HelloFresh Review 2024: My Honest Experience

Overview

I’ve tested HelloFresh multiple times across the years, and I found it the best choice for busy people who prioritize home cooking. It offers a massive menu of 60 recipes per week, plus add-ons. Most mainstream diets are catered for (including veggie and vegan), and you can mix and match meal categories each week. You can browse the large marketplace of add-ons once you’ve signed up. 

While you’ll find plenty of international flavors, HelloFresh also has a family-friendly menu with loads of choices for picky eaters. You can use HelloCustom to swap certain ingredients, but it’s mostly limited to protein choices and dependent on availability. HelloFresh clearly labels recipes with allergen information, but cross-contamination is always possible. I found the lack of specific dietary filters made choosing suitable recipes more time-consuming.

I enjoyed cooking at home with HelloFresh every time. The straightforward recipes and pre-portioned ingredients were ideal for beginners. The produce was always fresh (as the brand name promised!), and the recipes were generally accurate, although some dishes took a bit longer to prep than advertised. In my last test, I tried several meals, from a vegan Mushroom French Dip Sandwich to a flavorful Pork Katsu, and found that HelloFresh's creative recipes were consistently tasty and easy to follow. 

I also like HelloFresh’s eco-friendly approach, which includes using mostly recyclable packaging. While some plastic remains, it's less than I've seen with other meal kit services. Ingredients are well-organized in paper bags, which helps speed up meal prep. Price-wise, it sits in the middle ground between budget and premium, so I’d recommend it to people looking to balance quality and value.

HelloFresh’s Menu: Quality Meals for the Whole Family

HelloFresh’s weekly menu offers 60+ meal kit recipes and is organized into 6 categories, making it easy to choose recipes that suit your taste and lifestyle. We regularly do deep-dives into HelloFresh’s menu options, like in our roundup of HelloFresh’s best pescatarian meals or the best gluten-free options.

Meal Options: Choose From 6 Meal Plans + Add Sides & Extras 

The 6 categories you can choose from include:

• Meat & Veggies

• Veggie

• Family Friendly

• Fit & Wholesome

• Under 20 Minutes

• Pescatarian

HelloFresh initially selects recipes for you based on your chosen plan(s). And if you forget to choose your own meals one week, HelloFresh will do it for you so you don’t miss your weekly delivery. Otherwise, the plan categories are more like menu organizers than they are limitations on what meals you can choose. You can mix and match between plans in any way you like.

You’ll also be able to choose from extras and sides in the Marketplace once you’ve confirmed your order size and plan category and entered your payment information. HelloFresh provides dinners and a few meals called 10-Minute Lunches. You can also find a few breakfasts and kids lunches each week.

You can order between 2 and 6 recipes per week for 2, 4, or 6 people, regardless of the plan you choose. This is on par with other mainstream meal delivery services. The prep time is noted on the main menu under each meal image and if you click on an image you’ll see the recipes marked as “Easy”, “Medium”, or “Hard.”

HelloFresh Is a Good Choice for Both Adventurous and Picky Eaters 

HelloFresh is a great choice for families with young children. The company makes a point of providing balanced yet crowd-pleasing comfort food dishes that will suit pickier eaters. The One-Pan Easy Cheesy Chicken Quesadillas, for example, would be popular with kids and grown-ups alike. Plus, the option to pick up to 6 meals per week is ideal for larger orders. 

But you’ll find some internationally inspired dishes for more adventurous palates. For example, the Honey Miso Broccoli and Sweet Potato Donburi with Scallion Rice and Sriracha Mayo (pictured below) is a Korean-inspired dish.

Customization Made Easy with HelloCustom 

With the HelloCustom option, you can swap out certain proteins or sides on several dishes. When I first ordered from HelloFresh, this feature wasn’t available. However, I find it super convenient since customizing the proteins and sides in my meals gives me more variety.

For example, the Meat & Veggies plan can be customized to omit beef, pork, or seafood. Home Chef has had this swapping feature for a while on its menu, so it’s great to see HelloFresh catching up!

