Gousto, hello fresh, etc..any good?

[MrsKingfisher]

I'm reading so many conflicting reviews about these types of food delivery, I'd like to try something like this as I find deciding on what to make and making it really boring. Thought this would be a good alternative.

Does anyone have a recipe box they can rave about?

I've not done those but I've done Simply Cook where they send you the recipe and the seasonings, pastes and sauces needed. That way you can buy the ingredients yourself at a cheaper cost although I do like idea of everything arriving in the correct portions already so no food waste.

I did it when I ate meat and I had a creamy cajun chicken pasta that was delicious and a Thai green curry and I think a chorizo pasta dish too. If I had the money to do Hello Fresh I'd definitely do it

Yes I love simply cook I find it much more flexible than the full meal boxes. If you want to give it a try you can get your first box for £1 using my referral link: simplycook.com/invite/EWR3R5?via=app

We use Gousto regularly and it has given us some great new ideas, we keep the recipe cards which makes meal planning when we aren't getting the boxes much easier.

We've used both Gousto and hello fresh. Gousto I used to love, they're very flexible so you can order more or less each week and had a great range of recipes. But recently we've had problems with every single box so I got so fed up of it we switched to hello fresh. The recipe range for us isn't as wide but the quality is better - they are more expensive though.
I have codes for both if you want to try them.
Gousto 10% off for first month - ELIZA6895980
Hello fresh £20 off - www.hellofresh.co.uk/plans?c=HS-7YP31WZNG&utm_campaign=native-share-panel&utm_couponvalue=20&utm_invitername=Elizabeth&utm_medium=iOSReferral&utm_source=raf-share

We used hello fresh for a bit and it was quite good in theory but I didn’t like having to meal plan weeks in advance or risk getting sent unappealing options.

Also, on occasion the ingredients were not fresh - even the prepackaged ones so I’d have to carefully check them all when they arrived or risk discovering in the middle of cooking that the grated cheese was mouldy.

@SherryPalmer

We used hello fresh for a bit and it was quite good in theory but I didn’t like having to meal plan weeks in advance or risk getting sent unappealing options.

Also, on occasion the ingredients were not fresh - even the prepackaged ones so I’d have to carefully check them all when they arrived or risk discovering in the middle of cooking that the grated cheese was mouldy.

This is kind of thing I don't want, we had mindful chef for a little while and their ingredients were subpar for the price.

We did Gousto for a month and whilst we had a few things we enjoyed and I would make again we found the quality of the meat very hit and Miss- maybe we’re just fussy. The mince for example was really fatty and horrible and I ended up buying mince just to make the meal! Same with the chicken.

We used Gousto for a month with 3 meals a week and with discount it was actually quite economical. We were fed up of eating the same things all the time because we couldn't be bothered to meal plan properly and wanted to get out of that rut.

We did have a problem with missing items one week so had to add those to our supermarket delivery in order to make the meal, but they refunded us a small amount to compensate.

I really enjoyed not having to think about meal planning...choosing the box content was quite fun. All the recipes were tasty, at least half have made their way into our ongoing repertoire and two of them make my mouth water whenever I think of them!

We've moved house now and will do another discounted month after Christmas I think just to help with the January drudge. I recommend with the discount but without it gets quite pricey.

The other thing we did to make it cheaper was order meals for 4 instead of 2 and share with my sister who lives round the corner, as most of the meal ingredients are in 2 person portions so it was really easy to divvy up.

I would second simply cook. It's less restrictive as can use whenever.

We use gousto quite a lot. We're vegetarian and find the vegi options quite imaginative and it's given us some great ideas we have been able to recreate. Did try hello fresh but found the recipes quite boring.

I have had HelloFresh a couple of times and I would not recommend.

The taste is ok, it is over priced and everyone I have ended up with manly veg (they do give you money off). With 2 of us cooking it took longer that the recipe time, if it had been a week day I would have been hangry.

I am now giving up and instead using supermarket suggested recipes as they add stuff to the shopping list for click. And collect and using bbc food.

I use both Gousto and HelloFresh maybe once a month, simply because I find deciding what meals to make stressful and boring.

HelloFresh has much better recipes but they often miss ingredients and the veg quality is a bit hit and miss. We've had rotting veggies quite a few times. Mince meat is always 15% fat, which I'd never buy from the supermarket.

Gousto has better veggies, but the meals aren't as good in my opinion. More options than hello fresh though and I've not had anything rotting from them (though again, high fat mince).

I do reuse some of the recipes and both boxes have expanded what we eat massively. Our fav meals are now the mild curry from Gousto and chicken noodles from HelloFresh. Couldn't live without ketjap manis, which I hadn't tried before. So definitely recommend them ☺️

Also if you are cooking for kids, a lot of the meals are very, very high in salt content due to the stock cubes and sauces included, so wouldn't recommend it for kids!

I tried HF and Gousto and much preferred the latter - wider variety of recipes (especially if you like Asian food), and more complex flavours for the prep times. A fair number of 10/15 minute recipes, too. My main criticism of both was always the ridiculous quantity of packaging, but that has improved lately.

