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HelloFresh Review: Our Testing Experience
This meal delivery service earned high marks for its food prep instructions and customization options, but the delivery experience fell short
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HelloFresh is a meal delivery service that sends meal kits — that is, boxes that include pre-portioned ingredients and recipe cards — to your door. In our review of the best meal delivery services, it earned the distinction of being the best for customization due to its wide range of ways to adjust your meals — including swapping sides as well as switching or doubling proteins.
With this meal delivery subscription, similar to others, you’d select a plan size based on how many meals you’d like each week, and that plan would start a recurring weekly charge for the same amount of food. So could HelloFresh be a fit for you? In our April 2026 survey of 300 adults ages 50 and older who currently use or have used a meal delivery service in the last 12 months, the most common service that respondents said they were “currently subscribed to” or had most recently subscribed to was HelloFresh (37 percent), with Blue Apron (29 percent), Factor and Home Chef (both 7 percent) rounding out the top choices.
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However, even if other people have used a particular service, it can be hard to know if that service will work for you. To help you decide whether HelloFresh may be worth a try, our AARP Smart Picks team had an older adult tester and a lab tester cook and evaluate its meals. As part of this process, our lab team ordered its meal kits and rated the delivery and ordering process. For more information on our process, you can see the section on how we tested these services.
So how did this service perform? It earned high marks for its food prep instructions and the ability to customize meals. But some produce wasn’t ripe upon delivery, and our lab testers reported shipping delays. Read on to see our in-depth review of HelloFresh — and to learn what insights our testing yielded.
What to know about HelloFresh
As noted, HelloFresh offers meal kits. But it also offers simple add-ons, like side items, appetizers and desserts, which is not unusual for meal delivery services. Some add-ons arrive ready to eat, while others — such as the garlic chicken gyoza — require heating. In our testing, this service stood out for the variety of weekly meal kit recipes and add-on options that it offers.
The service’s flexibility in allowing certain meal changes also earned it perfect scores on our customization metric. HelloFresh offers the ability to swap out proteins in meals, which is fairly standard. But it also allows subscribers to double their protein orders and swap sides for an extra fee, which is unique.
Other areas where HelloFresh excelled? It nabbed stellar scores for its portion sizes, cancellation process, packaging quality, instructions and food prep. It received impressive scores for customer service and taste. And our lab testers said they liked that the company’s filtering feature — the tool used to help select specific dietary needs and preferences — covers multiple diets, such as family-friendly, veggie and pescatarian.
However, HelloFresh fell short on delivery, receiving only a passable rating on that measure due to a delay. It also doesn’t accommodate as many dietary restrictions as other services do. For example, Hungryroot offers up to 20 dietary filtering options, the most we’ve recorded in our testing.
- Pros and cons
- Features
Pros
Extensive recipe variety and tasty food
Standout instructions and easy meal prep
Can swap proteins or sides each week
Cons
Delivery reliability may vary
Some produce may not be ripe upon delivery
Type: Meal kits
Plan options: Two to six recipes per week with two, three, four or six servings each
Vegetarian friendly: Yes
Vegan friendly: Yes
Sample of other diets available: Vegetarian, pescatarian or meat and veggies
Key takeaways from our testing
HelloFresh says it has an overall recipe catalog of more than 2,500 meals. As background: Not all meal delivery services publish their total number of recipes. Of the ones we’ve tested, Hungryroot is the only other service that has shared a specific number of recipes — and it offers more than HelloFresh at 5,000 recipes. Our older adult testers evaluated some of the recipes from this service. When we tested the chicken and Greek salad pita pockets meal kit, tester Annie gave the service a perfect score on the measure of food prep and instructions. Annie said she “loved” that this meal kit’s instructions were simple and that the recipe cards included large photos. She called out the photos of how chopped ingredients should look (sliced vs. cubed, for instance) as a detail that reduces guesswork for older adults who don’t cook frequently. She also gave this meal an admirable score for taste.
In addition, one of our lab testers evaluated a meal kit that contained the ingredients for garlic parmesan chicken wings with roasted potato wedges and a creamy balsamic green salad. Even though the lab tester said she was “a bit intimidated at first” because she’d never cooked chicken wings, she said the corresponding recipe was easy to follow. Like Annie, our lab tester awarded her meal kit impressive marks for taste.
The step-by-step cooking instructions and large pictures of the final meals on HelloFresh’s recipe cards are part of what earned the company a perfect score on the measure of instructions and food prep.
AARP Smart Picks
The step-by-step cooking instructions and large pictures of the final meals on HelloFresh’s recipe cards are part of what earned the company a perfect score on the measure of instructions and food prep.
Annie gave HelloFresh a standout customization score because she could swap proteins, request double protein and swap sides, such as vegetables or potatoes, for an extra fee. That fee varies based on the protein or sides. When we reached out to HelloFresh for clarity on these fees for swapped items, a representative told us that “many like-for-like ingredient swaps, such as exchanging broccoli for carrots or chicken for salmon, are available at no additional cost. For premium upgrades or doubling the protein, pricing varies by the specific protein selected, with these kinds of upgrades typically ranging from $0.99 to $7.99 per serving. ”The ability to change proteins is fairly standard, but — of the meal delivery services we’ve tested — this is one of the only companies that lets you swap sides as well.
Testers said they liked that HelloFresh not only offers the standard ability to swap protein options but also swap sides.
AARP Smart Picks
Testers said they liked that HelloFresh not only offers the standard ability to swap protein options but also swap sides.