However, swapping proteins and sides adds an extra charge and isn’t available for all recipes. Swapping also depends on ingredient availability. This means that while you might be able to swap chicken for salmon in a dish on the menu one week, you might not be able to the next time that dish is on the menu.

Room for Improvement: HelloFresh Isn’t Ideal for People With Food Allergies 

HelloFresh has taken steps to help people with intolerances or other food aversions. While you can’t swap particular ingredients you might be allergic to, dishes containing major allergens (like nuts, dairy, or soy) are clearly marked on the recipe cards.

One downside of HelloFresh’s extensive menu is that there aren’t menu filters. You have to browse recipes by eye and read each recipe card to determine which recipes might suit you. This can be annoying if you need to avoid particular ingredients, or are trying to stick to a certain diet.

Once you’ve entered your payment information, browsing the menu is easier. You can select a plan, which serves as a type of filter based on the plan category. However, you still can’t browse by allergen or ingredient. This lack of filtering made it a struggle to determine how healthy HelloFresh really is.

HelloFresh’s Menu at a Glance 

My Unboxing Experience With HelloFresh: Almost Perfect!

Ingredients for each dish arrive in their own paper bag. This made storage easy and there was no guessing what went with what. I’ve tried other meal kits where all the ingredients are simply dumped in the box, which was inconvenient and sometimes confusing. So, this was a massive plus for me!

Underneath the recipe bags, you’ll find the chilled proteins, which HelloFresh recommends freezing until a few hours before you want to cook them. Any other fresh ingredients should, of course, be kept in the refrigerator.

HelloFresh does a fair job of using recyclable packaging where possible. However, you can’t get away from the fact that there’s still plastic used. This is mainly small sachets for spices and sauces and larger bags for things like salad leaves. However, it’s not as excessive as other services I’ve tried.

HelloFresh purchases carbon offsets for 100% of its deliveries. I try to be an eco-friendly consumer, so this fact makes it much more likely that I’ll order from HelloFresh again.

The recipe cards are big, bright, and simple. I love recipe cards, as I hate following instructions on my phone or computer while I’m cooking. Plus, these are perfect for saving and referring back to later on in case I want to try and remake a dish!

Each card also contains full-color photos of every step, a complete list of the required utensils and pantry ingredients, and all prep and cooking time information. You’ll also find info on any HelloCustom swaps.

The vegetables looked better than what I often see at the grocery store! Even though HelloFresh doesn’t offer many organic ingredients like its more expensive competitors do (e.g., Green Chef, which we wrote a full review about), the produce, proteins, and other ingredients looked high quality.

Cooking (And Eating) With HelloFresh: I Was Honestly Impressed!

HelloFresh claims that it tests each recipe 200 times before putting it on the menu. After trying these dishes for myself, I might just believe it! I was impressed by each dish I tested in terms of prep and flavor.

The recipes come in 3 difficulty levels – easy, medium, and hard. Hard recipes are practically non-existent, though, and the majority of the menu is labeled as easy. My order only included easy recipes, though one was a lot more involved than the others.

Some of my chosen recipes left me with piles of dishes to deal with afterward. If the thought of doing dishes sends chills up your spine, look for recipes labeled Easy Cleanup, Easy Prep, or One Pot. These include shortcuts to save you time and effort.

Shortlist of My Favorite Meals

Pork Katsu

HelloFresh’s “Better Than Takeout” Pork Katsu was the first dinner I cooked from my order. I found it to be a reasonably easy recipe to make, too. While it was fairly simple, everything came together in a delicious way.

Most of the prep was chopping the carrots and scallions. From there, I just had to bread and fry the pork while the carrots roasted in the oven. In my experience, recipes almost always take longer than advertised. In this case, dinner was on the table within a reasonable 45 minutes.

Thoughtful, flavorful touches set this recipe apart. For example, HelloFresh had me add ginger to the rice and sesame seeds to the carrots. These aromatic elements complemented the shallow-fried pork cutlets, which were nice and juicy when cooked just right.

