Keeping with the busy and fast-paced modern-day life often requires us to make a few sacrifices. It can be the lack of quality time with family for some, while for others, it could be the inability to find time for themselves.
But, one thing that most of us can relate to is that we’ve got no time to cook (when was the last time you cooked yourself a fresh meal? A proper one!).
Meal delivery services, like HelloFresh, can be a lifesaver in such situations. But are there a lot of HelloFresh vegan options? Let’s find out!
Does HelloFresh Have Plant-Based Meals?
HelloFresh has plant-based options. But, sadly, they do not meet the vegan dietary guidelines; they are vegetarian. Disappointed? I was too!
But, hey, don’t lose heart; I am sure we can find a way. After all, we’re used to maneuvering through non-vegan-friendly menus. Besides, HelloFresh has vegan ground meat! Has this got you excited?
Let’s get into our vegan mode and scrutinize the HelloFresh menu to figure out how we can mold their vegetarian meals to our diet.
Can HelloFresh Meals be Made Vegan?
HelloFresh offers a variety of vegetarian meals. You may not customize all of them, but you sure can make some of them vegan-friendly.
The best part about HelloFresh meal kits is that they have all the ingredients individually packed, so you can easily skip anything you don’t want to add to your food.
How to Make HelloFresh Meals Vegan?
HelloFresh allows you to choose 2 to 6 recipes per week and personalize your meal kits by not only choosing the kind of food you want, but also by selecting the specific meals.
HelloFresh has its meals divided into six main categories – Meat & Veggies, Veggie, Pescatarian, Fit & Wholesome, Quick and Easy, and Family Friendly.
When ordering vegan at HelloFresh, you will obviously choose the veggie option. Next, choose the number of meals you want per week and follow the next few steps to checkout.
Once you place your order, HelloFresh will let you choose the meals or recipes from their plant-based menu for the week.
Once you get your meal box, simply leave the non-vegan ingredients out and follow the recipe to cook vegan meals throughout the week. You may also replace some non-vegan ingredients like milk, cheese, sour cream, or mayo with their vegan alternatives from your pantry.
Here are a couple of tips to make sure you don’t lose the essence of a dish with vegan customizations:
▪ Avoid Egg-Based Dishes
Avoid getting meal kits that have eggs as the main protein source.
▪ Avoid Cream or Cheese Based Dishes
Avoid dishes that have cream or cheese-based sauces as the main component. While you may make them vegan by adding your own vegan cream or cheese, it will kill the whole purpose of buying a meal kit.
Swapping a couple of little ingredients is different, but if you have to add the core ingredient from your pantry, you might as well make the whole dish with your ingredients. Get it?
▪ Check Ingredients Before Ordering
Always check what ingredients a meal kit has to make sure you order the right dishes (ones that can easily be customized for a vegan diet). A great thing about HelloFresh is that it provides the recipes for all its dishes on the website.
Use that feature to your advantage and check out the recipes of all the plant-based dishes you feel like ordering to confirm that you will be able to cook them vegan style.
Go to the Recipes page on the HelloFresh website. Type ‘vegetarian recipes’ in the search bar, and you’ll get recipes for all the plant-based dishes they have meal kits available for.
Check out the recipes of the dishes you want to order to make sure they can be made vegan-friendly. You can also use this feature to find the easiest options to make vegan.
At present, HelloFresh has 26 delicious vegetarian recipes on the website, including protein bowls, pasta dishes, wrap, vegetarian chili, and plant-based burgers.
▪ Be Careful With Bread
As we all know, bread often contains milk and/or eggs. However, it’s quite easier to overlook it when you have so many other things to consider to put together a vegan meal. So, it’s just a quick reminder to make sure your HelloFresh meal doesn’t end up being non-vegan just due to bread.
Use the good ol’ way of reading the label or check the recipe of your dish on the HelloFresh website. HelloFresh highlights allergens present in any component of a dish in the recipe section.
It’s always great to see companies being considerate of their customers’ varying choices and needs.
For example, HelloFresh has a meal kit for Plant-Based Protein Messy Jane (the meatless cousin of sloppy joe).
The use of the term plant-based in the name may make some people presume that it is a completely plant-based meal, especially if someone doesn’t know that HelloFresh doesn’t do vegan meals.
But, a quick look at its recipe will tell you that the bun this meal kit includes has milk and eggs.
HelloFresh Recipes That Can Be Made Vegan (Easily)
By now, it must be clear to you that there are no 100% plant-based meal kits available at HelloFresh. But, some HelloFresh vegetarian dishes can be made vegan with some little changes.
To save you from the hassle of going through all vegetarian recipes on the HelloFresh website to find the most suitable options, I did all the groundwork for you.
Here are the HelloFresh vegetarian options that are easy to make vegan:
Note: All the vegetarian meals at HelloFresh come with plant-based meats.
- Vegetarian Paella – This is an accidentally vegan HelloFresh meal. It’s made 100% with plant-based ingredients.
