This Hungryroot review will cover what their service offers, how it works, and who it may work best for.
We went through the entire process as a consumer, from setting up our account to ordering our food to cooking and tasting each meal.
This meal delivery service is quick, healthy, delicious, and offers groceries in addition to meals, so you can spend less (or even none) time at the grocery store.
What’s not to love?
Let’s explore.
How Hungryroot Works
Hungryroot could be considered a grocery shopping service or a meal kit service, but in reality, it’s a hybrid of both.
You start with choosing your box size and how much you need for each meal, just like with any other meal kit.
Then you add some snacks, desserts (do yourself a favor and get 4 tubs of the black bean brownie batter – thank me later), and even groceries.
They ship everything to you along with a cute little recipe sheet.
You’ll have options for healthy, 10-minute meals that you can customize exactly how you need.
Let’s take a look at what happened when we tried Hungryroot for a week.
Our Honest Experience
This review is based on our personal experience, and we’ve used our standard review criteria to judge it.
Honestly, this is one of the best services we’ve tried.
The flexibility alone was enough to make me a satisfied customer, but then the meals were absolutely delicious.
Then I realized that they really did only take 10 minutes to make.
Let’s take a look at our review of the various aspects of their service and see how it stacked up to expectations.
Easy & Flexible Ordering
I have been positively raving about Hungryroot’s ordering system since I experienced it myself.
It’s phenomenal!
One thing that seriously bothers me about meal kits (and other meal delivery services too) is that the ordering systems are so inflexible.
What if I want to add on a portion, or just throw a snack on one delivery without changing my whole plan?
The Hungryroot menu is completely flexible, so you can add to your base plan whenever you need to, add on a meal, change the components to a meal, etc.
You can do pretty much anything, and I’m here for it.
I can easily say that the Hungryroot ordering process is by far the best I’ve come across.
Wide Selection & Customization Options
I’ve been equally chatty about the Hungryroot menu and the awesome amount of selection they have.
Granted, they are pretty simple meals, and the options oftentimes are simply different variations of the same ingredients, I appreciate the opportunity to choose between so many different choices rather than be limited.
I actually love the fact that they have different options with the same ingredients.
One week, maybe I’ll dig into the pasta with kale pesto and chicken sausage, and then the following week I can opt for the same basic dish but with their roasted tomato or cashew cheddar sauce and a different protein.
It’s a genius system, and you can count me as a big fan of it.
What if you’re a busy person and don’t want to spend the time customizing and choosing your meals?
You actually have the option of letting them curate your meals for you, and they base the choices off of a quiz you take when you set up your account.
Busy people rejoice!
You can get healthy food that you actually like without hardly any weekly effort at all, and just a few minutes required to put the meals together.
Dietary Accommodations
Hungryroot is a plant-based meal delivery service, but they also offer a selection of lean proteins so you can mix and match to create different meals even if you’re not fully vegan.
The currently offer hot smoked roasted salmon, spinach garlic chicken sausage, and grilled chicken breast as well as Beyond meat.
This is unique for a meal kit service, and it opens itself up to so many different people with different diets.
Being a mostly vegan service, their meals already work for a lot of people with dietary accommodations such as dairy-free, low calorie, low sodium, and others.
They also use wholesome alternatives to other items that allow their food to work for even more diets and food preferences, including gluten-free and soy-free.
Even their sweets are built to appeal to a low-sugar lifestyle, which I very much personally appreciate as we try not to eat regular sugar in our home.
For example, their heralded black bean brownie batter (absolutely, unbelievably phenomenal, btw) and almond chickpea cookie dough (also beyond amazing) are sweetened with coconut sugar and maple syrup.
Also as a side note, you can view all of their nutritional information per serving.
Each recipe has a nutritional facts label viewable when you’re looking through that week’s recipes.
How Many Portion Options?
When you choose the type of box you’d like to receive, you can choose from the 2-serving plan or the 4-serving plan.
From there, you choose how many recipes of each of those you’d like.
Next, you choose the amount of ready-to-eat items to include with each box.
This includes breakfast, snacks, and sweets options.
You can change all of these options from week to week if you’d like, and you can also add anything from a single ingredient to a full meal to any of your orders.
