Freshly Overview

The Menu

Freshly boasts that their meals are well balanced, healthy, and, as the name suggests, always fresh.

Freshly is for you if:

• You want an easy, stress free way to eat healthy
• You are too busy to cook meals
• You want a lot of variety without the hassle of cooking a lot

Variety

When I looked on their menu, I saw a whopping 47 different meal options. Now that’s a lot of choice. These meals do change week to week but I wanted to highlight a couple that I liked:

Trifecta does give you a small preview of some of the meals they have available. Some of the ones that stuck out to me are:

Zingy Buffalo Chicken – Because who doesn’t like a little spice with their chicken

Pesto Cauliflower Shells & Sausage – Because I love pasta but hate carbs

Chicken Tikka Masala – Because this is one of my favorite dishes

Dietary Choices

One thing I liked about Freshly and their website is that it is easy to filter menu options based on your preferences. When I tried Freshly, I was on a low carb kick. Not completely Keto but I wanted to eat less carbs overall. Freshly’s website made my search easy by having a Carb Conscious Diet filter on their menu

Best of all, I actually like the menu options that were left when I hit that filter. Here is an example of some of the other options they have:

As you can see, you can filter food down to Gluten-Free, Carb Conscious, Plant-Based, and Dairy-Free. Additionally, they offer 4 categories that each of their meals fit into. The Signature Collection is their most popular chef meals. Purely Plant offers vegetarian options. From what I understand, Freshly Fit is their low calorie, low carb category. And Protein & Sides is for meals that are straight up protein. When I was browsing their menu, you could get 3 grilled chicken breasts as part of the Protein & Sides category.

What stood out to me above all else is their pasta options. Most of the meals had Cauliflower or veggie based pasta. Even some of the rice dishes were made with cauliflower rice. I haven’t seen this option as widely available before and as someone who loves pasta but hates carbs, this sealed the deal for me.

For the vegetarians out there who are on the fence about Freshly, I will say that they offer at least 5 vegetarian options per week. I am not sure how often the meals change but at the very least, you can order a different meal for each day of the week. This is something that has only been made available recently so Freshly is clearly taking steps to bolster their vegetarian options. That being said, I still found Factor to be a better option for people with more strict dietary needs.

Macros and Ingredients

One thing that’s important to know before ordering any meal that is pre-made for you is the ingredients that go into it and the nutritional information. Freshly makes it quiet easy to see the macros and main ingredients used in all of their meals.

Simply click on any meal on their menu and it will bring up a quick description of the meal as well as the main ingredients and macros used. Here is a quick view of what you will be able to see:

Low carb, high protein. Let’s go!

Unboxing

One of the best feelings is when you get a package on your doorstep and get to open it. There is something exciting about it, it’s like Christmas to me. So the unboxing experience is something I carefully review each time.

After trying Factor, I was a little disappointed in Freshly’s unboxing. Not that there was anything wrong with it, it just didn’t feel as slick and modern as the ones I got from Factor 75.

One of the biggest asks I get is about the sustainability of a service like Freshly. After all, it does seem to create a lot of waste. Freshly’s website does boast that they are actively working on reducing the environmental impact where possible, so I was expecting their packaging to be slick and low on plastic.

When I got the box and opened it, it was fairly straightforward. There were two ice packs, one on top and one on the bottom with the 4 meals I ordered in between. And that’s it. There was no packing paper, no welcome pamphlet, no instructions. Written on the ice packs was information about how to recycle them.

I did have questions about reheating and freezing the meals but luckily all of that information is found on the meal packaging itself.

Meal Prep – Freshly Fresh

The great thing about Freshly is that the meals come ready to heat and eat unlike other meal delivery services where you have to cook everything yourself. This makes Freshly perfect for busy parents, working professionals, or college students.

The meal prep for Freshly is simple. Just throw the container into the microwaves for 2-3 minutes, wait one minute for it to cool down, and you ready to eat.

As I mentioned above, I was skeptical about microwaving my food. After all, how “fresh” can Freshly be after it has been ran through a microwave. But honestly, I was pleasantly surprised. My meal did not taste like leftovers from the previous day. It was still full of flavor and I would say that it was comparable to something I made from scratch.

Shipping and Delivery

One of the things that is most important to me is the ability to schedule when I get my meals and have them delivered. This is because I like to plan my meals for the week, get them on Sunday, and then start taking them to work for lunched starting the next day.

So when I found out Freshly offers shipping 7 days a week, I thought this was a win. However, after putting in my zip code on their website, I found out shipping is only available Monday-Thursday for my location.

It seems like they do ship 7 days a week (I entered a few other zip codes to test) but what days are available will depend on where you live.

The shipping fee also varies by where you live and how much you are ordering. When I placed my order for 4 meals, I only paid $8.99 for shipping. However, I have heard that shipping can be as low as $6.99 per box.