Even though it wasn’t exactly a showstopper, this dish was darn tasty. While I wish it took a little less time to prep and clean up, I’d definitely make it again. And I’m going to start adding sesame seeds to my roasted carrots a lot more often, too.

Mushroom French Dip Sandwiches

This recipe was far and away my favorite of the week. Rich, beefy French Dip sandwiches are an indulgence, and this vegan variant with savory mushrooms was just as pleasurable. The potato wedges weren’t the most exciting side dish, but they complemented the meal well.

Sauteed mushrooms and red onions were a magical combination, but the real hero here was the jus (aka, the dipping sauce). This umami-bomb was made with mushroom stock instead of beef to keep it vegan, and it was super tasty soaked into the toasty baguette.

High-quality produce is an absolute must for plant-based cooking. I’m pleased to say HelloFresh easily met these standards. Vegetarian recipes often feel like an afterthought with more meat-focused meal delivery services, so HelloFresh gets major props here.

From start to finish, I spent about 40 minutes making this meal. That means the time estimate on the recipe card was actually accurate! The cleanup was also the easiest of the week, so this was definitely an all-around winner.

Street Cart-Style Chickpea Bowls

This complex vegan dish was quite the finale to my week of HelloFresh. The Middle Eastern-inspired recipe consisted of seasoned chickpeas, aromatic Jasmine rice, a simple cucumber salad, and garlicky pita bread. It was tasty but surprisingly labor-intensive.

The recipe card estimated just 10 minutes of prep and 30 minutes of cooking time. I wasn’t keeping close track of time, but I definitely spent over an hour fiddling about in the kitchen. You have to slice multiple veggies for the salad, and the rice is a whole thing too.

I had to do a lot of multitasking and dirty a lot of dishes to make this. Every component was tasty and went well together, but there were many discrete elements that all had to be prepared individually. Still, it was worth it.

This HelloFresh Hall of Fame dish was also a good example of how HelloCustom works. I got the vegan version of the dish, which was centered around chickpeas. However, you can get the same street cart-style dish with diced chicken or ground turkey.

Recipes Summary

Prices: Not the Cheapest Service, but It’s Great Value

HelloFresh’s pricing keeps it pretty square in the middle of the pack. Going with a more expensive service, like Green Chef, allows you to choose meals personalized to your diet, while cheaper services offer more basic recipes with fewer ingredients.

Because of the way the price adjusts, the breakdown of costs can vary quite a bit. Without a discount, you’ll get the lowest price per serving if you sign up for at least 2 meals for 4 or 6 people or 3 meals for 2 people. With a discount code, you’ll get the best price per serving for the largest order sizes (6 meals for 4 or 6 people). A box of 6 meals for 4 people will only cost $107.75 with our current discount for first-time customers. We did some research to see how HelloFresh compares to the cost of grocery shopping.

The shipping fee varies depending on where you’re based, and it’ll be calculated once you’ve selected your plan and are ready to check out. As a guide, when I ordered from HelloFresh, delivery was $10.99.

Shipping & Delivery: Not Bad, but I’ll Use the App Next Time

HelloFresh delivers anywhere in the continental United States. (Sorry, Alaska and Hawaii).

HelloFresh lets you choose your delivery day, which isn’t something every service allows. You can also update your delivery day week by week if your schedule or preference changes.

There’s no way to specify a time, though, so just pick the day that works best for you. HelloFresh delivers anytime between 8 am and 8 pm. I work from home, so I just went with Monday. Even if you’re not in, the box is insulated enough so it can be left outside all day.

I was notified by email when my order had shipped. I expected a text message too – like we got when we tested Home Chef – but didn’t receive one. Still, I check my email often enough that it didn’t make a difference.

My order ended up arriving just after noon, despite the broad delivery window. Unfortunately, I didn’t know the box had arrived until I checked the tracking information on my computer. I’ve since learned that HelloFresh has an app, which makes it much easier to monitor your deliveries and I’ll use that next time.

