As a 600 to 800 calorie evening meal I will try this. I found Spinach and courgettes also works well. Due to time cosntraints at work, I will be using H&S in ‘basic’ mode and save the addition of real food for when I have extra time.
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So, I did get impatient and order both the curry and tomato flavors. No pot for me, but I did get scoops - two scoops, in fact, which will go nicely with the three scoops I’ve already gotten in my first order. Soon I’ll get my next subscription delivery which will probably include more scoops, and in a few months I’ll be able to give up my job and sell tickets to view my massive Huel scoop collection.
Anyway, I did give both of them a try today.
First off - you do have to shake and stir and basically do everything in your power to mix up the package. The powdered stuff settles right at the bottom, and even with some fairly vigorous shaking it still ended up rather separated. Perhaps a separate baggie with powdered tomato, spices and everything finer than a rice grain wouldn’t be a bad idea - I get that it would go against Huel’s instant nature to have to (gasp) mix two ingredients and isn’t exactly green, but it would save on a bad first impression to people who don’t bother to shake up the bag and get a mouthful of rice for their first meal.
(Speaking of green, I think the pouches could probably be made a little smaller - compared to Huel powder there’s a bunch of free space up there).
Tomato went first, and quite nicely. It’s not exactly your mom’s tomato soup, more of an instant pot noodle, but hell, a healthy pot noodle doesn’t sound like a bad idea. The rice gives it a nice texture and mouthfeel, and overall it was fairly tasty and felt more like a meal than a bottle of Huel. That said, it feels less filling despite supposedly having much more fiber in it, and it’s definitely getting the tabasco treatment next time - I tend to like my tomato soup more spicy than that.
Green curry smells of coconut and tastes sod all. It’s relatively spicy - not “hot sauce at an obscure kebab booth” spicy, but “you might want a glass of water, possibly” spicy. But other than that it doesn’t really have much of a distinguishable taste - just a greyish goo of mild disappointment.
Verdict: tomato yes, curry no. Luckily it’s tomato that won my coin toss for the third bag, so once I get through the bag of curry I probably won’t be ordering it again. That said, the pricing model doesn’t really work well for mixing and matching H&S and Huel powder, so I probably won’t be making my daily routine all hot and savory and stick to a single bag once in a while.
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Are the scoops any good though? #scoopgate56
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Do you have the Green scoop in your collection?
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How about adding some Peri Peri sauce to the tomato and herb?
this is one amazing idea!
So I went half and half on this today. When I put both in the cup and stirred them it just smelt of the TGC however upon the water being added it resembled more of a Tom Yum scent and it tastes very much like one too although there is an undertone of the H&T. The mixture is not as thick as the H&T usually is but its just the right level of thick for me.
Actually quite nice.
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I’ve been requesting this for a while and they listened… Eating Thai green curry version now and loving it. This might sound strange to people who don’t like spicy food but the main issue for me was that when I having the regular Huel I was craving something spicy all the time and this solves the problem. 10/10. Thanks Huel
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I have just tried the tomato and herbs version and I have to say I really like the taste. The texture could be improved as I found it a little chewy but maybe I will try to put more water in and see, any suggestions? It filled me up nicely.
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Initially, I followed the instruction for the the suggested amount of water and brew time. I have since found that for Tomato and Herb, I prefer approx 20ml more water. I use the suggested 5 minute brew time but allow it to sit uncovered for upto a further 5 minutes. Today, as this was my day of working from home I had the luxury of time and my personal ingredients therefore I added marmite, cooked fusilli pasta and croutons which I really enjoyed.
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Just tried the Tomato & Herb and must have done something wrong despite following the instructions to the letter. It was so thick and the “bits” were quite chewy and got stuck in the teeth and most definitely didn’t look like the picture on the packet. I’ll try again tomorrow but so far not terribly impressed. Hopefully the Green Curry one will be better.
This issue could come from a number of places. Make sure to mix the bag before scooping out. Make sure to stir after adding hot water and after letting it sit for 5-8 minutes. If you find that it is still too thick try adding some more hot water and letting it sit for another couple of minutes.
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Was excited to receive my H&S bags today! Tried the tomato & herb for lunch.
Unfortunately… I’d say, keep expectations low. Nobody is ever gonna mistake this for real fresh food. Some positive opinions on here made me think otherwise! It’s definitely of the ‘dry powder product’ sort that you’d find in mug soup snacks etc.
