Getting Fresh: Trying Freshly’s Meal Delivery Service

Hey, guys! A couple of quick things. 1) I had a baby. 2) Having a baby makes cooking yourself fresh and healthy meals every day really, really challenging. (Even slow cooker meals; and I love my slow cooker!)
So, I thought, what better time than now to try out a few different healthy meal-delivery services? Answer: there is no better time! So I took Freshly up on its offer to try its meals that are inspired by the Paleo way of eating. And they sent quite a few breakfasts, lunches and dinners over!

Here’s what they looked like when they arrived. All boxed up with some info on the company and a list of what goodies I got.

Sounds pretty delicious, eh? I thought so, too.

Everything was kept nice and cold with ice packs.

I immediately began planning when I’d eat them. Can I first say that I love that they included breakfast — and that breakfast was a real one. I mean, who doesn’t want to start the day with an omelette?

And let’s talk about the ingredients. Um, these are exactly what you’d make at home. Calories for all of the meals range between about 300 to 500. To heat, you just pop them in the microwave. Easy.

Both omelettes were good, too. Plenty of flavoring and seasoning — with lots of veggies and cheese. The consistency was a touch rubbery, but — confession — that may  have more to do with our microwave than the dish. (And it was still darn tasty for not being homemade!)

For lunch, I tried Zucchini Noodle Goulash and the Greek Chicken Bowl.


The goulash was basically zucchini noodles with tons of spices, tomato sauce and a hefty portion of beef. It was a little watery but darn tasty. I’m used to having a bit larger servings at lunch time, so I paired it with an apple. Filled me up! (And I may or may not have drank the leftover liquid. Don’t judge.)

The Greek Chicken Bowl was fun in that you don’t heat it. You eat it cold. I was probably least jazzed about this meal selection, but, funny enough, it ended up being my favorite. The olives were SO flavorful and the chicken was really tasty. Again, I paired it with some fruit for a bit larger meal.

For dinner, Freshly sent Chicken Parmesan with Zucchini Pasta (zoodles!) and Chicken Rustica with Au Gratin Cauliflower.

The Chicken Parm was dense and filling — kind of like an Italian-flavored chicken burger. It was also pretty moist. The zucchini noodles had great flavor.

The Chicken Rustica was also moist and flavorful. The cauliflower au gratin wasn’t my favorite thing ever (more like seasoned steamed cauliflower), but I still polished it off.




All in all, I feel like I ate really well with Freshly. The meals were veggie- and protein-based, had fabulous flavor, were seasonal and had uber clean and fresh ingredient lists. It was pretty much perfection for me with a newborn at home, and I can see how it would be really convenient for really busy people who want to eat well but don’t have the time to cook. Granted a full week of eats (breakfast, lunch, dinner) will run you about $229, so it’s not cheap, but like with all things, you usually pay for what you get. And in this case, you pay for really good fresh food that’s free of artificial everything.
Stay tuned for more of my healthy meal-delivery adventures! Up next on my dinner table is … BistroMD. —Jenn