Want to add a package of baby spinach to check it off of your grocery list?
Go ahead.
Want to add just a grain bowl for that day you have a lunch meeting?
They’ve got you.
Each order can be fully customized, as can that basic food per serving size that you choose at the beginning.
Fully Recyclable Packaging
While Hungryroot does use plastic to package its cut vegetables and prepared ingredients, this is pretty typical for most meal kit delivery services because it keeps your foods fresh.
While this may be necessary, they do take measures to reduce their plastic usage with the rest of their packaging.
For example, the ingredients are packaged all together inside your main box, whereas many meal kits will group the ingredients for each particular meal into a separate plastic bag for convenience.
Hungryroot has opted instead for a more environmentally-friendly and waste-focused approach, which I like.
All of the remaining packaging is actually fully recyclable as well.
They use Temper-pak insulation and non-toxic ice packs also.
Your welcome packet actually includes a full page on how to properly dispose of your materials in the most environmentally-friendly way, so they take the guesswork out of it for you.
Tasty AND Creative?
You’d think that creativity would suffer somewhat when you’re talking about meals that only take roughly 10 minutes to put together, but that isn’t the case with Hungryroot.
I was actually quite surprised at the level of creativity their meals show off.
For example, they use veggie noodles in place of regular pasta in many of their meals; instead of using zucchini and butternut squash like everyone else always does, they offer kohlrabi noodles (they’re pretty awesome, fyi).
Their sauces amp up the intrigue as well, with options such as superfood tomato sauce, kale pesto, Thai peanut sauce, and cashew cheddar.
In addition, even their pasta choices do not disappoint.
They offer unique items such as red lentil fusilli and chickpea pasta (if you don’t like brown rice pasta like me, this is your jam, trust me).
Simple, Fuss-Free Recipes
One thing that really stood out to me with Hungryroot is the fact that their recipes are so dang simple.
As a very busy mom of 2 little boys and 2 dogs, it’s a challenge to put a healthy, tasty dinner on the table that everyone will like and do it quickly enough to still spend enough time with family.
Some meal kit delivery services offer quick meals, but they’re just okay when it comes to taste.
And some of them are really delicious but just take too long to make (especially when they put 6 different instructions under one ‘step’ and it takes twice as long as anticipated).
This really combines the best of both worlds.
Each recipe takes around 10 minutes to make. Seriously.
The Beyond burgers we made took less than that, and the pasta (even with waiting for the water to boil) took about 12 minutes.
And the dish with the shaved brussels sprouts and sausage? 10 minutes.
Both adults and both kiddos destroyed everything put in front of them, so I think that says a lot about the fact that just because these meals are quick does NOT mean they’re lacking in flavor.
They’ve got a range of different recipe types to choose from every week, which is nice.
Options include the following foods: stir-fries, pasta (many are made from vegetables), grain bowls, market plates, flatbreads, tacos, burgers, wraps, sandwiches, salads, bakes, and warm bowls.
Accurate Time Estimates
Diving a little deeper into what I mentioned in the previous section, Hungryroot recipes actually take about the same time to cook as what’s suggested on the recipe itself.
This is a huge aspect for me because we’ve tried a lot of meal kits and that’s not always the case.
So many times, they put quite a few instructions under one ‘step’ to arbitrarily be able to say it’s only ‘6 steps’ or to make it look nice on the recipe card.
The problem, though, is then it causes delays in cooking because you end up re-reading to make sure you didn’t miss something and have to search for the actual step you were on because it’s buried with too many other words.
This causes recipes to typically take longer than what’s estimated on the card and sometimes ends with frustration.
Hungryroot recipes are actually written differently, and it’s refreshing.
They’re such simple instructions that they’re all printed on the same sheet of paper, and they’re about 4 steps each.
Also, they’re written in a very easy-to-understand way that doesn’t require re-reading or clarification.
Sustainable, Organic Ingredients
Hungryroot uses very high-quality ingredients that are nourishing to the body.
That’s their basic philosophy.
