Until recently, I didn’t understand the point of meal kits. Do these delivery services actually save time in the kitchen? Are they intended to teach novice cooks how to be more culinarily creative? Why am I being made to mince so many shallots and dirty every one of my sheet pans? After trying HelloFresh, I can finally say I get it.
Compared to the other kits I’ve experimented with, HelloFresh—the most popular meal delivery kit service in America, which claims a whopping 74% of the category’s market share—puts the customer (slash cook) in the driver’s seat thanks to its flexible and extensive menu options. Whether you rarely set foot into the kitchen or a professional chef, you’ll find that the range of recipes and ingredients offered by HelloFresh will minimize mealtime stress, decision fatigue, and time spent in the kitchen.
The HelloFresh ordering experience
New users can subscribe to HelloFresh’s meal delivery kit program via the brand’s website or by downloading its app. First, you’ll be prompted to personalize your plan: How many people (up to six) will you be serving and what number of meals do you want each week? Next, choose from six dietary plans, selecting as many as you wish: Meat and Veggies, Veggies, Family-Friendly, Fit and Wholesome, Under 20 Minutes, and Pescatarian. I opted for the two-person serving size and the three-meal-per-week plan for my husband and me, indicating that we’d like to avoid pork and red meat. Prices start at $57 for two meals for two people per week; dietary preferences won’t impact your subscription fee.
You’ll then be guided to make more specific meal selections from HelloFresh’s extensive menu page, which populates based on the dietary preferences and restrictions you previously selected. I was dazzled by the amount of detail the service provides about each meal upon completing this step: every ingredient needed and the amount you’ll need (with reference photos of each item), what kitchen utensils are required, the dish’s full nutritional information per serving, a list of included allergens, plus cook time and the recipe itself.
Also worth noting is the sheer number of delicious-sounding dinners to choose from. There are over 100, with dishes like coconut shrimp and cabbage curry, smashed black bean tostadas, and bavette steak with creamy truffle polenta. Nutrition- and prep-related callouts like Fiber Smart, Easy Prep and Clean, or Vegan are marked under each meal to speed up your selection process. FYI, HelloFresh lets you browse what menu options will be offered for up to five weeks in advance (as they rotate weekly).
Because I wanted to sample a range of HelloFresh’s meal options (e.g., a seafood and a meat-based dish, each of varying amounts of prep time required), I added the sweet and spicy shrimp lo mein, chicken and spinach couscous salad, plus the shrimp and pesto rotini from the Ready Made Meals line to my order. Indeed, for the folks most pressed for time, HelloFresh offers a limited array of heat-and-eat dinners alongside its longer menu of dishes to be cooked from scratch at home.
To wrap up your order, select a delivery date—HelloFresh delivers between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. A box of premeasured produce, raw meat or seafood (if applicable), and micro amounts of herbs, spices, and condiments will arrive at your doorstep alongside the recipes for the meals you selected shortly thereafter. Store the ingredients in your fridge until mealtime rolls around. Heads up: If you’re not home when the box arrives, don’t sweat it, because the contents will be packed with insulation and several (seriously heavy) ice packs to avoid any food safety issues.
The service doesn’t require any long-term commitments once you’re subscribed; feel free to skip a weekly delivery or pause-slash-cancel your membership at any time.
What I loved about HelloFresh
As a gal who fancies brand transparency and flexibility around meals, I was into HelloFresh’s lengthy list of customizable menu options, as well as the in-depth information the service provides about each recipe’s ingredients, flavor, process, and nutrition. This made ordering a stress-free (enjoyable, even) process—in a matter of minutes, my meal planning and food shopping for the following week was signed, sealed, and nearly delivered. Bonus points for not needing to painstakingly pore over packaged food labels at the grocery store (Is this salmon farm-raised or wild-caught? Are these oats safe for my gluten-free friend?).
It was equally pleasing to see that HelloFresh sources its recipes from a wide range of cultural cuisines. Rather than the sloppy joes, meatloaf, and underseasoned skinless, boneless chicken breasts I’m used to seeing with this type of service, HelloFresh’s menu offers bahn mi, za’atar-crusted Halloumi cheese, stromboli, and enchiladas verdes (to name a few).
Flavor-wise, I was sold after a single bite of the sweet and spicy shrimp lo mein. The dish—which took me about 45 minutes from start to finish—tasted vibrant and saucy, and it hit the ideal balance of heat, sweet, and sour. The preparation was about as basic as it gets too: Cook noodles, sear shrimp and veggies, stir in sauces and seasonings, then garnish. It was clear that the recipe itself had been developed and tested by professionals, because it actually worked (a relative rarity!). And in terms of quality, I was relieved to see that the shrimp was still ice-cold when I pulled it out of the HelloFresh packaging and that the green beans and bok choy looked lively.
