HelloFresh review: Is it worth the money in 2025?

Are you tired of standing at your open fridge, wondering what to throw together for dinner? Sick of having to nip out to the supermarket after work to hunt down the ingredients you need? 

If this sounds like you, then HelloFresh could be the perfect solution.

HelloFresh is the biggest name in recipe delivery boxes. Since 2012, they've been reducing food waste and delivering fresh ingredients for time-saving meals to doors, promising to cut out most of the hassle of dinnertime.

In this HelloFresh review, we’ll take you through our honest insights from trialling the service ourselves. We cover the variety of meals, freshness and healthiness of ingredients, and how it stacks up on time saving and costs.

What is HelloFresh?

HelloFresh is the most popular meal kit delivery service in the UK. Its weekly menu offers more than 50 delicious recipes and various sides and desserts to add to your box. 

There's plenty of variety, whether you need healthy meals, quick meals in under 15 minutes, pescatarian recipes, high-protein options, or vegetarian options.

This is perfect if you eat a good variety of different meals each week, but you’re too busy to go shopping or don’t want to stand cooking for hours.

How does it work?

That’s it – it can be as simple as signing up and preparing your food on arrival.

HelloFresh summarised

Our full HelloFresh review

How does HelloFresh pricing work?

We found that HelloFresh is one of the cheaper options on the market, but first impressions can be a little deceiving.

Prices, including the £4.99 delivery fee, start from £31.96 for the 2-person, 2-meal-per-box option, which means a cost per serving of £7.99. However, because their website lists delivery as a separate charge, they quote a price per serving of £6.75 for the same 2-person, 2-meal box.

The price per serving depends on how many meals you add to your box, so if you add more recipes or people to each box, the cost per serving can come down significantly.

To make this a fairer comparison to other meal delivery services you might consider, we listed HelloFresh’s cost per serving without any offers applied, but with standard delivery costs included.

Much of their advertising focuses on their introductory offer, often 50% off your first box. The website then quotes that introductory price everywhere, making it easy to forget what you’ll pay when the sign-up offer expires.

What delivery options do HelloFresh offer?

You can choose to have your meals delivered on any day of the week, and you can change the delivery day for each box easily.

HelloFresh charge a standard delivery fee of £4.99, no matter the date or time you select.

Time windows for delivery are either 8:00am to 9:00pm, or for an additional £2.99 (a total of £7.98 for delivery) you can choose 8:00am to 12:00pm.

In our experience, our deliveries are often at similar times. Often this is early morning or late at night. Your delivery time will likely depend on how far you are from your local delivery depot.

EVRi delivered our boxes, but HelloFresh may use other couriers in your area.

Which dietary options does HelloFresh offer?

They quote 50+ recipes weekly and are true to their word. We looked at the number of recipes they listed each week. We often found around 50 available, divided into seven meal categories: Healthy Options, Quick & Easy, Veggie, Pescatarian, Family Friendly, High Protein, and HelloFresh Specials.

HelloFresh Specials

These include premium meal options with an added cost per serving. During our trial, these ranged from +£1.99 (Ultimate Chicken and Mushroom Pie) to +£5.49 (Rosemary Roast Beef and Red Wine Jus) extra per serving.

Despite the website clearly showing that these cost extra per serving, it can still be a surprise when you get to the checkout and find that +£5.49 per serving is now +£21.96 on top of your £60 recipe box.

Upgrading meals

Many individual recipes can be customised to upgrade your protein source to something a little nicer, such as upgrading from Basa to Salmon Fillets for +£1.49 per portion. These add up quickly when customising several recipes for a whole family, as there is no option to upgrade individual servings – it’s all or nothing.

 Sides and add-ons

In addition to their meal recipes, you can add many sides, desserts, light lunches, ready meals, and more to your box. These make it easy to customise your meal plan, but the cost of your box quickly adds up when you start adding lunches, desserts, and extra vegetables for each day.

Vegetarian and vegan meals

If you’re vegetarian, there is a good variety of delicious meals available, but vegans might find this more difficult as many recipes contain milk or cheese.