Other than that it was… okay. I don’t think I could eat this every day. The recommended preparation suggestion didn’t really turn out that well. When you pour the water in the cup, make sure you mix it well, otherwise it doesn’t absorb all the way through. Having said that, even after mixing - I waited 5 mins as instructed, and it came out as a thick, clumpy slop.
First bite test - crunchy, chewy, sloppy - and not at all cooked through. Quite bland and flavourless. Needed MUCH more water and heat for longer. So I did that, popped it in the microwave for another minute and took it back out.
In the end I had to add some salt to make it more palatable. Considering this is the first version of the product it’s fine, I understand it’ll take time to make things better. But it definitely needs more of a ‘kick’ to it. Usually when I have a good tomato based meal, the good ones have a wonderful umami taste to it. Slightly tangier, you know? This one unfortunately doesn’t have that. Please add that next time, Huel!
I will say that the one flavour that particularly stood out to me were the dried spring onions. So it’s good if you like that, not so much if you’re not a fan of onions (thankfully, I am).
Anyway, I think next time I’ll add maybe a squeeze of lime or as someone else suggested, tabasco? And maybe I’ll try cooking it over the stove and go for a ‘soupier’ consistency. Slightly disappointed first try - here’s hoping the Thai Green Curry will fare better.
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I think some of the variations people are seeing may also be down to the heat it’s cooked at. Weirdly, unless you’ve got one of those posh ones where you can set the temperature or a really old school stove top one, most kettles do not boil water to 100°C. Sure, the water in the immediate vicinity of the heating elements reaches boiling, but generally the rest of the water is around 80° on average. I would guess this has some impact on the ‘cooking’ time so like many have mentioned, often 5 minutes may not be enough.
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My Morphy Richards kettle brings it to a rolling boil for a good few seconds before switching off.
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Ah man, sorry you don’t like Hot & Savoury. For me, Thai Green Curry is the bomb and has that kick you’re after, maybe Tomato just isn’t for you. However, people certainly have been loving it, so I’m really surprised you’re underwhelmed. Maybe all our excitement about it has set the bar too eye 
!!
I think a lot of your thoughts on it can be amended quickly for a better 2nd round!
- Stir or shake the pouch and make sure you get a good scoop of everything
- if it’s still too thick, just add more water
- definitely pimp it up with your own flavours, I’m guilty of getting some siracha into my Tomato and Herb every now and then!
Oh and you can also microwave it, so maybe try that next time and see if that improves the crunch you’re getting.
Keep us posted!
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Thanks for your feedback Tim, completely appreciate that you’re excited about the launch of your new product. I totally get that everyone has their own tastes; I’m really glad others are enjoying theirs! It’s just not for me unfortunately.
I have been adding extra flavour to my own meal to make it a bit more appealing. Today I tried the TGC and added a bit of palm sugar and salt to make it taste a bit more like the real thing. I think the biggest issue I have is with the texture of everything - all the dry ingredients have been puffed, presumably to make cooking much easier and quicker. I get that - huel is for convenience! But I’m really missing the texture of actual rice for example, it just seems to ‘melt’ and turn into a slop. Which is fine if you’re going for a soup - but the product shots on the website make it look more like a risotto. Look I’m not bashing your product at all, I totally commend that you’re trying to innovate in health foods like nobody else is. Just that my expectations were too high in this case.
Cheers.
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I don’t think any reconstitutable food(this product, pot noodle etc) will ever replicate the texture of what it should be whether they be rice, noodles, veg etc. What instead I anticipate is that with the ability to add various flavouring they should replicate a flavour. However eve flavours differ. I’ve never eaten Thai Green Curry. I have no idea what it should taste like but as soon as I taste the Huel version I’ll endeavour to order it as a meal in a restaurant or pub but there are non in my area that serve this.
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Interesting and thoughtful but it’s worth bearing in mind the work of Isaac Asimov.
In his science fiction works (start with caves of steel) he described a lot of things that have now come to be reality for us.
One of the really interesting things he mentions, almost in passing really, is that due to the incredibly high population on earth most of the food is created as forms of yeast, underground. Within that setting they are, in the future, able to replicate texture.
So while it seems a bit science fiction for us now, maybe not. I mean, escalators, robotics, computer algorithms, solar power, I could go in but it’s gonna be boring. It may seem a long way away but perhaps the future is closer than you realise.
I concede that future development may lead to a (very close) match to freshly made food however I think freshly cooked pasta, rice and veg have a quality that reconstituted food would have to be exceptional to match this.