Similarly, the chicken and spinach couscous salad was just the thing for a sweltering July weeknight dinner when switching on the oven felt like a death sentence. It took just shy of 40 minutes to toss together, and thanks to the inclusion of a garlicky mayo-based dressing, toasted walnuts, and a generous portion of HelloFresh’s signature Fry Seasoning, the otherwise simple seared chicken and spinach salad was rich in both flavor and textural nuance.
The sleeper hit from my test? The Ready Made Meal, HelloFresh’s shrimp and pesto rotini. In under three minutes, I had plated a generous serving of al dente rotini noodles tossed with a creamy pesto sauce made with basil leaves that tasted vibrant and fresh, as if they’d just been harvested from my garden. All was topped with juicy (not chewy) shrimp, parboiled pieces of asparagus, and a blend of five Italian cheeses. Given the amount of time the dish took to serve, the flavor was impressive, especially compared to other heat-and-serve-style dishes I’ve sampled.
What I didn’t love about HelloFresh
While HelloFresh certainly took the guesswork out of making a delicious midweek meal and saved me hours in the shop-and-prep department, the cooking process—i.e., timing from start to finish—was slightly less predictable. According to HelloFresh’s recipe, the amount of hands-on time required for the chicken and spinach couscous is roughly five minutes, and the dish takes no more than 30 minutes total. Not so, in my experience: It took my over 35 minutes to prep the dish. After testing a few other HelloFish recipes with similar discrepancies, I would recommend tacking on around 15 minutes to the service’s predicted total cook time, regardless of what you’re serving.
And while the single-serve packets of seasoning and sauce are smart when it comes to reducing food and packaging waste, I found the process of opening packet after packet (particularly mid-sear or sauté, when one’s hands aren’t exactly available to pry open anything slippery) was, honestly, agonizing. There’s a reason why chefs tend to decant their most-used sauces and condiments into easy-to-drizzle squeeze bottles, after all!
Similarly, the cleanup that came after the HelloFresh recipe wrapped felt relatively extensive for such a simplistic meal. None of the dishes I tested were one-pot or one-pan; if that’s the case for you, too, I recommend budgeting extra time for scrubbing.
HelloFresh FAQs
What kind of meal kit delivery service is HelloFresh?
HelloFresh is a service that ships premeasured and prepped ingredients and easy-to-follow recipes directly to your doorstep on a weekly basis—the grocery shopping, meal planning, and ingredient measurements have been done for you. Unlike a number of other meal kit services, HelloFresh allows you to select the exact recipes you’ll receive from over a hundred options, easily accommodating the dietary restrictions, allergies, time constraints, and food preferences you designate. The service also offers a limited number of ready-to-eat meals that need just a couple of minutes in the microwave.
What’s new at HelloFresh—why should I subscribe now?
Aside from the fact that back-to-school season (RIP free time) is rapidly approaching, now’s the ideal time to test out HelloFresh because the brand is launching a completely “ReFreshed” menu on August 4. The launch is substantial and was largely inspired by customer feedback: You can expect higher-quality meal options, a longer menu with more global flavors, bigger portion sizes, and greater nutritional value per serving (think more protein, better veggies).
“This menu evolution is designed to bring more enjoyment and excitement to home cooking by making it easier than ever to cook delicious meals any day of the week—and it’s just the beginning,” says president of HelloFresh Group Assaf Ronen. “With more than double the amount of new recipes launching each week, including restaurant-quality ingredients and bold global flavors, our pace of innovation is only accelerating.”
Greater convenience offerings are coming to HelloFresh too: Each weekly menu will now include over 25 new meal options filed under Quick and Easy, which means a wider variety of Ready Made Meal dishes that you can heat and eat within minutes, plus one-pan recipes that require minimal cleanup. What’s more, the brand is increasingly focused on providing customers with opportunities to customize and curate dishes, like swapping sides and protein options or adding appetizers and desserts to their menu.
What sustainability efforts are being made by the team at HelloFresh?
It’s clear that the company takes their carbon footprint seriously; HelloFresh has reduced its carbon emissions at its production facilities by 63% since 2019. How? HelloFresh now sources all energy from renewables, utilizes solar arrays and LEDs, minimizes required food miles (due to having a shorter supply chain), and donates what would otherwise be wasted food to nonprofit organizations. Additionally, using preportioned ingredients has been shown to reduce total meal waste in comparison to traditionally cooked dinners by roughly 38%. Finally, HelloFresh notes that 90% of its packaging is curbside recyclable.
The bottom line
HelloFresh is best suited to beginner and intermediate cooks looking to up their skillset and creativity in the kitchen while adding new flavors, cooking methods, and recipes to their arsenal (without having to grocery shop or take a cooking class).
It’s also a smart service for those who prefer to outsource the process of portioning their meals, as HelloFresh’s recipes are composed of preportioned ingredients. And compared to many other meal kit services on the market, HelloFresh offers lots of customization options and a lengthy recipe list—so whether you follow a restrictive diet or have strong preferences (and/or aversions) to certain ingredients, you’ll still find delicious menu options that fit within your palate’s preference.
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