Pescatarian meals

Pescatarians are also catered to with a small selection of seafood dishes. However, these are quite limited. If I were a pescatarian, I might not find enough variety in this service.

Allergies, intolerances, and dietary restrictions

If you have allergies or intolerances to certain foods, there is no easy way to filter recipes by allergens, but the ingredients list is clearly labelled online.

Is HelloFresh easy to use?

Whether you want to use their website or app, both options offer the same features and are extremely easy to navigate and use. The app, however, is the easiest option to update your orders while you’re out and about.

 Getting started

Your HelloFresh recipe box will automatically be set up for weekly deliveries on the day of your choice. You’ll be assigned random meals without having to do anything. If you want to change the recipes in the box, you can do so by clicking a button to change your meals and then selecting from the available recipes.

Selecting and customising your box only takes a couple of minutes, and you can choose your recipes at least a couple of weeks in advance.

 Delivery and unpacking

Your fresh food is delivered via courier, and refrigerated ingredients are stored inside an insulated bag with ice packs to keep everything cold. We left everything in the box for the entire day after it was delivered. Our food remained cold, so there’s no need to unpack the box immediately as soon as you receive it.

Each meal includes a recipe sheet with the ingredients list and preparation instructions — easy to follow for even a novice cook. We like that each recipe consists of a numbered bag of both dry and fresh ingredients, so you can find everything you need in one place (bar the refrigerated ingredients).

 Time

Many recipes can take 35-45 minutes to prepare and cook, according to the recipe, but there are a handful of quicker recipes in the 15-25 minute range.

In reality, almost all the recipes we tried took longer than stated, unless we rushed through them.

Naturally, meals for two people take a little less time to prepare and cook than meals for four (although the time isn’t halved), but from our experience, even these smaller meals take longer than HelloFresh claims.

Because of this, we always allocate at least five to 10 minutes more time to each recipe than the sheet states and even longer if we add sides or extra vegetables.

 Preparation

The recipes are usually easy to follow and skim, but it is worth reading them thoroughly before starting.

We also highly recommend peeling/chopping/preparing everything at the start rather than waiting until you get to that part of the recipe. You may have a three-minute window to chop five minutes' worth of vegetables halfway through, sometimes making the process feel rushed.

Are HelloFresh ingredients good quality?

The quality of the ingredients is usually good, and they are no better or worse than a standard supermarket equivalent.

However, you may not always get the tastiest produce. Tomatoes can sometimes be fairly flavourless, feta isn’t always the authentic Greek variety, and the texture of thigh meat, often the default chicken meat, can disappoint.

At least for your meat/protein source, you often have the option to upgrade to a nicer cut, such as upgrading from thigh to breast for chicken, but it would be nice to be able to upgrade other elements of meals, too.

Is HelloFresh eco-friendly?

Compared to driving to the supermarket, having your food delivered in a heavy box via a courier van makes a surprising difference to your carbon footprint.

HelloFresh’s 2023 Non-Financial Report suggests that meal kit services result in less food waste – “a 38% reduction in total meal waste at the consumer level” – and that HelloFresh meal kits “generate 25% fewer greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions compared to purchasing ingredients from supermarkets and preparing meals at home.”

Most of the packaging is made from cardboard or paper and is fully compostable and recyclable. When ordering larger meals, the number of packets of seasonings and sauces can add up, with many of these made from single-use plastics that cannot be recycled.

We’d like a more sustainable solution to the large number of plastic packets, even if that just means using fewer but larger packets.

Refrigerated ingredients arrive in a pouch of plastic film, which can be recycled at supermarkets, and this is insulated with a thick sheet of non-recyclable PET.

The packaging doesn’t say what the insulating layer is made from or if it can be recycled, so we asked HelloFresh for some feedback and received this response:

The pouch often includes a few plastic film ice packs, which can be recycled at supermarkets as long as the water is drained.

Meat, dairy, and other refrigerated items are usually packaged in plastic film. Some of these can also be recycled at supermarkets if cleaned, but you should pay attention to the packaging, which should indicate if it can be recycled.

Are HelloFresh meals healthy?

