Is Gousto / hellofresh / other meal kits worth it?

[amaiseing]

I have just been looking as it’s £40 for 4 meals for two. This seems so expensive. We did it years ago so have used our first order codes, so we would have to pay full price. Does anyone do it regularly and is there another way to get things cheaper? I love the principle of it sending different recipes each time as we aren’t very creative and do just cycle round the same meals, but weighing up the cost of it

We did HelloFresh for a few months as at the time my DH couldn't cook and was off work while I was the breadwinner. Really helped his confidence in the kitchen and he still makes some of the recipes - now he cooks a few times a week.

Nope. I've tried all of them and they were fine at the very cheap trial price the but full price is insane and there's too much washing up. We're quite simple in that way though.

Just look up recipes online if you want to be adventurous.

No not worth it at all.

Portions are ridiculously small... you could do so much better for the same money and using your own recipes...

We do Gousto pretty much every week. Yes, its expensive, about £38 for four meals for two of us.

However, if we don't get it, then by about Thursday one of us goes, "Can't be arsed cooking, fancy a Chinese / Pizza / Curry?" and then we've spent £40 on one meal instead of 4.

So in the long run it does work out healthier and cheaper for us.

For all the people complaining about portion sizes..... have you ever considered that those are the recommended portion sizes for adults and that we have all become pre-disposed to eating too much?!

Granted my DH likes a slightly larger portion, doesnt really take a lot to add an extra potato or extra carrot, whic you can get with your normal shop as you will know what Gousto/HF etc you have arriving in advance.

We got gousto quite a bit during the pandemic when there was very little to do to “treat” ourselves

as vegetarians we found it great for recipe ideas and was really surprised how many new receipes there were every time I looked at the menu.

several years on we rarely buy the boxes but 90% of our cooking is from former gousto boxes. So we love the recipes.

cant comment on hello fresh.

tried simply cook and didnt like it at all. You o only get flavorings and no way to realistically recreate

but gousto gets a big thumbs up from us. I’d say we’ve really liked 70% of the meals and 29% have been nice but not necessarily ones we’d make again. A very small number I wasn’t impressed with. Never had an issue with the quality of the ingredients either. Been a bit annoyed at times with the amount of packaging but I think they’ve cut down on it a lot.

Oh and portion size is perfect for us

I've tried Hello Fresh, Gousto, and Mindful Chef, all with big discounts, and was really disappointed with all of them. Even with the discount I didn't think they were value for money. I found the quality of the meat and vegetables was really poor, and when you get four meals arriving in a box, it takes ages to sort out all the different little packages of ingredients, so you may as well cook from scratch using better quality ingredients. None of the meals we had from any of the companies tasted particularly nice and the portions from all three were TINY. I've also used the simply cook spices, which were so much nicer and you can use whatever quality meat, vegetables etc you choose, and you can make normal portion sizes.

Not sure if I'm allowed to share the code but Green Chef have a decent deal on ATM.

https://www.greenchef.co.uk/pages/resolution_referral?c=FIH-5UVZEAWQQCCU&discount_comm_id=87943761-508c-4e80-864c-aebe48c0d901&mealsize=2-2&plans_ab=true&utm_campaign=notification&utm_medium=clipboard&utm_source=freebies

It's two meals for two people for £4.99 as a offer. If you use my link to sign up I'll get credit (though I can't vouch for them yet because I only signed up on the offer myself.)

One thing I do love about Hello Fresh is how everything is packed into separate bags - also makes it super easy if you're not cooking at home!

www.gousto.co.uk/raf/?promo_code=FIONA45005051&utm_source=weblink
here’s my link if anyone wants to use it to get 65 percent off. I wish I’d used a link. This thread persuaded me to try it out! I’ve ordered my first one for Friday.
If you use the link you get 65% off and I get £20 off.
so please go for it

apologies if I’m not allowed to post this?

We've used Mindful Chef since lockdown. My DH likes the portion sizes and he's quite a big eater.
We have changed to 1 person because the ingredients, except meat, are for 2 so it's made it cheaper for us. I either buy the extra portion of meat or buy 2 and freeze the Mindful Chef one until we have a recipe using the same meat.
We eat vegetarian at least 3 times a week so like the variation Mindful Chef offers. Rarely have to buy extra for a veggie meal.

I've used them. I think they're okay for the short term, like a couple of weeks.

Like others have said, sometimes the quality of the meat was not nice at all and I too have ended going out to buy my own for the recipe, which only adds to the expense. I have done both Hello and Gousto, but wouldn't go back to them.

I thought Gousto was good for my first box. But beware of missing the order date! Apparently I missed it and was sent 2kg of gnocchi, some dried pasta and an odd assortment of meat!
Waiting for a reply to my complaint.....

Hellofresh used to be good but quality has definitely gone down, a lot of the meals you could do yourself for way cheaper! I prefer Gousto, better quality and variety of meals. However we only get them on offer as they're so expensive otherwise.

This thread is going to quickly get clogged up with everyone posting their referral codes to try to get some money off for themselves if you use it!

Personally, I found Gousto and Hello Fresh expensive, not that tasty, wasteful and environmentally unfriendly with loads of unnecessary packaging so I give them a swerve.

My favourite is to use CherryPick, where you can pick your recipes and automatically populate a shopping list or an online shopping basket at a variety of different supermarkets with complete flexibility (so you can swap out ingredients or take off stuff you already have in stock). This means you get an experience that's as simple as Gusto/HF, is supermarket prices and no excess packaging or waste. I can't recommend it highly enough. You can also use any of their many preloaded recipes (which are constantly being added to) or import and save your own recipes.

I also have used Simply cook. They are quick and easy. I don't like having to have a subscription and they stopped doing "one off" boxes so I haven't had them for a while. They are quite tasty, but there's only a fairly small range of recipes.

I get hello fresh. Of course it's more expensive than you doing the shop yourself, but that's the point isn't it? To save you time and inconvenience. Plus it's just the amount you need so no wastage (tons and tons of edible food gets thrown out every week).
I like that the portions are controlled, it gives us lots of choice and lots of meals I normally wouldn't bother making.
Buy of on a tight budget then no, it's not worth it.

I've used them when there's been a code but I don't think they're that good. What I have done is hung onto the cards I like as DH finds them easier to follow than a recipe book. Then if he has to cook I can see that the ingredients are in so he can make that meal. Sometimes if I'm super organised I'll do my own "box" by selecting the things I want to cook, putting them on my order and then unpacking the delivery into separate carrier bags for each recipe and labelling them before they go in the fridge. Then I have the convenience of the box with a wider choice of recipes and better quality meat etc.

I've used hello fresh/gousto/green chef quite a bit but only when they send me discount codes, then I cancel my subscription until they send me more!
I find the quality and portion sizes generally good. They get on my nerves sometimes with wanting to use the oven and hob at the same time and I do sometimes ignore their method and do it my way.
I like to keep the recipe cards for inspiration for the future.
It is definitely more expensive than DiY but it's good for when you get in a rut with what to cook.
I also think they would be a great way to give someone confidence in cooking or to eat a bit healthier if you were a freezer to oven kind of cook.