HELLO FRESH RECIPE: FIGGY BALSAMIC PORK

We LOVE Hello Fresh! It may be among our favorites. This meal came in a box with Ground Beef Bulgogi Bowls and Moroccan Sausage Chicken Tangine.

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WHY HELLO FRESH?

The BEST part of Hello Fresh is they beat all other services on variety and choice. There are 15 recipes to choose from in the Classic Plan, six in the family plan, and three in the veggie plan. That is more choices than any other meal box service. And you're not ever locked in! You can mix and match the plans each week, and choose different numbers of servings per meal, and even choose a different number of meals each week. Their "Dinner 2 Lunch" options supply creative ways to transform leftovers into new lunches! Hello Fresh definitely wins here. 

​Hello Fresh is also one of the most environmentally friendly services. The whole kits come in recyclable paper bags, and they keep the plastic to a minimum. Compared to some of the other services, this is a really nice feature. They've even partnered with GiveBackBox.com so you can ship used packaging to be donated - free! 

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Try Hello Fresh and get $40 off!

Read more of our Hello Fresh reviews HERE.

the recipe

This one came together easy peasy! Sheet pan dinners are great because you can basically just throw everything in the oven and come back to a full meal. Hooray for time savers!

1. Prep all the produce and herbs and start the oven to 450.

Quick tip - remove stems by pulling the leaves backwards. They drop right off!

2. Start the potatoes. Remember, olive oil spray is gold!! Instead of dirtying up extra bowls and making a mess "tossing" stuff around, just hit the pan and its contents with a spray of this stuff.

3. While the potatoes start roasting, sear the pork. This step is technically optional - you could just skip this and go straight to roasting if you need to save time, but it's really worth it. You get a nice crust on the pork, and it forms the base of what will become a pan sauce later. So do it!

Don't cook it all the way through - it will finish in the oven. While it's searing - make sure to watch it and turn every couple of minutes to get all sides - prep the sauce and the second sheet pan.

4. Prep the sauce. In a lot of meal boxes, it will tell you to add a bunch of things to a pan all at once to make a sauce - but you have to do it in a certain order and quickly to avoid splattering,  burning or over-evaporating in a hot pan. It's often easier to mix the sauce ingredients first and then dump them in later. So here, mix the chicken base, the fig jam, the vinegar and water together first so it's already ready when you are.

5. Get the second sheet pan ready. Spray first, add green beans, spray them again. The recipe will want us to cook the shallots in the sear pan to add to the sauce, but some of around here (hand raise emoji) are definitely not onion people. So on the sheet they go, and they'll make a great bean topper for the pro-onion folks.

Also move the pork pieces from the sear pan to the sheet pan. Spray the shallots too.

Dang those porks look good.

6. Finish the potatoes. Toss em around and stick em back in if they aren't finished yet. If they're tender all the way through and nicely browned they are done. Scootch them together or cover to keep warm.

7. When the second pan is finished, pull it out. USDA says pork is done at 145F. Temp it. Don't worry if it goes over a bit. Still good! I love my digital thermometer (similar here).

If it's done, set it to rest before slicing. Meanwhile, make the sauce. The vegetables should be nicely browned too.

8. Make the sauce. Heat up the pan with the meat drippings still in it. Don't burn any bits, just make it hot. Add your pre-mixed sauce ingredients. Use a hard edged wooden spatula to dig up all the gunk from the bottom of the pan. That's the good stuff! Let it boil down until it's thick and sticky.

9. A nice serving platter looks fancy, but it's really just a short cut for the cook. Dump it all on a platter and let your fam help themselves. Cut the porks into pretty slices and dump all the sauce into a serving thingy. Gorgeous! and delicious too!

10. EAT.

Try Hello Fresh and get $40 off!

Read more of our Hello Fresh reviews HERE.

our rating:

This meal was awesome! Tasty, easy, and a crowd pleaser.

our stuff:

Here's some of things we used for this recipe:

Thanks for cooking with us, and eat well!