Meal Planning

Blue Apron (top shelf) and Hello Fresh (bottom shelf)

Wildtree - Blue Apron - Hello Fresh 

Let's start by saying I love to cook.  I find it relaxing and enjoyable.  Trying new dishes and finding what my family likes gives me a sense of accomplishment.  Don't worry; I have made other accomplishments in my life other than dinner on the table!  hah

However, day after day I find it harder to pick recipes.  I get bored easily.  I can't eat the same meal over and over in a short span of time.  I like variety.  Don't get me wrong, I love my favorites too!  But with two kids now, I have a little less time to thumb through recipes books.  For a couple of years, I did Wildtree.  I am now alternating between Blue Apron and Hello Fresh. So here's my personal opinion and breakdown of all three.

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Wildtree

​The concept I liked behind Wildtree is that you attend a Freezer Meal Workshop.  You bring your meats and prepped veggies, plus a ton of freezer bags.  At the party, you add the spices, seasonings, and oils (all Wildtree brand) to the bags.  Recipes and directions are provided. When everything is in the bag, you double bag it, go home and toss it in your freezer.  I became a rep because I liked the product.  I never marketed myself.  I just did workshops with my friends and neighbors when they needed more meals to stock in their freezer!  I stopped being a rep because of their policy changes.  I no longer sell the stuff, so I can assure you that I am honest in my feedback ;)

Pros

• Ten recipes yielded about 15-20 meals in my experience.  The full recipes were too large, portion wise, for my husband and me.  So I often split a recipe between two bags.  
• Kits were pricey, at $80, but lasted two batches of recipes on average.  In the end, they were very affordable.
  
• Helped me pick meals without worrying.  Quick and easy choices.
  
• I could have dinner ready for a snap some nights because the prep was finished ahead of time.
  
• The second stage of prep was always fun because I'd have a group of women come over, we'd snack, drink, and prep our bags.
  
• All of their products are organic, and many are gluten-free!
  

Cons

• A Labor of Love.  There is a lot of prep work.  You do ALL the prep in advance.  So it can seem laborious at the time. 
• Overkill on the onions.  The recipes use a lot of onions.  I like the flavor, but often it seemed like I could half the onions they called for, and the food still tasted great.
• You have to defrost the meals before cooking.  So you have to select meals on, say, Sunday so that they'd be refrigerator temperature by the time you want to make them.
• Sometimes I'd have to add my own side items like starches or vegetables, so I still had to think that out and factor in the cost there.

Overall Cost

• Freezer Meal Kit.  $80 for the whole thing, but like I said, sometimes it lasted two batches worth.  So I'd guess $50 for one batch of recipes to be safe.
• Meat & Produce.  Between $100-120 per kit.
• To be on the more liberal side, let's say $170 each time I made a round of recipes.  If I get 15 meals, which is definitely on the low end, that's $11.33 per meal.  (Not per person, but per couple).  Some kits I was able to get upwards of 20 meals, which brought the cost down to around $8.50 per meal.  Not bad!

*Click on the first image to enlarge and you can cycle through them to read the captions/explanations.

Blue Apron

With Blue Apron they send you ALL the ingredients you need for recipes except for oil, salt, and pepper.  

Pros

• No need to go grocery shopping, as it all comes to your door.
• I don't have to buy an entire bottle of something I may only use once and for a single tsp.
• I can choose from 8 recipes weekly.
• Customer service credited me when they sent the wrong recipe.
• I've learned a lot of new techniques for cooking food.  Times, layering of ingredients, and more.
• Food has been very good and helped open our palates to more things.
• Blue Apron comes via UPS for me, my UPS guy is good and places the box behind my large pillar out of direct sun.

Cons

• Oil heavy. Lots of pan searing.  So far, three weeks worth of recipes, have all called for oil.  I wave swapped my olive oil, at times, for some grapeseed oil or coconut, depending on the recipe.
• Portions were exact.  We have never had anything left over.  (This is a con to me because I typically eat leftovers for lunch the next day)
• Requires doing multiple things at once which can be tricky if you're not great at staying on top of things.  For one meal, in particular, I had the oven going along with three things on the stove.  You have to time it just right to make sure everything is hot at the end!
• I have heard a high number of mistakes with them.  Sending the wrong items.  Missing items.  Etc.  In the two months, I've been doing this, I've only had one mix up, so this wasn't my experience, but others have reported it.
• Vegetables and starches are all mixed together, so you'll need to sort them as you put them in your fridge or dig around on the day of.
• Blue Apron ships from the Northeast, so it takes a little longer to get here and I would imagine it would be colder if it had less transit time.

Cost

• Three meals, for two people, per week is $59.99.  That breaks down to $19.99 per meal.  So less pricey than a restaurant, but more pricey than regular old fashioned meal planning.

*Click on the first image to enlarge and you can cycle through them to read the captions/explanations.

Hello Fresh

Hello Fresh is VERY similar to Blue Apron. Meals are sent to you on a chosen day of the week.  There are just some minor differences between the two.  
Pros

• Hearty portion sizes.  We regularly had a little of the side items left over that I could nibble on the next day for my lunch.
• Easy recipes that require doing one thing at a time or two simple things at a time.  
• Fewer steps to prepare the meal than Blue Apron.
• Meals come in paper bags so everything is pre-organized and I can grab the bag and get to work.
• No need to go grocery shopping, as it all comes to your door.
• I don't have to buy an entire bottle of something I may only use once and for a single tsp.
• I can choose from 8 recipes weekly.
• My box ships from Jacksonville (within my own state) so the food seems colder as long as I bring it inside as soon as it arrives.

​Cons

• Up Charge ($10) for premium items like steaks.
• Also, lot's of pan searing with oil.
• Salads, I might be the only one here, but a salad is not a side item for me.  I like salad, but I need a little something extra with my protein besides a salad.  Some meals come with a side salad.
• Seasoning packets.  A few meals have come with "southwestern seasoning" or "Italian seasoning," and I am not 100% sure what ingredients are in there.  I could probably figure it out on my own, but I like to know exact ingredients and amounts, so I can replicate in the future!
• Comes via Fed Ex and my driver just dumps it at my front door which blocks my ability to get out my front door and also sits in direct sunlight.

Cost

• Three meals, for two people, per week is $59.99.  That breaks down to $19.99 per meal.  Some items, like steaks, are premium meals and have a $10 up-charge.  

*Click on the first image to enlarge and you can cycle through them to read the captions/explanations.

In the end, I like them all.  I've stopped doing Wildtree because I am finding Hello Fresh and Blue Apron to be a tad more convenient.  They are, however, more expensive.  Strangely... I've tracked my grocery spending for the last two months, and surprisingly it has not gone up (I place BA and HF in my grocery budget).  It's staying right about $150 a week for groceries, which is what we averaged before the meal delivery programs.  So, for now, I'm going to continue alternating (based on the week's menu) with meal delivery.

I recognize that some of my Pros and Cons are very specific to me and may not happen to others, but I'm just reporting the whole picture!

If anyone is interested in trying either Blue Apron or Hello Fresh, I can send you a FREE week! Here is the LINK to the Hello Fresh Code.

 Just send a request below for Blue Apron.