Hungryroot Review: Groceries and Recipes for Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner and Snacks

Recently, I had the chance to try out Hungryroot and the meals I could make by using their service. In case you’re not familiar with Hungryroot, it delivers healthy groceries and recipes so you’re never standing in front of the refrigerator or freezer, doors open and wondering what you’re going to make for breakfast, lunch, dinner or snacks. Here’s my honest review.

Getting Started with Hungryroot

If you’ve ever used an online personal styling service like Stitch Fix, then you’ll understand how you get started with Hungryroot — you start by taking a quiz. But instead of fashion preferences, they want to know specifics about you and your family, such as:

• How many people are you feeding
• What your goals are in using Hungryroot (I said save time, simplify cooking and grocery shop less — I hate going to the store)

There were other questions that were similar to using an online styling service, including how much my family spends weekly on groceries, dietary needs and how we eat, because Hungryroot works for different types of vegetarians, pescatarians, flexitarians, vegans and omnivores. When I chose pescatarian for this last question, Hungryroot let me know that they have over a thousand such recipe options. Exciting!

The quiz also asked about shopping preferences, such as do I buy organic produce — I do, whenever possible — what kind of meal ideas would I want Hungryroot to send me — ranging from make from scratch to microwaveable — and which kinds of cuisines did I enjoy. With this last question it ranged from Indian to Italian, French to fusion and many more in between. It even asked specifically what kinds of flavor profiles we liked.

All told the quiz took me about 15 minutes to complete. To be honest, that was longer than I expected. However, I knew the idea was to get things just right so that the groceries, snacks and recipe ideas they sent me worked well for me and was worth my time and money.

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Receiving My First Order

I was able to choose a Hungryroot delivery date seven days after I signed up and placed my order. I could have gotten it earlier but my husband was going to be away and I didn’t want $200 worth of groceries to go to waste. Hungryroot texted and emailed me when the delivery was on the way and then again after FedEx dropped it off. Shipping was free, which is true for any order over $70.

It was a big box of food. Honestly, it was much more than I expected for a week’s worth of meals. The packing slip in the box explained everything that I would find inside. Then, on the flip side of that packing slip were suggested recipes using the ingredients in the box. I loved that flexibility.

What was in my Hungryroot box

Here is what I received in that first Hungryroot box, in no particular order:

• salmon fillets
• fresh zucchini
• sweet potato fries
• black bean burgers
• cold smoked salmon aka lox
• avocado crema
• butternut squash cubes
• chopped caesar salad kit
• feta cucumber tzatziki
• guacamole dip
• cheddar cheese slices
• garlic sauce
• refried red beans
• shaved brussels sprouts
• shredded cheddar
• an avocado
• everything bagels
• multigrain bread
• white flour tortillas
• new potatoes
• seasoned jasmine rice
• rainbow veggie mix

This last item was my free gift. It appears that you get to choose one every time you select that week’s groceries.

Portions and Expiration Dates

Having done meal kit services in the past, I was surprised that all the food I received was full sized. It was not just a portion that I needed to make a single recipe. Also, while many of the items were in Hungryroot-branded packaging, some were brands that I’d actually purchased before at Costco. Specifically, the guacamole dip from Good Foods. When my box arrived, I actually already had Good Foods guacamole cups in the fridge.

The packing slip and the packaging itself all included expiration dates or best to use by dates plus suggestions for how quickly to use them from when your food was delivered. So that determined what we cooked or ate first in the days after my delivery arrived.

Meals I Made with Hungryroot Groceries

By the time I got around to writing this review, I’d made four meals from my Hungryroot supplies. Two were dinners — actually, the same dinner we’d had another night because it was so delicious I needed to make it again. Then there was breakfast and lunch. And I still have so much more food that I need to use up.

Everything Bagel with Avocado Crema and Lox

What a delicious breakfast this turned out to be. I toasted the everything bagel. Then spread avocado crema on it and topped with lox.

Air Fryer Salmon with Sheet Pan Brussels Sprouts and Potatoes

This was the dinner that was so good that I made it two nights in a row. In fact, I didn’t realize I could do this until I opened the first of the two packages of salmon fillets we received. That was when I discovered there were two fillets inside. So one package was one night’s dinner and then the next night I used the second package.

I brushed the salmon with olive oil and seasoned it with salt and pepper, before cooking in the air fryer at 400F for 15 minutes. For the sheet pan veggies, I tossed the quartered potatoes and the shaved Brussels in olive oil in a bowl, then seasoned with salt, pepper, garlic and freshly shaved parmesan. After spreading on a sheet pan, I cooked them in the oven at 400 F for 25 minutes. Again, it was so good I had to make the meal again the next night.

Black Bean Burgers with Sweet Potato Fries

This was a lunch that I was able to put together in about 15 minutes. I love our air fryer so that is how I cooked the black bean burger patties and the sweet potato fries. Let me correct myself: these were called sweet potato super fries because they are more than just sweet potatoes. As I learned from the package, these fries also include carrots and chickpeas.

Save 40% on your first order with my Hungryroot promo code LEAHINGRAM

Some of My Food Didn’t Last

As I mentioned earlier, each of the packages included expirations dates or how soon you should use the item. Unfortunately, I never got to use the chopped Caesar salad kit because the lettuce arrived frozen. Hungryroot does a great job of packaging everything so it stays cold. However, I live in Maine and I just think that with the temperatures here barely out of the single digits, the salad just couldn’t survive the shipping. Note: I brought the box in within minutes of it landing on my doorstep.

Also, I was looking forward to making butternut squash soup with the butternut squash cubes. That didn’t happen because by the time I went for the plastic container, I could tell they’d turned. There was excess liquid and, when I opened it, you could smell that the butternut squash had started to ferment.

Speaking of packaging, there was too much plastic for my taste. The box the shipment arrived in is recyclable cardboard and includes a freezer pack that you can compost or use as plant feed. But nearly everything else came in plastic containers or wraps. We’re trying very hard in our family to use less plastic overall.

Final Thoughts on this Hungryroot Review

Would I order groceries from Hungryroot again? Absolutely. It saved me trips to the grocery store and gave me so many options for making breakfast, lunch and dinner over the week. We never went hungry.

The only thing I would change is how much food I got. We’re newer empty nesters, and I’m still not used to cooking for two only. So I completely misjudged how much food I thought we needed for two people for the week and now we want to make sure we eat everything else that is left before it goes bad.

To be fair, that’s not Hungryroot’s fault. It’s mine and it happens when we grocery shop at traditional supermarkets, too. We need to get better about our meal planning so food isn’t going to waste.