When you first sign up, you select how many meals you’d like to receive in your first order, which you can always change before placing your next one. For example, one week you may want four lunches and four dinners for one person, and the next week you want three lunches and five dinners for two. This subscription model makes Hungryroot a standout in the meal delivery space, as you have a lot of flexibility to make the plan work for you (rather than trying to build your meals around the plan). Along with controlling how many meals go into your box, you also choose the exact recipes and meals that go into your order. The vast catalog of recipes, which all integrate the same core ingredients, means there are nearly endless opportunities. Hungryroot counteracts this by giving a brief survey that helps find the best options for your taste buds, but it’s worth noting that this can make some of the flavors seem a bit repetitive. And like any good meal delivery service these days, pretty much any and every dietary restriction is taken to account. You can select whether you’re vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free, dairy-free, etc., as well as if you have any allergies. The filter also lets you choose what kinds of meals you gravitate toward, whether it’s smoothies or stir-fries, so Hungryroot knows what to recommend to you. The idea is to essentially streamline the grocery-to-meal pipeline, so you’re not left with any leftover ingredients that end up going bad. Everything gets used, and the recipes are all super easy, which is great if you’re a) short on time or b) a novice chef. And in case you were wondering, you can cancel or resubscribe at any time. Here’s a look at what I received in my first box: It took me a little over a week to get through all the recipes and snacks, with only one thing going bad before I was able to use it (a russet potato, which I just replaced with a fresh one from the store). Of course, if you have a bit of knowledge about flavor profiles, spices, etc., you can always amp up the recipes with things you already have—and Hungryroot even offers suggestions for dressing up your recipes even more. To clarify, I’m not saying anything was bad. In fact, I liked everything I made, and all the ingredients were good quality by my standards. But the flavors weren’t exactly mind-blowing and may leave more experienced chefs feeling unfulfilled. However, the fact that most of the meals came together so quickly certainly made up for the simpler taste profile. Lastly, I will say as someone who generally rejects diet culture, I did feel that Hungryroot offered a lot of recipes and products that cater to exactly that. The portions were pretty small and not exactly hearty, so if you want to avoid things that feel too “diet-y,” make your meal selections carefully. The cheapest plan you can get comes with three recipes for a total of six meal servings, plus some additional snacks and breakfast options for $65 plus shipping. The largest plan gets you eight recipes (or 16 total servings) plus extras for $158. All orders over $70 get free shipping. Depending on your weekly budget, you can always increase or decrease the number of items in your order. One way to reduce the cost of your order is by skipping the snacks—but I will say they were some of my favorites. If you discover the order size doesn’t suit your needs, you can always go back and update how much you want to receive later on. This flexibility is super nice, given some other meal delivery services are a fixed subscription. I know for me, spending an hour in the kitchen after a full day of work just isn’t always going to happen. So I found it incredibly helpful to have the shrimp taco recipe, for example, come together in literally 10 minutes. If that sounds like a good deal in your book, it’s worth a try. I plan to use Hungryroot again when I know I’m going to be particularly busy because I did find it to be a helpful, streamlined way to approach the week’s menu. All that said, if you love the process of buying all your ingredients in the store and spending a considerable amount of time on a fancy recipe, this might not be the meal delivery service for you. Overall, yes, I do believe it’s worth a try, at least in order to see if it works for you compared to your standard grocery shopping.
