What’s up nerds! It’s been a while, but I’m back! This time around, with all of the side projects that I have going on (like the fantastic podcast Online Warriors), I’m not going to make any schedules or set myself up to fail. However, I’m hoping I can get a variety of articles and content up whenever I have some free time.

Recently, in my quest to eat healthier, I’ve signed up for HelloFresh. For those of you who aren’t aware (although their advertising is literally everywhere), HelloFresh is a meal subscription service. You pick from a selection of weekly recipes and they send you a box with all of the ingredients needed to cook them up. That’s right – fresh, non-processed meal kits delivered to your door.

Now, I realize that not every recipe from HelloFresh is considered healthy. But HelloFresh is extremely upfront about the nutritional values of their meals (while maintaining a wide variety of options), so you can stick with the healthier options if you so choose. And even if you don’t, I’ve always preached moderation above all else. If you don’t splurge once in a while, you’ll eventually break down and eat an entire pizza in one sitting (…not that I know this firsthand… maybe…).

So let’s get down to it and review the latest recipe that I whipped up from HelloFresh: the Buttered-Up Steak. As a note, this post is not sponsored by HelloFresh! Any reviews I do will be a honest critique from boxes that I purchased MYSELF.

Taste

Overall, this was a pretty basic meal, but tasty nonetheless. The garlic added enough pizazz to the green beans so they didn’t taste bland, and the potatoes were perfectly crispy.

The cut of “ranch” steak included was also really tender and juicy. I’ve had some steaks in the past from HelloFresh that were a bit tough and stringy, but this cut was perfect for my palette. It seemed to absorb just the right amount of my salt and pepper seasoning while maintaining that nice beef-y taste. It may be important to note, we like our steak medium to medium-rare, so that could change the consistency or taste if you go for something more well-done.

The butter-herb sauce was probably the surprise hit of this meal, and it was one of the smallest components on our plates. It’s amazing what a little Dijon can do to spice up butter, and quite frankly I could see myself using this sauce on a bunch of other dishes.

Difficulty

This is an incredibly easy dinner to make, even if you aren’t a well-experienced chef. While the vegetables could have come pre-cut, mincing garlic and dicing up potatoes doesn’t take that much time or expertise. Once all the veggies are cut up, you more or less just throw them in the oven – easy peasy – and they come out nice and crispy. Additionally, the steak already comes in two pieces, so all that’s needed is some oil, salt and pepper to taste and you can sear them on the oven in under ten minutes.

I’d say the “hardest” part is creating the savory butter sauce, but even that’s not too difficult once you get the butter sufficiently softened. You literally just throw some Dijon mustard in with the butter, topped with some herbs, salt, and pepper. Then you just stir it up and plop it on the steak. My fiancé thought it was some fancy sauce, and when I told him what it was made of (basically two main ingredients) he was shocked.

Nutrition

In terms of calorie content, this is probably one of the lowest calorie offerings I’ve seen on HelloFresh. After all, it is as basic as it gets – a hunk of meat and two veggies. Considering how filling this meal is, you get a lot of bang for your caloric buck here.

I would argue that you could easily cut back on some of the fat by swapping out the butter sauce for a simpler low-cal steak sauce, or no sauce at all. While the sauce was yummy, I’m not totally convinced this steak needed anything beyond the salt, pepper, (and added garlic) in which it was seared.

From a carb perspective, I tend to like potatoes. They’re one of the healthier carbs and since I leave the skin on, they also have a decent amount of fiber – which as someone with digestive issues, I have come to appreciate. However, if you’re really concerned about the carb count, you could easily modify this meal with a nice cauliflower rice or add in an additional veggie.

Value

Each HelloFresh meal works out to be just over $10 per plate. When comparing that to what you’d spend in the grocery store if you prepped for this meal on your own, you would spend about:

• $3 – 24 oz. bag of gold potatoes
• $3 – 12 oz. bag of clean/cut green beans
• $11 – 16 oz. of sirloin steak
• $1.50 – pack of Parsley
• $2.50 – jar of pre-minced garlic

This brings your total cost to $21 or $10.50/plate, and you’ll have bigger steaks and more leftovers in terms of the potatoes and green beans. (I’ll assume you already have the salt, pepper and oil.)

So essentially, you’re paying about the same for the meal, but you’re getting less food. However, you have to keep in mind you’re paying for the convenience of having the food delivered to you (and the handy recipe card) so value that as you will.

Final Verdict

I think, moving forward, I’d likely not order this meal from HelloFresh again… but I’d certainly make it on my own. This meal did reintroduce me to just how easy it can be to whip up a filling, healthy and tasty meal – but I’d probably want to do it at a lower cost (and with leftovers) next time around.