To ask if Gousto is better than Hello Fresh?

[Talkwhilstyouwalk]

Which is better value and are the ingredients of the same quality?

At the moment I'm working through all of them and making the most of the discounts for new subscribers. So far I'm impressed with both, although hello fresh is perhaps a little less varied (they seem to be big fans of courgettes and red peppers).

Gousto is far and away the better. I used a referral code on here for Hello Fresh so it was really cheap, but at really didn't like the recipes in the end.

I get Gousto once a month or so at the moment, in fact it turns up today. Much better quality ingredients and out of, say, 100 recipes we've had maybe 3 we weren't keen on but none we couldn't eat.

Is anyone wants to try it, this link / code gives you 65% of your first box then 30% off any other boxes in the next month. I get £20 credit towards my next box!

cook.gousto.co.uk/raf?promo_code=ALLIS33205208&utm_source=android app

I've tried Gousto, Hellofresh, Green Chef and Simply Cook and they all had different problems for me as a vegetarian wanting to eat low carb food.

Simply Cook sounded interesting and I liked the idea of adding my own ingredients to their flavourings but everything had sugar in it (Garlic puree with sugar is foul) and the Sag Paneer recipe I tried tasted like heinz tomato soup.

Hello Fresh had some nice recipes and the quality of the ingredients I got was generally very good, but it was hard to find low carb vegetarian food and too many of the recipes were variations on lentils and sweet potato. I was lucky in that when I had ingredients missing it was never anything vital - it was usually things like herbs or stock.

Gousto was very similar to HelloFresh in my view although with better quality control in that I never had anything missing, but there was the same reliance on lentils and sweet potato. I don't really want to add several different versions of dahl each week.

Green Chef had the best recipes for my preferences and the quality of the ingredients was superb, but I can't afford to pay £5 per portion on a regular basis.

Just switched to HF from Gousto because Gousto were abysmal in dealing with a delivery failure and had previously failed to respond to a complaint about choosing completely inappropriate dishes when their website crashed and my order didn’t complete.

Much less choice of recipes on HF, but I like that I can order for three people rather than having to go for 2 or 4. Taste wise, so far no difference. And both worth it for taking away the pain of working out what to cook week in week out.

I get a Gousto box every week, the recipes are much more family friendly, I didn't rate the quality or freshness of Hello fresh. Gousto have more to choose from too, lots more vegan and meat free options.

We much prefer the spice only boxes
www.simplycook.com/ppc/gen0?&utm_source=ppcgen&utm_medium=genkw&utm_campaign=spicebox&KW=21005&voucherCode=ppc_gen_spicebox_0&gclid=Cj0KCQjwuMuRBhCJARIsAHXdnqPWGh8nGMDzsv3cV2KKH28uXqkHpH7jo7d8NXyERg5_FmWdAw9nHxUaAkxXEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds
It’s easy to substitute ingredients to suit what you have in or for me as I’m dieting
You choose options, can check extra ingredients needed at time of order
We just use them 1-2 times a week to get us cooking new things

Gousto is amazing!

However we can't really afford it so we just get a box for special occasions (ie a birthday week - we get 4 nice meals instead of eating out once)

Oh I would love to do it every week! Takes so much stress out of planning - but it really is occasional here on price grounds.

Interesting to see everyone prefers Gousto we tried it for 4 people and found the portions tiny the chicken breast they sent were like they were off a pigeon and everyone was still hungry! We use HelloFresh and have never had anything missing, find the produce fairly good quality although we never really duplicate meals they do all feel a little samey. There's a lot of mash... We mix it up and change it if we don't want the mash for example and do roast pots.

Things like the pasta dishes I normally have enough for 5th person/someone lunch the next day. I just didn't get that with Gousto maybe I'll try it again as I find it so easy and takes the thought out of dinner planning and shopping which is relentless and boring!

Simply Cook sounded interesting and I liked the idea of adding my own ingredients to their flavourings but everything had sugar in it (Garlic puree with sugar is foul) and the Sag Paneer recipe I tried tasted like heinz tomato soup

I thought that about Simply Cook, so much sugar. I did wonder if it was because I picked Vietnamese/Indonesian recipes. Some of those do have sugar in, but I don't normally add it if making say red Thai curry at home from paste.

Gousto was very similar to HelloFresh in my view although with better quality control in that I never had anything missing, but there was the same reliance on lentils and sweet potato. I don't really want to add several different versions of dahl each week

You certainly don't at the prices they charge. I often make a big pot of dahl, that does lunch for the whole week for about a pound or two. It doesn't even need any particular unusual ingredients either, just lentils, butter, garlic and basic spices that cost nothing and many people would have unless they never cook Indian food.

