How HelloFresh Freshened Up Our Dinners and Our Relationship

It’s the ultimate relationship dilemma. You and your S.O. get home from work seriously starving, but you can never decide what to have for dinner! My husband, Zack, and I used to just land on Seamless after bickering for twenty minutes or so. Ordering seemed so simple, but it became way too expensive to maintain and made it easy for us to overeat. Let’s be honest, does anyone really save the rest of that pad thai for lunch the next day? That’s why we were so excited when friends of ours started inviting us over for uh-mazing home-cooked meals—which were clearly missing from our lives. We had no idea our friends Ryan and Julie liked to cook, or had time to think up up a recipe and go to pick up all of the ingredients on their commute home. For me, it just wouldn’t happen! Turns out Ryan and Julie get their recipes and ingredients sent to them by HelloFresh, the meal making delivery service that lets you to cook simple, preplanned recipes at home without having to hit the grocery store. (Score!) My friends had been singing its praises too, and after all the rave reviews flying around, I finally signed us up. Our first box was simple to prepare, and really delicious: the Winner Winner Chicken and Orzo dinner, which Zack and I had so much fun cooking together. I sliced the zucchini, tomatoes, and mozzarella, and roasted them on a baking sheet, while Zack cooked the orzo. I even butterflied and seasoned the chicken, which was super easy: just cut, season, olive oil the pan, and sear. We sprinkled everything with Parmesan (also included in the shipment), and voilà: A fresh, home-cooked meal in thirty minutes flat! I can’t express how accomplished I felt, from prepping to plating to eating. The meal was super easy (there were only six steps clearly listed for us), and really satisfying—in more ways than one. Doing something together for our bodies and our minds, rather than binging on chips and Netflix, made us both feel better about our health and relationship. HelloFresh motivates me to cook three meals a week, and it’s been great practice for me and for my future—sit-down dinners with the family, being able to cook for my friends and parents when they come over, the list goes on. And signing up for HelloFresh was the first step. Here’s how it works: when you sign up, select the number you’ll be cooking for and your dietary preferences. I subscribe to the “2-Person Plan,” which gets me a large box each week each with three inventive meals delivered to our door. You can also opt to skip shipments, which is easy to do on their site, and you can cancel at anytime. But as soon as I got into the habit of cooking, I didn’t want to stop because it became a part of a healthier and happier routine. It’s exciting, engaging, and it’s become something that my husband and I really look forward to. After using the service for months, we’re totally sold. We now eat at the table like adults, and found a way to spend quality time together. I don’t know we can take full credit for how excellent the meals are, but we’re certainly proud of what we’re cooking and eating. Days when we cook with HelloFresh are better than days when we don’t. That’s how I know the service was just right for us. Update: The folks at HelloFresh are extending a special offer to our readers! Follow this link to get $30 off your first order!