If that’s not your thing, you can also set yourself up to receive text notifications directly from the courier service. HelloFresh uses FedEx, UPS, and some regional services. The courier service changes depending on where you live. Once you confirm your order, you’ll receive an email detailing your courier and tracking information.

My package was left outside my door. In the past, I’ve had them left outside my apartment building, so this was much more convenient as the boxes can be pretty heavy!

How HelloFresh Works: Step by Step Guide

HelloFresh makes it super easy to sign up, but it’s also possible to see the menu first without inputting your credit card information – just click on Our Menus on HelloFresh’s home page.

Once you’ve decided you’re ready to sign up, you can do so in a few simple steps.

How to Sign Up for HelloFresh (Just 4 Simple Steps)

1. Click on Our Plans: This is where you select the plan you want (Veggie, Family Friendly, Under 20 Minutes, etc.) and pick how many recipes you want to receive each week for either 2, 4, or 6 people. Then click Select This Plan.

2. Create an account: Before you go any further, you’ll need to create your account. This is really easy to do by entering your email address and then setting your password.

3. Add your address: This will give you the opportunity to see your available delivery days.

4. Input payment information: Once you’ve entered your credit card or other payment information, you’ll be officially signed up!

Remember, HelloFresh automatically chooses meals for you when you select a plan. You can easily go in and swap these out for recipes of your own choosing. If you want to have a say in the dishes you receive, I recommend making these changes right away so you don’t forget!

Managing Your Subscription

HelloFresh makes it easier than most companies to skip weeks, cancel your subscription, or make other changes to your order. For in-depth assistance, check out our step-by-step cancelation guide.

The change request deadline is 11:59 pm PST, 5 days before your next scheduled order. You can pause, cancel, customize recipes, adjust your delivery day, or any other order details as long as you meet this deadline.

You can skip a week or pause your subscription with the touch of a button. Pausing your subscription is as easy as logging into your account and opening up your settings menu.

This page is also where you can select your meals. If you don’t choose your own meals (or pause your subscription) by the 5-day cutoff, HelloFresh will send you a selection of meals based on your chosen meal plan.

Customer Service: Honestly, 5 Out of 5 Stars!

I had a very positive experience with customer service. HelloFresh’s customer support features include 24/7 live chat, an iOS- and Android-compatible app, a phone line, a chatbot, and an extensive and easily searchable FAQ section.

I was connected to a HelloFresh live chat agent within about 1 to 2 minutes every time I reached out. You can even contact the live customer support chat via the app on your mobile device, so a live agent is always just a few taps away.

HelloFresh also has a phone line available from 11 am to 7 pm EST, 7 days per week. This is also a useful way to connect with live customer support, but I still found 24/7 live chat the easiest way to resolve my order issues and get my questions answered.

There’s also a shortcut to easily report an issue with your shipment, such as a missing or damaged ingredient

When I tried the live chat, it was immediately clear that I was chatting with a real person called Kyla. I’d received a coupon by email after I had ordered (typical, right?), so I reached out via online chat to see if I could apply it to an order that I had already placed.

I've never experienced such excellent customer service before. Although Kyla was unable to provide the entire discount, she refunded a portion of my money and deposited the remaining part into my account. Honestly, it was almost unbelievable.

I also tested out what it’s like to pause or cancel your HelloFresh subscription and wrote about it in this short blog post.

The FAQ section is easy to use. You’ll find Action Buttons to Help Yourself, which can help you solve common queries like updating your account or changing your order. Below that, you’ll find a robust set of Help Articles, which you can search using keywords.

The FAQ section from HelloFresh is straightforward and gets right to the point. For example, I was curious about how to recycle the packaging. A quick search using the word "recycle" gave me all the info I needed.

Additionally, I discovered that HelloFresh has an extensive recycling program and even provides a dedicated page to help you properly dispose of your packaging.

