HelloFresh Review 2023: Got Recipe Fatigue? You Won’t Find a Meal Kit Service with More Than This One – CNET

HelloFresh bills itself as the most convenient service, sporting a massive selection of easy-to-make and healthy recipes designed to please the whole crew, including families with young ones and picky eaters. It’s also one of the cheapest meal delivery options, with plans that start at just $8 per serving. (EveryPlate and Dinnerly are the only cheaper meal kits, with plans starting at $6 a serving.)

Of all the meal kits I’ve tested, HelloFresh meals probably have the widest selection of “crowd-pleasing” recipes, making them an excellent choice for families or picky eaters. You won’t find a lot of big heat, spice or unusual ingredients with HelloFresh meals, and with as many as 60 meals per week to choose from, it’s hard to imagine not finding three or four that appeal to you.

HelloFresh has a range of meal plans that vary depending on the type of food you’re looking to cook, the number of people you’re cooking for and how often you want meal kits delivered. Once you make those decisions you’ll choose one of six HelloFresh meal plans: 

After you select your meal plan, choose the number of servings (two or four) that you’d like for each meal, and how many weekly meal kits you want to receive (two, three, four, five or six). These options are also easily modified, so don’t feel too much pressure and know you can adjust as you go.

As with many similar services, you can pick your own meals or let the meal-kit gods surprise you when you open your box. HelloFresh meals arrive once a week on a day of your choosing (besides Sunday). When mine showed up, the food was packaged neatly in cooler boxes, with meats and fish separated from other ingredients so as not to cross-contaminate. The meat was thawed but still cold and there was no sign of spoilage among any of the ingredients.

Changing or canceling a HelloFresh order

You can add, change or cancel meals easily through the app or through the website, although using the latter feels more limited. Changes or cancellations to any order must be made before midnight PT at least five days before your scheduled delivery day. That date is made apparent when you open your dashboard.

HelloFresh plans and pricing

There isn’t as much modification to recipes in the way that others like Home Chef permit. That said, some meals without protein allow you to add chicken, beef or shrimp. You can also upgrade most meats such as ground beef and chicken to an organic version for an added cost. 

The HelloFresh app is useful, clear and intuitive. You can use it to place or change your weekly orders, look up nutritional information and locate any recipe. This is especially helpful if you tend to misplace important documents as I do.

All the HelloFresh meals I made and how I liked them

Spicy bean and beef soup: This simple version of a classic chili couldn’t have been easier to put together and had a nice smoky flavor. I added organic ground beef and the stew provided me with a filling lunch for three or four days. 

Meatloaf a la Mom: I liked this meal kit, but in all honesty, I prefer my own meatloaf recipe. It was a solid result that could have used a dash of Worcestershire sauce or some dried spice to amp up the flavor. The roasted potatoes and carrots were also fairly basic but proved themselves a worthy companion to the meatloaf. 

Barramundi with poblano corn and potatoes: A delicious meal that I really loved. The barramundi fish was fresh and the meal was healthy, full of flavor and easy to prepare. I think I caught myself shamelessly spooning the homemade salsa fresca straight into my mouth at one point.

Hello Fresh packaging and environmental friendliness

HelloFresh does a solid job with the packaging compared with some other companies I tested. The meals arrive packed in paper bags and all the ingredients were also thoughtfully packaged without excessive waste. Though there’s always some single-serve plastic involved with meal kits, I found it to be one of the more environmentally friendly companies, complete with recyclable ice packs and cooler bags. Here’s a little more about recycling your HelloFresh packaging.

The final verdict on HelloFresh

As someone who has a hard time making decisions but loves having options, HelloFresh was a double-edged sword. Even if the recipes were sometimes low on imagination, there were so many to choose from and everything I cooked was solid — no duds in the bunch. 

The meal kits are extremely family-friendly, too, so looking at this through the eyes of someone with small children or picky eaters, I can see why HelloFresh’s massive selection of affordable dinner ideas would be attractive. If you’re looking to lighten your load and cook for a crew that doesn’t dig huge, bold flavors, this just might be the best meal kit option out there. Recipes won’t require a ton of time or technical skill, either. For as little as $8 per serving, you can take the guesswork out of a few meals per week without going broke. What’s not to love about that?