I've tried Mindful Chef and Gousto and prefer Gousto. MC use some weird ingredients, some of which ended up spoiling whole meals (coconut yoghurt instead of coconut milk in savoury dishes...) and portion sizes better with Gousto. Neither have a family of 5 option, which is irritating, but we can usually make Gousto stretch with some extra veg.

Going against the grain but I prefer Hello Fresh. The recipes appeal to me more than Gousto and I find the portions are very generous.

Just buy food?

Gousto customer service is better.

Hello Fresh are a bunch of useless automatons who only work off a script and totally failed to even engage to try to resolve the recurrent delivery issues I was experiencing.

@BarbaraofSeville

I wish Asda etc did something similar with their online delivery service. I’d definitely use them

They do, or at least very similar, at normal grocery prices, with normal amounts of packaging.

Look at the recipes section, which I think all the supermarket websites have, pick the ones you like the look of, and click the button that adds the ingredients to your shopping list.

You can then tweak the list to remove ingredients you already have, switch brands, pick organic meat, choose special offers, etc etc, then add the rest of your shopping list and order as normal.

You will have to buy the odd spice that you might have to think to use again, but that's the only downside compared with no excess packaging, fewer problems with missing ingredients (people repeatedly talk about this, which makes HF and Gousto totally pointless as far as I can see) and far cheaper.

I can't believe they've got away with getting so many people to pay so much for meals that rely on basic ingredients like courgettes and pasta. I've had a look on occasion and anything vaguely interesting is always either sold out or is even more expensive, and in most cases, we have over half the ingredients in already.

I'm glad you said this, @BarbaraofSeville, as I was thinking this too. I've never tried any of these services as I can't get past the idea of all that packaging. Having said that, even when I worked full-time, I enjoyed cooking, food shopping and meal planning, and my family and I have no hang ups about eating similar things over and over again, so I'm clearly not in the target market.

@MasterBeth I'm a rubbish cook. I was never shown and I've never bothered to learn myself. For me these boxes are a lesson in cooking and ingredients. I've tried a lot of new meals I never would have considered before and learnt cookery basics. I get they maybe aren't the best value for money but they definitely have their place for those who are clueless/busy/lazy.

[quote practicallyperfect55]@MasterBeth I'm a rubbish cook. I was never shown and I've never bothered to learn myself. For me these boxes are a lesson in cooking and ingredients. I've tried a lot of new meals I never would have considered before and learnt cookery basics. I get they maybe aren't the best value for money but they definitely have their place for those who are clueless/busy/lazy. [/quote]
But once you've tried them, you can see what they're made up from and save yourself pounds and pounds.

I have tried both and much prefer Hello Fresh .

We've got round to trying Mindful Chef at last. Not tried any others.Meals have been great. Even better than I expected.

I much preferred gustuo.

Hello fresh was very limited in comparison

We love gousto, been using them for over 6 months and not got bored yet.
Hello fresh was very boring after a while and the veg was poor quality.
We've had loads of free gifts from gousto and regular discount codes. I love not having to think about what's for tea and there are loads of healthy options.
It is more expensive than buying yourself but we have cut our food waste massively.
Cheeky code for anyone who wants to try with a discount! cook.gousto.co.uk/raf?promo_code=GINA42464921&utm_source=androidapp

I found the portion sizes with Hello Fresh to be huge, often enough for lunch the next day and the quality of ingredients was good.

It just felt a bit odd getting little sachets of things like tomato puree, veg stock and herbs that I've got in the fridge or cupboard anyway.

We prefer Gousto. We find it has more variety of recipes and when I went back to browse hello fresh I found a lot of the recipes we would've liked to order came at a premium.

We often get a box with 4 meals - 2 dinners for DH and I and 2 of the 10 min recipes for DH's lunch.

We now have 2 of the recipe folders full of recipes from Gousto so we quite often have a week or 2 without deliveries, but meal plan using previous recipes

I've just cancelled Hello Fresh after about nine months of weekly boxes. I've always found their customer service to be good. A couple of times I've had missing ingredients and they credit your next box immediately for far more than the cost of the missing item. However, the meals are all quite samey, lots of noodle based recipes with peppers and courgettes featuring in lots of meals.

I've swapped to Gousto now and the veg hasn't been that fresh this week. The spring onions were particularly limp and sorry. The meals we've had this week have been tasty though. Last nights sausage and warm potato salad was lush!

Yes!!

We've had hello fresh for over a year and have never had a problem. Can pick & choose recipes and always had fresh ingredients. I like that we can order for 3 (al the there for 2 or 4) and there's usually enough for DH lunch the next day!

I wonder if they are distributed from different regions? A friend in the Midlands always had issues with hers. But as I said, never anything missing here or poor quality. It may well depend on area?