How HelloFresh Compares to Other Meal Delivery Services

To see how other services stack up compared to HelloFresh, check out our list of the best alternatives.

HelloFresh vs. Green Chef

Green Chef is the best organic meal kit service out there right now. All its ingredients are non-GMO, and the produce is CCOF- and USDA-certified. Prices are a bit higher than HelloFresh’s. However, you’ll find more diet-friendly options like the Keto, Gluten-Free, Plant Based, and Protein Plus plans.

HelloFresh isn’t great for keto, gluten-free, or high-protein eaters, and it doesn’t prioritize ingredient quality as much, so Green Chef may be a better option for you if the price is right.

HelloFresh vs. Home Chef

Home Chef is one of the most popular meal kit delivery services in the industry. The per-serving price is a bit more expensive than HelloFresh’s and varies by dish. Dietary plans are less varied than HelloFresh and only include Carb-Conscious and Calorie-Conscious.

Home Chef has a smaller menu than HelloFresh with around 30 recipes each week. However, it offers a unique range of low-prep meal kits, including 15-minute kits, oven-ready kits, and microwavable options.

HelloFresh vs. Blue Apron

Blue Apron is a gourmet meal delivery service for those who want to get a little fancy. With around 80 meal options per week, it rivals HelloFresh in terms of menu size and diversity. Plus, Blue Apron offers you the option of deciding between meal kits and prepared meals.

On the other hand, HelloFresh offers several unique plan options like carb smart, calorie smart, vegetarian, high protein, family-friendly, and more.

The Bottom Line: Is HelloFresh Worth It?

I think HelloFresh is totally worth it, especially if you’ll be ordering enough to pay the lowest price per serving.

In my experience, the recipes were well outlined and resulted in tasty meals. Plus, the customer service I received was hands-down outstanding.

I think most people eating mainstream diets will be happy with HelloFresh meals. If you don’t eat meat or fish or have allergies, or you’re trying to stick to a certain type of health diet, you’ll probably feel like your choices are a tad limited.

HelloFresh continues to expand its diet and customization options, but it’s still not as accommodating as some more specialized meal delivery services. Of course, no company is ever perfect (and I can always find something to complain about).

If you’re still not sure that HelloFresh is right for you, you can see how it stacks up with other top meal kit services. Elsewhere, we’ve researched the leading companies and shortlisted the best meal delivery services out there.

FAQ

What is HelloFresh?

HelloFresh is a meal delivery service offering family-friendly meal kits that you can cook in the comfort of your own home. When I tried it out, I found the recipes fairly easy to put together. Offerings range from one-pot wonders to craft burgers and globally-inspired gourmet dishes.

Which HelloFresh plan is best?

HelloFresh has 6 plans to choose from, and different plans work better for different people. Families with young children or picky eaters will love the Family Friendly plan, while folks with busy lifestyles will find the Under 20 Minutes plan a lifesaver. You can browse all of the plans each week, and mix and match dishes.

Are HelloFresh portions small?

HelloFresh offers generous portions on many of its dishes. Meals labeled Calorie Smart may be smaller to stay within the 600-calorie range, but there are many heartier meals. In my experience, even the lower-calorie meals were quite filling.

There are no single-serving options. During checkout you can choose to receive 2 to 6 portions per recipe for 2, 4, or 6 people each week, so you can choose how much you want to receive from each recipe.

Are HelloFresh and EveryPlate the same company?

EveryPlate is owned by HelloFresh, which also owns organic meal kit service Green Chef. At EveryPlate, you’ll find a weekly menu and hearty portions but the meals are simpler to reflect the lower price.  HelloFresh isn’t too expensive though, and you'll have plenty of meal choices each week.

Does HelloFresh have dog food?

HelloFresh operates The Pets Table. It specializes in providing human-grade, fresh, and dried recipes tailored for dogs. It offers a 2-week trial box, allowing pet owners to test their service. Just like the HelloFresh plans, you can select a personalized plan to perfectly meet your pup's dietary needs.