got 8 free dinners and liked them all. Only small quip was they were perhaps a bit smaller than my early 20's son and I would normally eat ....but that is probably us overeating not them providing small meals

TheBlade

We do Hello Fresh. Limited to two prep and cook meals and usually one microwavable meal each week. I'd agree that the portions are not always as big as this round boy wants. But you could easily enhance some meals with some easy cook rice or noodles.

Will support Weirfan's statement: "In fact I have made a few of the recipes again several times since ( they provide nice coloured recipe cards)"

Even if you went with them for three or four weeks you'll learn a lot about "subtle" ingredients that go into their meals... cream cheese, stock concentrates, etc. You could easily pick out four or five favorites, keep the recipe cards and make them on your own.