Like other services we’ve tested, HelloFresh outsources its delivery to a third-party shipper. During our assessment, our lab tester’s box arrived one day late, and they said the first delivery attempt failed on the original delivery day because the driver didn’t follow the instructions the lab tester had left on the delivery service’s platform. When the lab tester contacted customer service, HelloFresh and the shipper resolved the issue that afternoon. Another knock? Tester Annie said the tomato in her meal kit wasn’t ripe, so she decided to instead use cherry tomatoes that she had on hand. This delay and the unripe tomato did not affect the overall quality of the food in our testing experience. As background, a few other meal delivery services we’ve tested have had delays with third-party shippers.
How we tested and reviewed meal delivery services
To identify the strengths and weaknesses of meal delivery services, we recruited testers ages 50 and older — including members from AARP’s The Ethel community — to test these services and share their unbiased feedback. The Ethel is a free weekly newsletter, website and online community named in honor of AARP founder Dr. Ethel Percy Andrus. Our lab team and older adult testers then ordered and cooked their meals in their homes or in our AARP Smart Picks Test Kitchen and shared their thoughts on key factors such as food quality, portion size, taste, customization options and ease of preparation.
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In addition, we paid close attention to the delivery process, including the number of delivery updates the company provided and the quality of the packaging. We also reviewed the cancellation process to determine how long it takes and whether any challenges might arise before your subscription is paused or canceled.
For more details, see our meal delivery service testing methodology page.
How much does HelloFresh cost?
HelloFresh’s starting price per serving for dinner for meal kits is usually between $10.99 and $12.49 before any protein modifications or add-ons. That’s slightly higher than other meal delivery services we’ve recommended.
HelloFresh allows you to cancel your subscription at any time. You can also skip weeks or pause your account.
If you decide to order from this company, shipping costs between $10.99 and $12.99 per box, depending on where you live. That’s a typical price among meal delivery services.
In general, your total cost for a box in a given week would depend on the food you choose, the number of meals you order and any protein customizations you make. You can see a breakdown of general costs in the chart below.
Is HelloFresh right for you?
You have many options when it comes to meal delivery services. HelloFresh may appeal to older adults who value the ability to customize their meals because it has more options in terms of recipes, add-on appetizers and add-on desserts when compared to other services we’ve reviewed. So could this service be a fit for you? To gain more clarity, you may want to consider the following questions.
Do you value variety in your meal plan?
If so, this service may be a fit. Remember, HelloFresh has a broad weekly menu and a large catalog of 2,500 total recipes. You also have the ability to swap out proteins or sides. For older adults who want to try a variety of foods from their meal delivery services, that’s an advantage.
Do you want easy-to-follow recipes?
Tester Annie said the instructions for her chicken and Greek salad pita pockets meal kit were clear and simple. “I love how this meal kit included large photos depicting the cooking process,” she said. “The text is a good size and well organized. The recipe even included photos of how the chopped items should look” (like sliced vs. cubed, for example). Our lab tester also said her meal kit featuring the ingredients for garlic parmesan chicken wings was easy to prepare. “The recipe card was really clear,” she said. For older adults who are new to cooking or want to expand their cooking skills, HelloFresh’s easy-to-follow recipes could be a good fit.
Is budget a deciding factor?
HelloFresh’s introductory promotions are often generous, but the standard per-serving dinner price may be high for some, at $10.99 to $12.49 per starting dinner serving. Home Chef, which earned the best value designation in that article for its meal kit offering, has a standard meal plan that starts at under $10 per serving and a family meal plan that starts at under $7 per serving. Sydney Lappe, a registered dietitian based in St. Louis, encourages older adults to keep cost in mind. Meal delivery services “tend to work best when they realistically fit someone’s eating habits, routine and budget,” she says. For older adults watching their food spending, AARP has practical guidance on stretching a food budget without sacrificing nutrition.
FAQs
Yes, we have tested meal delivery services with a lower starting price per serving than HelloFresh. For example, Home Chef and Hungryroot — which also sell meal kits — offer lower starting prices per dinner serving than HelloFresh. Hungryroot has a starting price per dinner serving of $8.99. Home Chef’s standard plan has a starting price per dinner serving of $9.99, a dollar less than HelloFresh. But the starting price per dinner serving for Home Chef’s family plans offer more substantial cost savings, starting at $6.99 per serving, which is a $4 difference. However, final costs for any meal delivery service will depend on plan size and shipping costs, which can vary across services.
HelloFresh recommends storing “all items at refrigerated temperatures,” and notes that, “with the exception of seafood, all ingredients should be cooked and consumed within seven days of delivery.” It says seafood should be cooked and consumed within two days of delivery — and it notes you should not refreeze ingredients. If you’re interested in more general tips on food safety, you can check out AARP’s dedicated guide.
If you have a HelloFresh subscription, you can pause or cancel it. Here is the process to cancel: Log in to your account, tap on your name in the upper right-hand corner and select “Account Settings.” Scroll down and tap “Cancel Plan,” which appears under the “Status” section. Follow the directions that the site presents to cancel, and you should receive a message, often onscreen and in your email, that confirms the cancellation. Be sure to pause or cancel by 11:59 p.m. PT at least five days before your next scheduled delivery; otherwise, you will be charged for orders that have already been processed. To skip a weekly delivery, log in to your account, select “My Menu,” choose the delivery day(s) you want to skip and click “Skip Week.”
Questions or feedback? Email us at AARPSmartPicks@aarp.org.
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