While there are a number of healthy recipes, we’re often underwhelmed by the quantity of vegetables in meals (although, our team does love our veg). 

Many meals focus too much on carbohydrates, such as white rice or potatoes, and might only include one portion of vegetables per serving.

Vegetable sides are readily available at an additional cost, and meals often feel incomplete without this purchase.

Strangely, one of our recipes that was not listed under their ‘Healthy Options’, but instead under ‘Calorie-Smart’, contained two portions of fruits and vegetables per serving due to a large amount of carrots and chickpeas.

However, we were impressed with the quality of most seasonings. We found that spice or seasoning mixes included herbs and spices but often did not often include the maltodextrin (one recipe was an exception), artificial ingredients, and preservatives you often find in seasoning mixes in supermarkets.

Is HelloFresh worth it overall?

Overall, HelloFresh impressed us with the variety of meals available weekly and the range of sides and extras.

When we tested HelloFresh, their meals were often tasty and filling, but the quantity of healthy fruits and vegetables per serving often underwhelmed us. This is perfect if you love potatoes or rice, which are a large part of many meals.

Prices can be reasonable and, in some cases, not too far from what you would pay for the individual ingredients from supermarkets, but only when ordering large numbers of meals per box. 

The price per serving seems too high when ordering only a small number of meals, so we opt for a supermarket delivery instead. Many supermarkets publish recipes online and allow you to order all the necessary ingredients easily, and if you print the recipe or save it to your phone, this can be a cheaper and equally time-saving alternative.

Most HelloFresh meals can be prepared and served in under 45 minutes, but to save time, we recommend you choose meals from their ‘Quick & Easy’ range, where most meals have a simplified cooking process and can be served in 15-25 minutes. However, almost every meal we tried took longer than stated, so we recommend accounting for an additional five to 10 minutes per recipe unless you enjoy rushing.

Based on our experience, a HelloFresh box is a great option for time-stretched families of three or four who need meals for most of the week. Alternatively, it’s ideal  for two who can make a four-person meal last for both dinner and the next day's lunch.

It's probably not the best option for health-conscious people who want to consume five to 10 portions of fruits and vegetables daily unless they are extremely picky about the meals they receive and willing to pay extra for sides and extras.

How to save money on HelloFresh

We’re a money-saving site, so where would we be if we didn’t show you how to get the most for your money? 

These are a few of the best ways to save money and stretch your HelloFresh recipe box further;

Discounted boxes when you join

Also at the time of writing, we’re offering the same deal plus £10.50 cashback on your first order at HelloFresh (and if you haven't used TopCashback before, you can stack this with our own new member bonus below), so it’s worth checking out TopCashback for an additional saving.

HelloFriends referral discounts

This section of the website and app allows you to invite your friends to try the service by offering them a discount or a free box. You will also earn a reward for doing so.

You usually have a limited number of free boxes to share with friends, and when they first subscribe, they receive a free week of meals. However, these don’t come with a reward for you.

Alternatively, if you’re feeling a little less generous, you can share a discounted box. In our test, this resulted in a 60% discount on the first box and 20% off the next seven boxes. You also get a £25 discount on your next box when a friend signs up and uses the discount you shared. 

Returning customer offers

After cancelling a subscription, we found that in the following weeks and months, HelloFresh was somewhat persistent in luring customers back by offering deep discounts.

In our experience, it can take between four and 12 weeks before receiving an offer, and this is typically a similar discount to their new customer offer, with savings of around 50% off one box and 20% off several more.

Ordering more food for less per serving

As we mentioned earlier, a great way to save money is to order more servings than you need and save the rest for later. 

For a couple, this can reduce your cost by up to 37% by doubling up (two meals for two people versus two meals for four people), meaning you only need to store the extra servings in the fridge or freezer and microwave them when required.

Unfortunately, HelloFresh only provide meals for up to four people, so this might not be an option if you are a large family.

Many of our meals were fine when frozen, but there is no advice given about doing this. Freezing your leftover servings to consume the following week might mean that you only need to order a box every other week, effectively halving the amount you spend on the subscription each month.

FAQs