I’m a sucker for a good food subscription service. If they offer gluten-free, dairy-free options? Shut up and take my money. So when Hungryroot ads started popping up on my feed, you know I had to check it out.

What is Hungryroot?

Hungryroot is a meal delivery service that boasts healthy, simple recipes. If you follow a lot of healthy food accounts on Instagram, you may have seen the Hungryroot ads. They promise easy, nutritious meals, with testimonials about weight loss and improved health. The images are bright and colorful, filled with vegetables and better-for-you desserts.

How Hungryroot Works

Once you’re on the website, you take a short quiz about the number of people you want to feed, any dietary restrictions, and what types of meals you’re shopping for. It will then take you to a screen with your recommended plan. You can make adjustments to the number of meals and snacks, then check out.

After you pay for your plan, the fun part starts: choosing the food. Hungryroot will automatically generate a suggested meal plan for you, but if you’re anything like me, you will want to customize.

There are two different ways you can select your Hungryroot foods: by recipe, or by individual groceries. Hungryroot has 4 main food categories: Produce, Meat/Protein, Grains, and Sauces. Each recipe will typically include an item from each of the 4 categories, although there are some exceptions.

I decided to select a mix of foods: some were curated recipes by Hungryroot, and some were foods I just wanted to mix and match. All in all, I ended up selecting 7 bags of veggies, 7 meats, 1 pack of veggie meatballs, 1 pasta, and 6 sauces.

Once you finish selecting your foods, you can save your choices. In a few days, a box of groceries with an ice pack will show up on your doorstep and you can start cooking!

It works similar to Blue Apron or Hello Fresh, in that you receive cooking instructions along with your box of groceries. It’s very different, however, since the recipes are MUCH easier and quicker to make. The veggies come pre-chopped, and the meats are pre-cooked. Even the rice is partially pre-cooked and can be finished with just a couple minutes in the microwave or on a skillet. All you have to do is heat the ingredients for a few minutes in a skillet, add some sauce, and you’re done. It couldn’t be any easier without being a microwave dinner.

My favorite creation took Hungryroot’s Kale Pesto sauce and Spinach Garlic Chicken Sausage and blended it with some Zucchini noodles I picked up at Kroger. Healthy, low carb, and delicious. It was one of the lower-calorie meals at 303 calories, but at 6 net carbs per serving, it fit nicely into my low-carb diet.

Who is Hungryroot good for?

Hungryroot is perfect for busy professionals who want to make healthier choices. It’s especially good for anyone with dietary restrictions such as gluten, dairy, soy-free, nut-free, or vegan diets. It can even accommodate a keto diet, although you will have to make some manual adjustments to the food options.

It can be good for anyone learning to cook as well, although it does come at a premium. It’s on par with many of the other meal delivery services, but it’s certainly more expensive than shopping at the grocery store. That’s why I like to supplement my food delivery with cheaper grocery store items.

How much does Hungryroot cost?

The price ranges from $8.49 to $9.99 per serving, depending on the number of options you choose. You can choose anywhere from 3 to 8 lunch/dinner recipes, which are 2 servings each. On top of that, you can add snacks, desserts, and breakfast foods.

If you choose the maximum amount of items (16 servings of lunch/dinner, 7-10 servings of sweets, and 8-12 servings of breakfast, it costs $225 weekly. If you choose the minimum of 6 dinner servings and no snacks or breakfast, it will run you $60 + $6.99 shipping. If your order is over $75, you qualify for free shipping.

Although they list the plans by number of servings, Hungryroot works on a credit system. The plan you pay for determines the number of credits you receive, and each ingredient or recipe will cost a certain number of credits. I signed up for 2 lunch servings and 12 dinner servings, which gave me 65 credits and came out to $118.86 before my signup discount. That equals about $1.83 per credit.

Vegetables typically go for 1-3 credits per 8-10oz bag, sauces go for 2-3 credits, meats and meat alternatives go for 3-6 credits, and grains and pastas are 2-4 credits per package. If you opt to purchase by the meal instead of by the item, a 2-serving meal will go for about 8-12 credits.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Where Hungryroot really shines is its vegan sauces. They have over 15 different vegan, gluten free sauces. There is also a fantastic selection of plant-based proteins: Beyond meat, tofu, veggie meatballs, veggie burgers, lentils, and beans.

It’s also an extremely easy way to add healthy meals to your diet. My fiance and I try to cook as often as we can, but some nights we just don’t have the time to spend an hour in the kitchen chopping, sauteing, frying, or what-have-you. Hungryroot recipes are done in 15-20 minutes. And I don’t mean like those 15-20 minute estimates in cookbooks that end up being 40 minutes because the ingredients list “chicken chopped into bite sized pieces” as if you have that lying around and don’t have to chop it yourself. No. We timed it and the meals legitimately took 15 minutes from start to finish.

You can save so much time. While you probably won’t get all your meals from Hungryroot, you can significantly cut down on meal planning, wandering around the aisles of the grocery store, and cooking, and time is money. It’s a cliche for a reason.

Cons

Much like other meal delivery services, this does come at a premium. At almost $10 per serving, it’s not affordable to feed an entire family on only Hungryroot. Even with a signup discount, you can find cheaper foods at the grocery store.

Verdict: 8/10

How do I sign up?

Go to https://www.hungryroot.com/ and follow the prompts.

As I write this, the best deal is 30% off, and it will automatically be applied at checkout. On top of that, you can use the code ‘FREEBROWNIES’ and you will get a free tub of their Black Bean Brownie Batter on top of the 30% off.

If that discount ever goes away, you can also use my referral code at https://www.hungryroot.com/r/K9231KNS, which gives you $15 off your first order and free shipping, and supports me by giving me a $15 credit. The referral code does NOT stack with the 30% off discount, so I would recommend signing up with the 30% off as long as it is still available.

UPDATE 10/12/20: for a limited time, I have a link that gives you $40 off your first box (and I’ll get $40 off my next box).