Hungryroot Review 2025, Tested by Food & Wine

Meal planning and grocery shopping can be quite stressful, especially when you’re juggling busy days and the rising cost of groceries. It’s often not as simple as heading to your local market and picking up whatever looks fresh. These days, meal planning is more than a convenience: It’s an essential strategy that helps you balance taste, time, and budget, making it easier to get satisfying meals on the table without the last-minute scramble. 

That’s where a meal delivery service comes in. That said, not all meal delivery services are created equal — something we know firsthand. We’ve tested over 40 of the top meal delivery companies on the market to suss out the best options for various special diets, as well as families and kids. One company that consistently rises to the top and rules them all: Hungryroot. 

Whether you’re looking for balanced vegetarian options, feeding picky toddlers, or trying to cater to an entire family, Hungryroot offers something to help. Read on to learn exactly what a subscription to Hungryroot provides — and how infinitely simpler it can make your weekly menu.

Starting Price: $11 per serving | Shipping: Free for orders over $70; For orders under $70, shipping is $7 | Delivery Area: 48 states | Products Arrive: Fresh

How We Use Hungryroot Meal Delivery Service

Part meal-planning platform, part grocery shopping destination, Hungryroot is a dynamic service that will help stock your fridge (and your pantry) with nearly everything you need to execute healthy, easy-to-cook meals throughout the week. 

The brand acts as a grocery service, building your meals around your list, but it also has a database of over 15,000 recipes and ready-to-eat meals. Hungryroot caters to a wide variety of dietary needs, including vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, and high-protein. Users can craft a weekly meal plan based on the size of their household and the number of meals they want for the week, and tailor it to specific preferences. 

The meals on Hungryroot typically took us anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes to prepare, and they are primarily geared toward cooks who are comfortable playing the role of chef but don’t want to complicate their time in the kitchen. The coolest part? As we continued to use Hungryroot, the service got smarter and smarter, learning our preferences and taking note of meals we enjoyed to help better curate the selection of recipes it served up. 

What We Love About Hungryroot

For cooks looking to eat healthy, nutrient-dense meals, Hungryroot is second to none. We loved that the recipes on the platform are easy to cook and often ready in 20 minutes or less, allowing you to spend less time prepping and more time with your family, on your hobbies, or doing whatever it is that is important to you. The brand offers a wide variety of cuisine types, including Indian, Thai, Mexican, and Mediterranean, as well as big brand names like Unreal, Banza, Annie’s, Beyond Meat, and more. Best of all, we found Hungryroot’s meals easy to incorporate into everyday life and more in line with how we prefer to eat regularly. (Whereas some other meal delivery services we tested skew toward heavier recipes.) 

Testing Hungryroot also brought a little something different to the table than other meal delivery services. As a new user, you start by taking a comprehensive quiz, which helps the platform decipher your meal preferences and learn more about your family’s eating habits. It’s here that you can call attention to any special dietary restrictions or requests, like a nut allergy or desire to eat kosher. 

Remember: Hungryroot acts primarily as a grocery service and builds your meals around your grocery list, so using the service cuts down on food waste and keeps grocery bills in check. Ingredients come pre-measured and pre-packaged, and many recipes can be prepared in four or fewer steps, making it easy for even novice cooks to follow along. The brand’s recipes were available on the app and easy to follow, and everything arrived fresh in recyclable boxes with biodegradable ice packs.  

How We Tested Hungryroot

Over the course of several months, we tested Hungryroot alongside, and in comparison to, over 40 other meal delivery service brands. To enjoy the full breadth of the brand’s offerings, we made sure to trial meal kits that required prep work and cooking, as well as prepared meals and pantry goods. We reviewed and rated each meal we made. We noted the specifics of our experience for the entire ordering process, including taking the quiz and arranging shipping. When our shipment arrived, we noted how everything was packed and inspected the ingredients. We utilized the app and website (both of which we found easy to use). 

While testing Hungry Root, we tried the following meals: 

• Grass-fed burger with avocado and bean salad 
• Roasted salmon and sweet potato with Brussels sprouts
• Korean BBQ seitan and spinach rice bowl
• Mama’s chicken and rice soup
• Bangers and mash with onion pan sauce
• Salmon avocado Caesar wrap
• Creamy chicken taquitos
• Lemony pasta with hot sausage and asparagus
• Spinach artichoke buffalo tempeh sandwich
• Pepperoni naan pizza
• French onion “tuna melt” stuffed mushrooms
• Seared halloumi citrus chopped salad

The Caveats

While the recipes were good, they required a bit of baseline cooking knowledge to shine. Many needed an extra touch of seasoning or a bit more cooking time beyond what was mentioned in the provided recipes, so it’s helpful to have some natural cooking instincts (or learned skills) to assist along the way. 

Additionally, while Hungryroot always strives to deliver food at the peak of freshness, users can experience a turned veggie or past-its-prime ingredient every once in a while. Typically, this is easy to supplement with a quick grocery shop, but that defeats the purpose, right? 

Tips and Tricks

• Hungryroot employs a credit-based system to help tailor your weekly grocery and meal deliveries according to your preferences and needs. The subscription plan you choose directly correlates to the number of “credits” you receive weekly, and each item (whether a meal, snack, or grocery) is assigned a specific credit value; from there, you can mix and match to use your credits as you see fit.
• While you can choose your delivery day, the options range depending on your location, and all days of the week may not be available for delivery in your area. 
• You cannot choose your delivery window with Hungryroot, so there’s a chance that your box may be left sitting out until you’re able to retrieve it. That said, the food is packaged well with plenty of ice, so this typically isn’t an issue. 

What’s Changed for 2025

Not much has changed for Hungryroot this year, but the brand is constantly updating its product lineup — introducing new items and brands to keep its selection fresh and aligned with trends. Brands recently added to the platform include options like Purely Elizabeth, Omsom, Three Wishes, and Partake Foods. That said, thanks to a constantly changing food industry and newly implemented tariffs on imported goods, there’s a chance that the pricing and availability of food on the Hungryroot platform may be impacted in the future. 

The Verdict

Hungryroot is an excellent option for any home cook looking to balance health and freshness with convenience and ease. With plentiful recipe options and a comprehensive search platform, finding meals and ingredients that suit the needs of every member of your household is a cinch. Plus, the company’s add-on feature for basic grocery items (a service not many other meal delivery companies offer) almost eliminates the need for an additional grocery store run.

Our Expertise

Alyssa Longobucco is a freelance writer, editor, and stylist with a background in food, interior, and lifestyle content. She has over a decade of experience in the digital and magazine industry, creating unique and innovative content for storied brands such as Food & Wine, House Beautiful, HGTV, The Knot, Domino, Apartment Therapy, Real Simple, Food52, Good Housekeeping, and more. She has tested numerous food delivery services for Food & Wine, including Gobble, Little Spoon, and Nurture Life, all of which were a big hit with her two toddlers.