We Ditched The Grocery Store For a Week - Here's How

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I am so tired of grocery shopping. The crowds, the cost, the never-ending lists because I forgot something on my list that I needed for dinner that night. It’s exhausting.

My husband and I both work full-time in addition to being new parents to the world’s cutest 6 month old (but maybe I have some bias there). Either way, to say we are often burnt out by the end of the day is keeping it simple. So when it comes to cooking we have to work hard to have a weekly plan…just for it to eventually fall apart as soon as we forget the first ingredient on our list.

Let’s not even get into how hard it can be to include our health goals in these plans. Try as we might, those forgotten groceries typically lead us to make less-than-nutritious choices and often waste the groceries we did remember to get.

I was tired of it. We were wasting time and money and wrecking any healthy habits we’d worked hard to maintain.

That’s what initially drew my attention to Hungryroot. Their grocery delivery service looked like it covered everything we were looking for and more - AKA no more dragging my infant with me to the grocery store for one ingredient every other day.

Hungryroot was ready to do the work for me, and all we had to do was order, open, and eat.

For my household, we want to grocery shop less, waste less, and improve our health. To us, focusing on all of these items would also cover the rest of the items on the list like saving time, saving money, and simplifying cooking.

I was also asked about other important factors like how much we spend on groceries each week, what our nutritional preferences are, and if we have any dietary needs.

Hungryroot even went as far as to ask how much time we'd like to spend cooking and what appliances we use to make sure that recipes and groceries were fully catered to us.

After answering a few more questions like our favorite cuisines, flavors, proteins, and heat levels (we're pretty mild in this household) I was prompted to choose items that looked good for breakfasts, lunches, dinners, and snacks.

I was starving after seeing all of the options that I'd never thought of for myself!

It took maybe 15 minutes and some input from my husband until our personalized recommendations and first Hungryroot cart were ready.

The cart was editable and while the recipe options looked divine, I did opt to swap out a few snacks before it got sent out.

Hungryroot has so many options filled with products that I was familiar with and products I have been dying to try - so that's exactly what we did! We opted to swap a few items for things we haven't yet had the chance to buy for ourselves.

We're big snackers in this house and they have SO many great snacks to choose from that still fit within our own health goals.

Under the first layer of the paper icebox packaging were my salad kits, vegetables, and bread items that needed to stay cool. Under those were my proteins and cold snacks that needed to keep ice cold - and they were!

I have always been a bit hesitant when it comes to ordering frozen and refrigerated items to my home because I worry they won't stay cool enough if I'm not able to immediately grab them from the door after delivery. Hungryroot quelled my nerves here because not only did everything stay fresh, but it was even colder than it would have been had I made the run to the store and back home on my own.

The Recipes

We received 4 lunch servings and 6 dinner servings (5 recipes) we were able to easily break things up into how we wanted our meals to flow during the rest of the week.

Our box arrived on Tuesday and we were going out of town Saturday, so this delivery came at the perfect time so that we had meals for the week without having to worry about grocery shopping and potentially wasting leftovers before our trip.

Tuesday Dinner

We cooked our first dinner Tuesday evening and went with the Extra Fancy Classic Beef Burger.

I had bedtime duty with our baby, so my husband decided to take the lead on cooking. The ingredients were minimal and this meal took little prep work. Cutting the onions to sauté and putting the bread into the oven to toast were the only tasks outside of cooking the burger patties.

It took just two ingredients and a bit of olive oil to bring this one together. I liked the ease of just unboxing the Korean BBQ chicken and adding it to the pan. We love a good one-pan meal over here, especially when it comes time for meal prep.

Before I was even thinking about eating my lunch on Wednesday, my husband texted me about how good it tasted. He's a busy guy during the day, so for me to receive a text about lunch of all things must have really meant something.

You can see our version versus the Hungryroot inspiration below.

Wednesday Dinner

We typically reserve one night a week to go out or order in, and that was what we did here. Thanks to having the week planned and portioned out from our Hungryroot delivery, there was no lingering guilt about having food at home going to waste.

Thursday Lunch

My husband was able to have lunch with us at home on Thursday, so we chose to keep it light with the Seared Salmon and Kale Salad.

I need to be honest for a minute and say, I am not a salmon lover. While I love seafood, salmon has always been more miss than hit for me. Despite this, I was committed to trying new things when ordering from Hungryroot, and even though I did have the option to swap the ingredients for this recipe out, I wanted to give it a try anyway.

The lunch was simple enough that I had high hopes. Again, we lucked out with just two main items - the salmon fillets and a bagged salad mix.

I was blown away by the quality of the fish! We kept the seasoning relatively simple with some citrus, salt, and pepper so I was anticipating that overly fishy flavor and I was so wrong. It cooked up perfectly and tasted so fresh! The crispness of the salad was the perfect pairing and the whole meal genuinely kept us full until dinner.

You can see our version of the recipe versus the Hungryroot inspiration below.

This recipe took less than 10 minutes to make and pack up for later. The sous vide chicken just needed to be broken up and sautéed and the rice was done in 90 seconds. The cucumber and black bean salad could be eaten cold or hot, so my husband didn't have to worry about it getting weird if he microwaved the dish later. I also had a lime that we chose to pair with it for an extra zing.

We loved this recipe and the ingredients made it so easy to throw together. You can see our version versus the Hungryroot inspiration below.

Friday Lunch

One of the other really fun perks of Hungryroot was the free grocery item we received with our order. Instead of it being a surprise item, we had the benefit of choosing our item before the delivery shipped. There were options like cookie dough, various vegetables, and proteins so we opted for the seasoned chicken thighs. We ate these with a salad mix we already had for lunch on Friday.

That, along with the other snack and breakfast items we received, really made the week easy and exciting. We loved looking forward to our daily treats and meals without having to plan too much or spend time in the store.

Our final meal of the week was the Ribeye Steak with Roasted Potatoes + Cheesy Spinach.

This took a little longer than the other recipes, but not by much. It was the perfect finishing touch to a long week before we left out of town the next day.

We seasoned the potatoes and steak to our liking and my husband cooked the steak in our cast iron skillet for the perfect outer crust.

It was so good and the portion sizes were great for both of us! You can see ours versus the Hungryroot inspiration below.

*My plate was already portioned versus the two-person portion on the Hungryroot photo. Hence the smaller-looking steak & potato portioning in my photo.

Final Thoughts

Hungryroot surprised me in all of the best ways! We enjoyed how good we felt after each meal. I felt like the goals that we detailed in the quiz were genuinely focused on and we could tell a difference in how we felt after each meal or snack.

It was so great not to have to spend so much time in the store during the week and knowing that everything we needed was already included in our Hungryroot delivery. This also made a big impact on our grocery budget during the week. I loved not seeing multiple grocery store trips on our credit card statement for the week.

We are genuinely looking forward to ordering again and can't wait to be able to include our son's preferences in our order soon - Yes! Hungryroot caters to the WHOLE family.

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