HelloFresh has had a serious upgrade – here are 5 ways it's made its home meal kits fresher, healthier and more flexible

The hardest part of eating three meals a day is answering the age-old question: "What's for dinner?". It’s often challenged by things like an all-but-empty fridge, end-of-day decision fatigue that can lead to ordering takeaway, dealing with hangry kids (or a partner), and a limited timeframe to get food on the table at a reasonable hour.

As a developing home cook, I'm no stranger to HelloFresh. The global brand is widely regarded as one of the best meal kit delivery services, thanks to its curated, hand-picked ingredients, timely delivery options and mouthwatering, easy-to-follow recipes from all over the world. The service has undergone a big refresh recently to improve recipe and ingredient quality, debut new packaging and provide more value to its customers.

Better still, HelloFresh continually offers new and eligible* returning customers ways to save on their first 6 weeks of service — and Tom’s Guide readers can currently take advantage of an exclusive discount.

If you've been considering a meal kit subscription, I've compiled my top five reasons to try HelloFresh’s new makeover. It still excels at taking the hassle out of grocery shopping and meal planning, but it also now offers a more expansive menu, fresher ingredients and a fuss-free selection and customisation experience that'll make you excited for dinner tonight — and for weeks to come.

1. With 350+ delicious meal options, picking your weekly menu is a breeze (and never boring!)

One of my favourite things to do when ordering HelloFresh for the week is scrolling through its impressive menu. That includes over 350+ meals in total, with a rotating selection of 40-50 available to choose from each week, so there's always something new to try, or a returning well-liked family favourite to enjoy.

When you sign up for the service, HelloFresh will ask you a series of questions to figure out your meal preferences. Meals often fall into different menu categories to cater to specific dietary requirements, fitness goals, type of household and other preferences:

• Classic
• Vegetarian
• Family-friendly
• Calorie Smart
• Quick & Easy
• Carb Smart
• Flexitarian
• Protein Rich

You can even opt for air-fryer-friendly options, or dinners that will take 30 minutes or less to prepare for the ultimate convenience factor.

HelloFresh can take the guesswork out of choosing meals for you, as each week it preselects top-rated recipes based on your profile and automatically adds them to your box. However, you can always chop and change meals as you see fit by replacing any preset meals with an alternative option.

If you like the look of a recipe but you'd prefer a different protein than what's included, HelloFresh also gives you the option to swap or add ingredients to every meal. For instance, if you're craving Cowboy Crumbed Tex-Mex Chicken Tacos, but want to swap out the chicken tenderloins, you can choose to substitute them for options like chicken breast, pork strips or halloumi. Do note, some ingredient swaps may incur an additional charge per box.

It's also worth mentioning that you'll need some pantry staples to get cooking, like butter, salt, pepper, and of course, pots and pans, to get the job done.

2. Packed with top-quality ingredients, fresh from local growers

HelloFresh has introduced more premium and higher-quality ingredients into its fold, investing in both its sustainability and support for local farmers.

Through its suppliers, HelloFresh has reinvigorated its ingredients to offer elevated protein choices, such as high-quality Australian-sourced beef, chicken and lamb rump, as well as premium dairy products such as cheeses, gourmet dips and yogurts.

HelloFresh also suggests that customers can opt for a larger meal kit size if they're worried about portion sizes, especially when it comes to protein. You can upgrade or downgrade your plan at any time, and you can additionally purchase more protein for your meal kits at an extra cost per recipe, which varies depending on the specific options available.

3. More choice, better value: loaded with low-carb, veggie, and high-protein favourites

Looking for more low-carb, vegetarian or dietary-specific options? HelloFresh's meal kits can cater towards your required (or desired) diet, thanks to its impressive weekly menus.

As we mentioned earlier, HelloFresh's recipes fall under categories such as Classic, Vegetarian, Family-friendly, Calorie Smart, Quick & Easy, Carb Smart, Flexitarian and Protein Rich. Each week, the service will preselect a set of meals for your box size based on your menu and dietary preferences. However, you don't need to stick to the preselected meals every week or even your default meal-type menu.

With HelloFresh, you can manually choose all your recipes by completely opting out of the prefilled options and selecting your exact preferences from everything offered on the weekly menu. There are over 45 recipes to choose from each week, including quick 20-30 minute meals, premade options and air fryer-friendly recipes for the ultimate convenience factor.

4. Mouthwatering global recipes that will help you skip takeout

The only thing more tempting than cooking your own healthy dinner is ordering a delicious takeaway meal. Of course, ordering takeaway comes at a cost — both to your wallet and (often) your health goals.

Your favourite local delivery will likely cost more per meal than HelloFresh's per-serve price — which is as little as AU$9.99 per person (based on 3-5 meals a week for four people) — and you might find your dinner soggy, sad and not as fulfilling as a fresh, homemade dinner from scratch.

With highly varied recipes from international cuisines such as Chinese, Indian, Mexican, Thai, American, and Aussie pub favourites, there are plenty of takeaway-style dishes to try.

5. An effortless experience on the app and site — and super helpful customer service

What also makes HelloFresh great, in my opinion, is how simple and quick the meal selection process is, which can be done via either the app or the website. I personally gravitated towards ordering my boxes on the website; however, the HelloFresh app is just as simple to use.

HelloFresh provides customers with multiple delivery days and timeframes, so you can choose your preferred delivery window based on your suburb's availability. Once you select your delivery date and time, you can browse the wide array of recipe options and choose your meals.

Here, my preference has been to pre-order my meal kits week by week, which lets you edit your choices until around 4-5 days before your delivery date. If you truly want to save time and energy on meal planning, you can even pre-order meal kits for weeks (even months) in advance at once!.

Better yet, if your meal kit accidentally comes with the wrong ingredients or a missing recipe, you can contact HelloFresh's customer service 24/7 via the app or websites. From there, the team can organise a refund or credit towards your next box.

So if you want to save big on grocery shopping, make meal planning simple and easy or just ensure you’re eating regular healthy dinners, HelloFresh’s ‘refreshed’ offerings are well worth consideration.

HelloFresh | Score up to AU$240 off your subscription

Using our exclusive code HELLOREFRESH, you can score up to AU$240 of savings across your first 6 boxes. With recipes that cater for all types of eaters, kids included, HelloFresh takes the work out of dinnertime with easy and delicious meals. You'll need the bare essentials — like pots, pans, butter, milk and the like — but otherwise, HelloFresh can have your weekly meal planning sorted for you with little to no effort required.

Do note that the maximum savings offered here applies to the largest box size of six meals for six people.

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*According to HelloFresh's T&Cs, eligible returning customers need to have cancelled their subscription for over 6 months to qualify for the AU$240 off deal.