- Vegetarian Bibimbap – The meal kit doesn’t contain any animal-based ingredients. But, the recipe calls for topping the dish with a sunny-side-up egg before serving, which you can easily skip.
- Skillet Seitan Enchiladas – Replace the Monterey Jack cheese in the meal kit with vegan cheese.
- Sundried-Tomato Seitan Wrap – Swap mayonnaise in the meal kit with plant-based mayo.
- Mighty Meatless Bolognese with Seitan and Linguine Pasta – Hold the parmesan cheese.
- Seitan Sloppy Joes – Don’t use the buns that come in this meal kit. They contain eggs and milk. Get yourself some vegan-friendly bun from the grocery store.
- Plant-Based Protein Ragu Rigatoni Bake – Skip the cream cheese and Italian cheese blend or use vegan alternatives. The recipe also calls for a tablespoon of butter. Omit that as well.
- Soy Ginger Plant-Based Protein Bowls – The recipe requires adding one tablespoon of butter from your pantry. Skip that step or if you have vegan butter at hand, use that.
- Southwest Plant-Based Protein over Rice – Avoid using the sour cream that comes in the meal kit as well as butter that the recipe requires you to add from your kitchen. If you have vegan sour cream, you may use that.
- Plant-Based Protein Stuffed Peppers – Skip the cheese or use its vegan alternative. Also, don’t add butter.
- Veggie Burrito Bowls – Hold the sour cream and cheese or use their vegan varieties.
- Sweet Potato Fajitas – Avoid using the sour cream and pepper jack cheese in the meal kit. You may either use any vegan-friendly sauce that you may have at home.
- Tuscan Seitan Bolognese with Tagliatelle, Parmesan, and Cheese – Hold on to the dairy-based parmesan in the meal kit. Use its vegan alternative or skip it altogether. An important thing to note here is that contrary to what the name tells, the recipe given on the HelloFresh website says that this vegetarian pasta meal kit includes Fettuccine. That is vegan-friendly, but Tagliatelle is not, so double-check to make sure you’re not getting Tagliatelle pasta.
- Plan-Based Protein Enchiladas – This classic Mexican dish includes cheese and sour cream. While you may not mind skipping sour cream, you can’t have enchiladas without the cheese. So, you have to have vegan cheese at home to make this vegetarian HelloFresh meal vegan.
- Plant-Based Protein Rigatoni Alla Rossa – This vegetarian dish includes ¼ ounce of parmesan, which isn’t much, so you may skip it. However, it also contains four tablespoons of cream cheese, which I don’t recommend omitting because it adds a lot of flavor and richness to the pasta sauce. If you’re interested in getting this HelloFresh vegetarian meal, make sure you have vegan cream cheese at home.
HelloFresh Ingredients That May Look Vegan, But Are Not
Here are a few HelloFresh ingredients that some people might mistake as vegan-friendly, but they are not, so make sure you avoid them:
- Brioche Bun – Contains eggs and milk.
- Potato Bun – Contains eggs and milk.
- Tagliatelle Pasta – Contains eggs.
HelloFresh Plant-Based Meals FAQs
Still, have questions? Keep reading as I answer some of the most commonly asked questions about plant-based meals at HelloFresh.
▪ Does HelloFresh Have Meatless Burgers?
HelloFresh does have meatless burgers. But, the buns they provide in meal kits are all non-vegan. Moreover, the Beyond Burgers have cheese and sour cream, whereas Messy Janes include mayonnaise.
Instead of swapping all these ingredients with their vegan alternatives, a better option is to get plant-based ground protein from HelloFresh and make your own vegan burgers at home.
However, if you think that’s too much work and don’t mind swapping multiple ingredients, you can also get HelloFresh vegetarian burger meal kits.
▪ Does HelloFresh let you choose your meals?
Yes. HelloFresh gives you full liberty to choose the meals of your choice every week. However, it only has a certain number of options available to choose from. In other words, you can choose your HelloFresh meals, but the company decides what options are available to you every week.
As per the HelloFresh website, seven vegetarian recipe options are given every week in the Classic Plan. Not bad, right?
Conclusion – Is HelloFresh Vegan-Friendly?
HelloFresh is clearly not vegan friendly, as they do not offer vegan meal kits. However, they do offer a good variety of vegetarian options, and the majority of them can be customized to a vegan diet. There are a couple of things that are worth considering, though:
- You will have to add all the dairy-based items, like sour cream, cheese, cream cheese, and mayonnaise, from your pantry.
- All HelloFresh meals, including the vegetarian options, come with the disclaimer that they are produced in shared facilities.
If you’re strictly concerned about cross-contamination, you may not feel comfortable eating HelloFresh meals.
Wondering if HelloFresh meal kits are even worth buying? Check out the following video for HelloFresh meal reviews…
Did you find this article helpful? Interested to learn what vegan food options you have at various leading restaurant chains? Vegan Calm is your ultimate resource for eating vegan in the US. Check out my article MOD Pizza Vegan Options to get started!