Here is my Gousto code for 20% off a first box and first month, if anyone fancies it - Link

@poppet31

We use gousto quite a lot. We're vegetarian and find the vegi options quite imaginative and it's given us some great ideas we have been able to recreate. Did try hello fresh but found the recipes quite boring.

Thank you, we'll be using a vegetarian option too. Dh eats meat but not very often.

I’ve been having HelloFresh for a few months and I think it’s fantastic. You get fresh ingredients in just the right amount and most of the recipes have been delicious.

It saves you having to go out shopping which is helpful at the moment. There is less waste as you get the amount only needed for the one meal.

Also I’m not particularly into cooking and this has given me motivation.

not in uk.
my local supermarket sells recipe boxes.
which is great, as about half the price of the delivery companies.
we use them occassionally to try new exotic meals.

I tried hello fresh for 3 weeks before giving up

There was at least 1 thing wrong each week -veg was really poor quality, chicken arriving with dates for the next day, bread was like a brick etc

The recipes were easy to follow and got my 16 year old cooking but much too salty for our taste and that couldn't be adjusted

Some of the recipes are very basic and therefore very overpriced

Liked the meal planning aspect but it's just not good value for money

We use hello fresh, and really like it.

It's been great getting the DSD15 and DSD9 cooking, they take over some recipes totally, and have become really confident in the kitchen. The 9yo loves it, especially making curries and stir-fry type things - the wok is her domain now (supervised obviously!)

There's four of us (me, DH, DSD15 and DSD9) but we order meals for three, and there's more than enough for four. If we have burgers or something where you get sent three ingredients (burger buns etc) DH and I share, but generally, there's no compromise.

I've tried em all. IME Gousto is the best for family meals that are also interesting to adults. Also their 10 minute meals are really 10 minutes. Mindful Chef is the best for a single person and the healthiest, clearly. Hello Fresh, which we used for years, has a lot of mistakes/missing things/very carby, which is why we switched to Gousto. Riverford's take FOREVER to cook, just so fussy and expensive. Abel and Cole, I seem to recall were actually quite good but they pissed us off in some way that I can't now remember. Then the other ones we tried were all meh and I have forgotten their names even.

In conclusion: familes - Gousto, singles: Mindful Chef.

@lomojojo

I've tried em all. IME Gousto is the best for family meals that are also interesting to adults. Also their 10 minute meals are really 10 minutes. Mindful Chef is the best for a single person and the healthiest, clearly. Hello Fresh, which we used for years, has a lot of mistakes/missing things/very carby, which is why we switched to Gousto. Riverford's take FOREVER to cook, just so fussy and expensive. Abel and Cole, I seem to recall were actually quite good but they pissed us off in some way that I can't now remember. Then the other ones we tried were all meh and I have forgotten their names even.

In conclusion: familes - Gousto, singles: Mindful Chef.

Thank you! We used to have Abel & Cole but sometimes their veg was crap. Seems it's hit and miss with all of them.

Yeah, Abel and Cole didn't have great customer service IIRC - so if it goes wrong you just get screwed and just... vexed. There are too many other options to put up with nonsense like that.

I’ve had my trial Gousto this month as I’ve been locked down at my mums. Think we have one more week at 30% off
We’ve enjoyed it, there’s no waste from trying a new recipe where you usually buy bottles and jars to only use once
We’ve clearly been lucky as no issues with the box
We got 50% off week one then 30% for the month, once it ends I won’t have it weekly but maybe a couple of times a month depending on when I visit my mum
Disappointed that my code to share only offers friends 20% off when I got 50%

We’re a family and we use Gousto a fair bit, I dip in and out, haven’t had anything for last 3 weeks as there was nothing I really fancied, the price per meal is cheaper the more meals you order, it’s got us out of a rut with having same thing all the time, I’m the only one that cooks so all meal planning is down to me, we keep the favourite recipes and I will buy ingredients to cook again, in a way it’s economical on trying new recipes that require different oils, spices, etc as you get required amount, instead of buying a large bottle only to languish in back of cupboard never to be used again after initial recipe. We also online shop as well and have picked recipes from Ocado/Tesco and added contents to basket, just need to go through your store cupboard and delete off what you don’t need as will seem expensive compared to Gousto as will be putting all normal sized oils & spices in your basket which you wouldn’t need to buy for each and every time you do the recipe. Give one a go, there’s normally offered to try, and you can cancel straight after the offer ends. Actually having Gousto subscription has been a life saver this year as it’s another way to get food to the house if we are self isolating.

We have both, Hello Fresh are better because you can get 6 meals delivered but with Gousto it's 2,3 or 4 unless you get two boxes.

Hello Fresh can be heavy on fish, cauliflower and lamb/pork some weeks and we don't eat those things here so those weeks we get Gousto instead. Hello Fresh went through a bad patch a couple of months ago but it's been OK since then and the vegetables are fresher and things are no longer missing from the boxes. Gousto was better quality for a while but I think they are equal now.

I wish they did organic meat though. Neither of them do.