Hello Fresh is a meal kit delivery service offering ingredients and recipes for fast, fresh, and delicious meals with no commitment. You get one box per week with high-quality ingredients straight from the farm and easy-to-follow recipes – everything neatly packed into convenient kits that fit perfectly in your fridge.
Time to wave goodbye to menu planning, crowded grocery stores, and complicated dinner recipes!
Hello Fresh puts taste first and claim to test each recipe 45 times before offering it to their customers, which is why it's one of the most popular meal kits! Plans are as flexible as your mood – add meals and skip weeks at your convenience.
In this review, we've taken the pulse on the meal kit service that wants to make it easy for you to unleash your inner chef – regardless of previous kitchen skills. Ready to dive in?!
Hello Fresh At A Glance
- Best Match For: People in Canada looking to save time with a meal kit delivery service that features seasonal fresh ingredients and easy-to-make recipes.
- Commitment Level: Subscription
- Availability: Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia, Québec, Newfoundland, and the Maritimes.
- Value: $9.69-$11.49/meal; $9.99 shipping fee ($19.98 in Newfoundland)
- Type: Fresh meal kits (Cooked in 30 minutes or less)
How Hello Fresh Works
Hello Fresh has as its primary goal to make cooking fun and accessible to everyone. Their meals take no more than 30 minutes to cook, require no fancy equipment, and can be prepared following six simple steps. Each week, you get one box with pre-measured ingredients and recipe cards taking out the guesswork.
Start by choosing a plan among the following Hello Fresh menus:
Meal Plans
You can pick either two or four people for the plan, and between three and five meals per week. Each week, Hello Fresh has 20 delicious recipes on their menu for you to choose from. It's one of the top meal services with cheap meal plans.
Many people who live alone order the 2-person plan with three weekly meals. That way, they can cook together with friends or get yummy leftover lunches for the lunchbox.
For bigger families, you can combine several meal plans. You can also add extra meals to any of the plans for family meal delivery. Perfect if you have guests over!
Recipe cards with simple instructions and beautiful images are included in your weekly delivery. They can also be found online under your My Menu page.
Easy to Customize
Within each meal plan, you can customize your recipe according to your tastes.
Select your protein preferences by opting for one of the following: beef-free, pork-free, seafood-free, or veggie – or stay with the classic plan to get a little of everything.
You can also tailor your plan for these dietary requirements: Calorie Smart, Quick, Variety, or Family-Friendly. Setting your meal preferences ensures the recipes you can choose from belong to your selected category.
Labels
Hello Fresh works with labels to make it easier for you to find your perfect recipe match. When browsing the recipes, look out for the following labels:
Levels
Finally, recipes are classified according to the level of cooking skills they require. Stay at the first level if you're new behind the kitchen desk, or go for the more advanced recipes if you're looking for a fun challenge and take your expertise to the next level!
What You Can Expect From Your Meal
Every week, you receive one box with recipes with step-by-step cooking instructions, together with individual meal kits containing all the ingredients you need – pre-measured to facilitate your life.
Your proteins are packed separately with ice packs outside of the meal kit, to make sure they stay cool.
A meal kit contains everything you need to cook a fresh and healthy meal from scratch – except for salt, pepper, sugar, oil, and butter, which you're expected to have at home.
They also assume you have basic kitchen utensils such as pots, pans, a strainer, and sharp knives.
Does Hello Fresh Cater to Allergies?
Hello Fresh stores ingredients in their facilities in a way that protects against cross-contamination. You can trust the handling and storage to be as rigorous as in supermarkets and other retail establishments.
Hello Fresh receives most of the ingredients directly from the suppliers and distributes them further to their customers without opening the package.
While you're unable to tailor your menu for certain allergens at the moment, the recipes contain information about common allergens so that you can easily replace them. This information can also be found easily on the website next to each recipe.
Organic Ingredients
Some of the ingredients in the Hello Fresh meal kits are organic. Their focus is on products that look and taste great, and they carefully select their business partners to make sure ingredients are of highest quality, in season, and fresh.
The main focus of Hello Fresh is to introduce their customers to the joy and art of cooking rather than offering 100% organic products. They also encourage customers to eat more fruits and vegetables in a natural way.
Vegetarian/Vegan
In the Classic plan, three veggie recipes are included every week. These recipes are either vegan or vegetarian. In the case they're vegetarian, and you wanna make them completely plant-based, it's easy to skip some ingredients or replace them with equivalent vegan alternatives.
