Huel chicken and mushroom ready meal

Taylor

Apr 24

As I have mentioned before I am trying to really focus on my fitness goals in 2023. This does mean eating a lot of the same foods day by day, week by week, so meals can get very boring very quickly. Food fatigue is real when every meal is a slight variation on 'protein and veg'. One of the biggest time sinks however has been the meal prep, because I do not always have the space to be able to prep a weeks worth of meals in one go. My biggest issue has been lunches. I work in the office every weekday so need meals that are not only easy to prepare and easy to eat in an office, I also need meals that are easy to transport. I am lucky that I can walk to work every day, but it is still a 30 minute walk each way so I don't really want to be carrying very heavy meals in my bag each morning.

Which is how I came to find Huel. All of the products are plant based and vegan friendly and I have seen their protein powders reviewed a lot on some of my online vegan communities. They do a range of products from protein powders, to ready meals, to fitness bars and even some apparel. I did a lot of research into their ready meal packets and I was very impressed by their macros - 400 calories and 40g of protein per serving?! Sign me up.

I therefore decided to try their chicken (chick'n actually but for simplicity I am just calling it chicken) and mushroom pasta. Now it comes in a pretty big bag and claims to have 7 servings per bag. Note however that a serving is considered two scoops (they provide you with a scoop for easy measuring) so if you just wanted this as a small snack and only use one scoop, then it would likely last you longer.

As you can see it comes as a dried product. When I ordered they did send me a little Tupperware cup to help me prepare it if I'm on the go or don't have access to a measuring jug. The directions say to add 200ml of boiling water (100ml for every scoop used) or to fill the cup to the fill line. You then cover it for 5 minutes and it's ready to eat. Now in my experience, it needs longer than 5 minutes, not only so it cools down enough to actually be edible but so that the pasta is fully cooked and you don't have any crunchy bits. I have found that 7-10 minutes is the best time.

To put it very simply, this is a slightly posher Pot Noodle. It tastes fine...it does taste like chicken and mushroom, but it also very clearly a reheated ready meal. Like I said...it's a pot noodle. Now there is nothing wrong with a pot noodle and it absolutely hits the spot for me. It is packed with protein so even though the serving looks small, I don't feel hungry afterwards. Most days I will eat this around 1pm for lunch, finish work, head to the gym for an hour and won't have dinner until about 7/8pm. And this does a great job of making me feel full for the entirety of the afternoon. I do have a breakfast bar just before the gym but when I am focusing a lot more on my running (I am currently training for a half marathon - let me know if you want to see updates on how that is going!) I do like to have a little boost of sugar and carbs just beforehand to get me through the longer runs especially.

Now this packet costs around £15. I actually bought this with 2 other packets so I got 21 meals for just under £60. Which may seem like a lot but with the price of food these days, that was my weekly shop anyway. Now I don't even have to think about lunches as I just take a bag to work with me, leave it there everyday and once it's empty I replace it with another bag. There is zero prep and I don't have to think about even more shopping. Having looked on their website too it seems that you can only order a minimum of 3 bags with each order. You can also set it up to auto renew - from every week to every 8 weeks - depending on how often and how quickly you intend to go through each packet.

I do understand that for most people, this isn't really feasible. You can buy 3 packets as a one off but this tends to be slightly more expensive. It seems they add a bit of a discount if you set the order up to auto renew. For me though, while it may not be the most exciting of meals, it hits all of the macros I need it to and it also removes a massive headache during my week and my day. I no longer have to think about prepping my lunch for the week or even for the next day, which does in itself give me a whole half hour of my evening back to do with what I want. Which usually just means I watch TV or play a video game for slightly longer, but still. Life is meant to be enjoyed and this little bag is allowing me a bit more balance between me actually enjoying my downtime and still managing to work towards all of my fitness goals.