In fact, a review of their food standard philosophy boasts the following principles:
- Free of partially hydrogenated oils
- Free of artificial sweeteners
- Free of high-fructose corn syrup
- Free of artificial colors
- Free of artificial preservatives
They use organic and non-GMO ingredients whenever possible, and they only source from reputable vendors; you always know that your groceries are coming from a responsible, trusted source.
When you try to eat healthier, finding ingredients such as these can sometimes be intimidating, so it’s great that Hungryroot does all of the work for you and you can eat healthy without all of the legwork.
Hungryroot Cost
Given that this is basically a meal kit, prepared meal delivery service, and grocery delivery service all in one AND they use high-quality, sustainable, organic ingredients, Hungryroot prices aren’t necessarily cheap.
That being said, a review of its costs actually show that they’re comparable to other meal kits.
Whether or not you deem it to be expensive or not really depends on what you’re comparing to.
If you’re comparing to your grocery store prices, you may pay more with Hungryroot because you’re also paying for the ultimate convenience of not having to go to the grocery store (that’s a big win), no prep work, recipes ready to go for you, and access to certain products that regular grocery shopping usually doesn’t give you.
Whether or not that’s worth it is a question only you can answer for yourself.
I will say that personally, the time that it saves me (and therefore gives me more time with my family) is more than worth it; I’d probably even pay more for this type of convenience.
Now, if you’re comparing to other meal kit services, the Hungryroot cost is actually great!
Their cost per meal tends to come out around the same as similar services (around $10/meal average), although their ingredients are organic, so you’re actually gaining that benefit as well.
Hungryroot Customer Service
So, the food is great, and they have a lot of awesome features.
But how is the Hungryroot customer service system?
If you do happen to have an issue with anything, you have a couple of different options.
Their FAQ section on their website is deep and thoughtfully organized, so most queries can probably be answered right there.
You can also make changes to your account, specific orders, and more very simply through your online account.
If you do require customer support from Hungryroot, their contact information is readily available.
You can contact their team via email, social media, phone, or text.
What We Liked
What I particularly like the most about Hungryroot is its intuitive, flexible ordering system that allows for add-ons and full customizing.
The ability to add ingredients, full meals, snacks, desserts, and even groceries is a phenomenal feature that really sets them apart.
Another thing we liked about Hungryroot is that their meals are so quick.
Also, the fact that they offer naturally sweetened snacks and desserts.
Coming from someone who’s been trying to avoid sugar for years, that is hard to find in a pre-prepared format that actually tastes good without any artificial ingredients.
Their black bean brownie batter is truly life-changing.
I could literally eat a tub of it in one sitting and feel zero guilt. Zero.
What We Didn’t Like
There wasn’t much we didn’t like about our Hungryroot order, but there were a few things we would change if we could.
Firstly, the box sizes were a little bit confusing.
They have a small, medium, and a large box, but it’s not really explained as clearly as it could be when you’re going through the quiz.
That being said, I still got through the process just fine, but it could be better.
Next, I really would’ve liked to have the option of choosing a certain serving size for lunches and a different one for dinners.
For our family, we need lunches for just my husband and I, because our kids aren’t at home during the day.
But then for dinner, we need more portions as the entire family is eating.
This is a pretty common scenario, so I thought it was odd that I could only choose either 2 servings or 4 overall, but not differentiate between the 2 meal periods.
Lastly, I wish they had an app to keep up on your account.
I’m the type of person who likes to tinker with my deliveries to get different foods all the time and switch the products in my orders quite often, so being able to quickly use an app versus logging into the website would be preferable.
All of this being said, I really had to think hard to come up with ‘things I didn’t like’ because honestly, this meal/grocery service is amazing.
Hungryroot vs Purple Carrot
What’s the difference between Hungryroot and Purple Carrot? Aren’t they pretty similar?
Yes, these two services have a lot of the same principles and offerings.
They’re both plant-based, although Purple Carrot is completely vegan whereas Hungryroot does offer some lean proteins.
Hungryroot focuses more on simple, quick recipes using pre-prepared components, whereas Purple Carrot is more of a traditional meal kit in which you can savor the cooking experience more.
If you’d like to dive deeper into this comparison, check out our full Hungryroot vs Purple Carrot comparison article.