Nutritional Information
Hello Fresh gives you full transparency on what goes into your body with each meal by providing nutritional information. The amounts of calories, fat, saturated fat, carbohydrate, sugar, dietary fiber, protein, cholesterol, and sodium are listed next to each recipe on their site.
Food Safety
Suppliers go through a thorough selection process before getting granted as business partners with Hello Fresh.
Meat
Hello Fresh visits every meat vendor they work with to review their standards and make sure their operation is food-safe. The meats in the meal kits are primarily sourced domestically.
The chicken and pork are hormone-free in accordance with federal regulations.
Seafood
HelloFresh works with companies offering only delicious, sustainably sourced seafood. This includes both wild-caught and farm-raised fish.
The criteria include traceability when it comes to country of origin, catching area, fishery, catch season, and catching method. What exactly this includes depends on the type of fish, time of year, and health of the fish population.
Hello Fresh strives to only source ocean-friendly seafood rated Best Choice, Good Alternative, or Eco-certified by trusted, independent programs. Some of the fish species have additional sustainability certifications such as MSC (Marine Stewardship Council) for wild-caught and BAP (Best Aquaculture Practices) for farm-raised.
See where Hello Fresh ranks on our list of the best eco friendly meal kits.
How to Update Your Meal Preferences
Updating your meal preferences is a quick and easy procedure! Review your current plan and choose a new one as follows:
- Log in to your account.
- Click on your name in the upper right corner. Go to your Account Settings.
- Select Plan Settings.
- Choose Manage on the plan you'd like to update.
- Now select your desired preference under Meal preferences.
- Select Save. Your meal preferences are now set!
Note that any meal changes should be effective at the latest 5 days before your next order date.
There's also the possibility of leaving feedback on the recipes to let the culinary team know what you want less and more of. The most popular recipes make a sought-after comeback in the Hall of Fame category!
Sample Meals
On their website, you can see the meals for the coming 6 weeks. Each week, there are 20 delicious dishes to choose from. You can either go for different meals or order multiple servings of one meal.
Here are some meals on the Hello Fresh menu that you can take from your computer to your kitchen in a few clicks! Our taste buds say yes.
Delivery
Rest assured that your food will reach you nice and fresh!
As their name suggests, Hello Fresh has specially designed boxes with insulation and cooling elements to guarantee freshness from the farm to your door.
They also adapt the packaging after season.
It's thus safe to let your box wait if you're at work at the time of delivery.
However, make sure to put everything in the refrigerator as soon as you come home.
Storage of Food
The recommendations from Hello Fresh is to keep all proteins frozen until a few hours before cooking. Once thawed, use meat within 5 days and seafood within 2 days.
Hello Fresh delivers in the entire continental US. Upon ordering, you'll receive a tracking number via email to follow your order. This number is also available when logging in to your account.
Recycling
Hello Fresh does their part in keeping our planet nice and clean by providing recyclable packaging. You can recycle the insulating liners, gel packs, Hello Fresh box, separator, and meal kits.
On the website, you find a dedicated recycling page guiding you on how to take care of the packaging in a responsible way.
Choose Delivery Day
Depending on your zip code, you have a number of available delivery days to choose from.
After setting the day when you order for the first time, you'll receive it on the same weekday every week.
It's also possible to review and update your delivery day if you change your mind.
Wanna Try Something New?
With Hello Fresh, it is easy to switch the number of meals received per week, and the serving sizes.
If you wanna switch once to try something else, but keep your default weekly order:
- Log in to your account.
- Go to My Menu for the week you want to switch the plan.
- Click on Edit Delivery.
- The option Change Box Size will appear.
- You can now select the Number of People and the Number of Meals.
- Select your Meals and Extras.
- Click Save.
If you wanna switch plan for all your future orders:
- Log in to your account.
- Click on your name in the upper right corner and head to your Account Settings.
- Select Plan Settings.
- Choose Manage on the plan you would like to update.
- Select your box type in the Menu Type dropdown menu.
- Select your serving size in the Number of people dropdown menu.
- Finish by clicking Save.
Skip a Delivery
Did you know you can skip a delivery week? Here’s how:
- Log in to your account.
- Click on My Menu.
- Select the delivery day of the week you’d like to skip, then click Skip Week.
