As foodies, we always have been curious about meal kits. So we did finally decided to give it a try. We tested three Hello Fresh meals. Their mission is to deliver delicious, simple, stress-free, and dietarily diverse recipes and fresh ingredients to make people like us, the stressed-tired-and-rushed families, happy. We chose a Mediterranean experience and we’re happy to share our tips for enjoying the America’s #1 Meal Kit at its fullest.

Discover what’s inside the box with your kids

Who doesn’t get that moment of excitement when receiving a package and willing to see what’s inside? That’s the same type of pleasure when you receive the HelloFresh box.
We opened and discovered our three meal kits: “Heirloom tomato flatbreads”, “Moroccan chicken sausage tagine”, and “Crispy Parmesan chicken”.

In order to prolong the excitement linked to the discovery of new food, we also played a guessing name during the first 2 evenings. As we were hiding the label of the brown bag where the meal was described, our Teuko kids had to guess, by revealing the ingredients one after the other, which meal we would have for dinner… Game on! 🙂

Also, you may choose the meals you want to try, you can’t really know what’s inside because there is always a surprise ingredient that will make the meal so unique: the nut-free pesto for the “Heirloom tomato flatbreads”, the Turkish spice blend for the “Moroccan chicken sausage tagine”, and the garlic herb butter for the “Crispy Parmesan chicken” were the very nice surprise ingredients that made these meals extra special.

Pack your lunch boxes while cooking dinner

For a family of 4, 2 adults and 2 kids, we selected a meal plan for 4. The portions are so generous that I easily managed to set aside enough food to fill our kids’ lunch boxes! That means that the 25 to 40 min spent in my kitchen were not meant just for cooking dinner, but for preparing lunch too!

Did the kids have the same experience eating the same food for dinner and for lunch? Definitely not! And this was also an opportunity to remind them of all the fun conversations we could have the night before at the diner table! 🙂

Use kid-friendly tricks to prep your food

For the very first day, I decided to go easy, with the “Heirloom tomato flatbreads”. To make it easier for the little hands, and because it had to fit in the lunch boxes, I cut the flatbreads and folded them. The tomatoes were suggested to be cut in a half, but I sliced them so that it would be more convenient to eat for little mouthes. The arugula salad was supposed to top the flatbread but my kids are not adventurous enough to mix. So I let the salad on the side for everybody, dressed as advised by the instructions, with a mix of olive oil and Balsamic vinegar. We all loved it like this. I just added a nectarine for dessert, and voilà! Lunch was ready.

I added a tiny bit more for me, with the walnuts topping the salad, and few cookies that pair well with coffee, but you can see that there was enough to pack my very own lunchbox! 🙂 What a treat!

As I was picking my kids up at school, my little one, 6yo, said “I could not finish my pizza”, his big sister replied “It was not a pizza! It was a panini!”. It’s funny how the presentation changed the perception of the “Heirloom tomato flatbreads”. I asked him if he was hungry. “No, I’m ok, it was huge.” “Huge and goooood!” added his sister. 🙂

I did also use some tricks with the “Crispy Parmesan chicken”. I sliced the chicken in sticks. I ended up with “chicken two ways”! One way was the HelloFresh way, the “Crispy Parmesan chicken” baked in the oven. The other way was simply the chicken cooked in a pan with olive oil and fleur de sel.

Regarding the “Moroccan chicken sausage tagine”, the only concern I had was how spicy that meal could be. I tasted the dish along the way, and even if I did not use all the Turkish spice blend, my kids complained a little bit that it was spicy. I guess the novelty of the taste combined with the spiciness made them react like this. I still had enough to pack their lunch boxes for the following day. I was a little bit concerned that, without being present to encourage them to finish their food, the container with the meat would come back uneaten. But the nice surprise is that they ate it all (only a little bit of salad and couscous left for the 6yo 🙂 )!

Have you ever packed lunch using meal kit leftovers? Inspire us and show us what new food or new recipe you discovered by uploading a photo on Teuko.com. Looking for the meal service delivery that best fit your family preferences? Check out our review of healthy meal kits for families and kids.

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