Hello fresh equivalent for larger family

[WinoLino]

I'm starting to wonder if a subscription recipe service would reduce the hassle and stress of 'what shall we have to eat' type issues, or the fact that I just hate cooking and don't have the patience for it after a hard day's work. However I've looked into HF and Gousto and they seem to be for families up to about 4/5. There are two adults and 4 children in our home. Any recommendations?

I can't comment on the size element of your question as we are only 2. But by god it's worth it just to have one less thing to worry about. I hate having to decide whats for tea.

We get 3 meals a week delivered which suits us, as the other days due to shifts and gym commitments. I did have 4/5 at one time but we found we weren't eating them all before the next delivery is due.

I'm pretty happy with HF.

Size wise though, I imagine you'd easily be able to pad the meals out with additional rice or potatoes etc or may not need to if your 4 kids a small.

Thank you! Will look into the size of the portions as I would love to try it

Could you take out two subscriptions - one to serve four and one to serve two? What I do sometimes is browse the available recipes from Gousto, but buy the ingredients elsewhere (as due to dietary restrictions we’d need to make substitutions to most recipes anyway). It would still make planning easier as your picking from a smaller range of options than every recipe on the internet.

If hating cooking is the problem though, Gousto (and I think Hello Fresh is the same) there is still a fair amount of cooking involved. You still have to chop, prepare and cook the ingredients provided and some of the recipes are quite faffy. Something like Cook could work better for you as that’s all ready meals. They’re very popular here, though personally I’ve found them underwhelming.

We use simply cook so it's just the spice/flavour boxes and the I adjust the actual amounts of ingredients (usually only 4-5) to whoever is eating. They are very quick to do, and I haven't had any that we didn't like. Quite often I change them anyway for what I have in the fridge and swap chicken for prawns. I have considered one of the meal plan ones but worry I'd not use it in time and it'd go off and be wasted.

Depending on the age of your children HF for four may be enough. It feeds my family of five with children of 13,15 and 18 (and the 18yr old is my son who eats way more than me snd Dh)

dd is veggie so I sometimes I’ll order a chicken dish for example and just change the main dish for her.

when they are all at school and university dh and I do it for the two of us and there’s always enough for his lunch the next day.

We are a family of 5, 2 adults, 2 teens and a 10 yr old.

We've had around half a dozen hello fresh deliveries of 5 meals for 4 people . They almost all did us all for 7 days. So we cooked the 5 meals for 4 people but had leftovers that did the other two days as well.

You could also stretch meals with a bit of extra bought pasta, rice, bread or whatever the meal is

Try a box for 4 people and see how you get on, you might find that's it's plenty depending on your appetites.

I would also say that although it does take the hassle out of 'what shall we have for dinner'. It doesn't get rid of actual cooking, there can me quite a bit of chopping, prepping, breadcrumbing, cooking etc. Eg I would normally use frozen chopped onions and garlic but with HF I had to chop the onions and get out the garlic press. Likewise I can't usually be bothered with the faff and mess of breadcrumbing my own chicken etc

Just to add I hate cooking, so to begin with DH and I were like 'whats with all the chopping - arg!'

But now find it's not actually too onerous and helps us to unwind.

Compared to processed food, the taste is amazing so the effort 'cooking' is well worth it.

(It's also helped us both lose weight just by reducing the number of reasy meals we were eating before).

Thanks everyone, really good advice. Makes sense that there is still quite a bit of cooking involved, not sure what I was expecting really.

Think I'll give it a go. Kids are 6, 7, 11 and 15 and none of them have huge appetites unless it's something they love!

Probably worth a try and see how the portions are. You might need to add a bit of extra veg or pasta/rice to make it stretch, but it will depend on everyone’s appetite. There is definitely still lots of cooking involved as you need to prepare and cook the meal. They just send all the ingredients you need.