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I come from a long line of great cooks, which makes my lack of kitchen skills quite disappointing. My mom and grandma were both pros at making intricate, delicious meals throughout my childhood, yet I never inherited their expertise — even when I have a recipe written out in front of me, the meals usually turn out undercooked, underseasoned or not quite right. In the years spent living away from them I’ve put more effort into making food that will actually taste good.
But like with any skill, practice makes perfect, and what better way to improve than by getting pre-measured ingredients and detailed recipes delivered to my door? I decided to give HelloFresh a try for one week, and it completely changed my outlook on cooking and saved me trips to the grocery store. Below, I outline my experience with the meal delivery service, including what to know about pricing, preparation and meal selection.
HelloFresh is a meal delivery service that sends you fresh, pre-measured ingredients to your doorstep so you can make a (preselected) recipe of choice. Each week, you’ll choose meals from a rotating menu (that changes weekly) and the service will send a box of recipe cards and the exact ingredients to make your selected portion size. Nothing in the box comes frozen or needs to go in the freezer, though I personally like to freeze any meat that I won’t be cooking in the next few days. All of the included ingredients are considered grocery-store fresh.
There are six dietary preferences to choose from: meat and veggies, veggie (there are 14 vegetarian meals, including two vegan meals, on the menu each week), family-friendly, fit and wholesome, pescatarian and under 20 minutes. Though your preferences won’t influence the menu options for the week, they do ensure that those meals show up at the top of the list, which is great if you have specific dietary restrictions.
You can choose your desired meals at least five days before your next scheduled delivery, or you’ll automatically receive pre-selected meals that fall under your specific preferences each week. You can filter meals to show pork-free and vegetarian options on the menu, change or swap proteins and sides, or add a protein to a vegetarian dish.
In addition to cooking your meals, you’ll need to do some light prep work, including chopping, slicing and mixing.
HelloFresh starts at $9.99 per serving and has a $10.99 shipping cost per week. There are 15 total weekly plans to choose from; for each plan, you’ll need to choose the number of people you’re feeding (two, four or six) and the number of meals you want, ranging from two meals to six meals per week.
To try out the service, HelloFresh sent me three meals that I chose from its weekly rotating menu:
I received my meals on a Thursday and tried them over the course of one week. I prepared and cooked the meals myself based on the directions on the recipe card, which denotes which ingredients and how much of them to use (with pictures) along with cooking and prep instructions. This was especially helpful when multiple recipes used the same type of pepper or cheese, for example.
I split the meals with my partner; the portion size for each option was perfect for two people, and I often had enough meals for three dinners. The menu has more than 60 varied meal options to choose from, and since neither one of us has dietary restrictions, choosing meals was easy and straightforward.
From selecting meals to preparing and eating them, my experience with HelloFresh was mostly smooth and easy. Below are some key takeaways after trying the meal kit delivery service for a week.
The meal selection process is very straightforward: You’re given a menu of more than 45 meals for a specific week, and you can choose a variety of dinner options like mandarin chili organic chicken and chicken Caesar wraps, and even brunch choices like peaches and cream French toast. However, the meals are tame and fairly predictable, so if you’re an adventurous eater or a true foodie, this service likely isn’t for you.
The service has as many as 60 meals on its weekly menu. I’m not a picky eater, nor do I have any restrictions or special eating habits, so I had plenty to choose from due to the sheer number of options that HelloFresh offers. However, keep in mind that HelloFresh does not cater to most dietary restrictions outside of vegetarian and pescatarian diets, including gluten-free, allergen-free, keto and paleo diets.
Seeing the full recipe certainly helped with the selection process. I love that I can click on a meal while browsing the menu and see the exact recipe card, including ingredients, cooking instructions and detailed nutritional information like allergens, calories, cholesterol and sugar. It was helpful for me to see standout ingredients, consider time and cooking difficulty, and survey how the meal could help me meet any specific protein and calorie goals I had for the day.