You can also easily cancel your membership through logging in to your account, without the need to call customer service. Just be sure to pause or cancel at the latest 5 days prior to your next scheduled delivery date so that Hello Fresh can adjust the orders from their suppliers.
If you receive any damaged ingredients, or if something is missing in your box, customer service is happy to help and compensate you.
FAQS
Hello Fresh brings you the best of making home-made, healthy meals: cooking and eating. No need to go to the grocery store, do meal planning, and make sure you get the right ingredients in the right quantities.
The time and energy you save from using meal delivery services such as Hello Fresh can be used for something else – going for a walk, enjoying time with family and friends, or writing your own cookbook!
Hello Fresh has a category of meals called Calorie Smart, where the meals have a maximum of 650 calories per serving. This can be a convenient option to make sure your daily energy intake stays under a certain limit. Also, since their recipes are rich in nutrients and with less empty calories, it's easier to feel satisfied after a meal than when going for fast food.
Yes! You can easily cancel your Hello Fresh membership from your account page anytime, without needing to contact customer service.
Which meal delivery service that is the best one depends on what you're looking for. If you're looking for a meal kit service that doesn't offer pre-made meals but lets you cook for yourself, with a focus on making cooking enjoyable and accessible for everyone, Hello Fresh might be the one for you!
Check this Hello Fresh review for the ins and outs of this popular company.
Depending on the meal plan you select, HelloFresh costs $7.48-$12.49 per serving. There is also an $8.99 shipping fee.
Yes, HelloFresh meal kits are good in that they’re both convenient and delicious. They are a perfect option for people who like cooking but want to skip meal prep.
Yes, all HelloFresh facilities are SQF certified, and they follow the strict FDA protocols for food safety.
Yes, HelloFresh can be affordable. Although most meal kits feature an average price tag, you can find suitable affordable options and stay within your budget.
Depending on the number of weekly recipes you select, you can expect to pay $8.99-$12.49 per serving. So, the cheapest option with four weekly meals would cost you $235.8 per month.
With $8.99-$12.49 per serving, you can expect to pay $58.95-$116.87 per week depending on the plan and number of meals you select.
Although HelloFresh meals are not designed for weight loss, their recipes are healthy. So, if you watch your caloric intake and stay active, you could potentially lose weight with HelloFresh, as with any other healthy meal plan.
Yes, you can cancel HelloFresh after the free box but you need to do it before the weekly cut-off date.
Yes, canceling Hello Fresh is easy and can be done with a few clicks. However, you need to do it before the cut-off date; otherwise, you'll be charged for your next shipment.
Yes, you can. In fact, you should keep all your proteins frozen and thaw them before cooking.
You can get a free HelloFresh box when a friend sends you a Freebie as their unique reward system Once you hit a certain order threshold, you'll be able to send Freebies as well.
That depends on your dietary preferences and how many meals you want each week. You can choose a plan for two or four, pick a number of meals from 2-6, and select Meat & Veggies, Veggie, Family-Friendly, Calorie Smart, Pescatarian, or Quick and Easy preference.
Yes, you can preview menus for the following six weeks on the Hello Fresh website.
Dinnerly is one of the most affordable alternatives. You can buy their meal kits for under $5 per serving.
HelloFresh Cost
Each week you can browse a menu of 27+ meals that cost $7.48-$12.49 depending on the plan you choose. Shipping is $8.99.
Pros & Cons
Hello Fresh profiles themselves as a company bringing back the fun of cooking. Their plans are highly customizable, and the instructive recipe cards come with six easy-to-follow steps. The subscription service brings you dinners for up to three days per week.
Compared to their competitors, Hello Fresh puts less energy on the health aspect, or that products are organic and GMO-free. This might be better for somebody wanting to go from a lifestyle full of fast food and takeout to getting their apron on and start to cook, than the dedicated health-nut.
On the other hand, Hello Fresh also offers different levels of their recipes, making it suitable even for more advanced home-chefs.
They also lack a completely plant-based category, and the possibility to cater for allergies or diets like paleo and keto.
Food for Thought
As this review of Hello Fresh reveals, this meal delivery company takes out the meal planning and mandatory visit to the grocery store on your way home and puts the focus on providing recipes enticing both your imagination and your taste buds. They offer a generous number of meal options per week, including a family plan, a veggie plan, and low-calorie options.
Whether it's the first time you'll put on the apron, or if you're a seasoned home chef looking for a fun challenge, Hello Fresh has something for you!
Hello Fresh