To ask what people think of their free Gusto boxes?

[londonmummy1966]

As lots of people were sharing codes last week I thought I'd try a box - I've had some from Hello Fresh before - to see how they compared.

Mine arrived today - I had a text yesterday giving a 2 hour delivery window and the box arrived within that - one up on Hello Fresh which only gives a 12 hour window and the couriers don't always knock so I don't know how long a box has been on the doorstep.

The contents are all there although the herbs and spinach look a little tired. THe chilled items came in a cardboard chiller box which would be good for taking things on a self catering trip/picnic or could otherwise be recycled.

Recipe cards are easy to follow and tonights meal - herby rice with basa fillet was really nice - fish portions are more generous than Hello Fresh.

The down points were that the recipes were less interesting to choose from than Hello Fresh a lot of pasta and rice dishes and not that many veggie options. Also Hello Fresh boxes divide up the ingredients between recipes so you have four bags each containing what you need for a dish with one further bag with any ingredients to be shared between recipes. Much easier to sort out and put away.

So I'm happy as they delivered what they said they would when they said they would and it tastes fine. Not sure I'd buy a full priced box though and am still pondering about 30% off or not - that might depend on whether or not I can also claim my voucher code credit.

Anyone else?

I'm surprised you are saying less interesting then hello fresh as I think hello fresh is a bit more mainstream and gousto more interesting!

I found the veggie options really good! (Haven’t used them for a while)

We love gousto, it keeps our portion sizes good as well as not wasting anything. I've stopped before and regretted it. I had hello fresh for a bit as well, they are better for choice ,but the courier was rubbish. overall I think it's worth it , but there's only two of us , not so sure about if it was a family especially with teenagers who eat a lot😁

@londonmummy1966 when you sign up for the trial do you have to give credit card details etc etc? And the remember to cancel etc etc… I’m mulling over whether this is really a free meal (or maybe actually four free meals in the box?!)

Ours arrived today. Its pretty comprehensive and took some unpacking but not complaining. All the cherry tomatoes were completely squashed as they had been packed badly but overall looks really good!!!

Interesting. I have ordered one but not for a couple of weeks due to different household members being away etc before then.

Had my first one tonight and was huge portion (for 2) and delicious!!
Was the crispy chilli noodle beef I think, something like that anyway..

Will use up credit on next few weeks but not sure I'd do a box every week etc.. maybe once a month

@Letussee - yes you do need to give credit card details as it is a subscription service but it is pretty straightforward to cancel after you've had your first box. When I checked out on ordering the free box it showed an amount to be billed to my card of £0.00. The other good thing about the offer is that someone has ordered from my referral code and the credit is available against my next box with the 30% discount so that box will only cost £17 so I feel that is good value and I have reordered for next week. I'll PM you my code in case you haven't got one already from the eleventy billion threads already. I didn't want this thread to be another one with discount codes so I won't put it here. If anyone else wants it please message me.

I’m really impressed with ours. It was well packaged and the ingredients all seem fresh. We’ve had the first meal tonight and it was lovely! Will definitely be trying it again although I’m more limited as we have a plant based diet.
Also have a code for a free box if anyone would like it.

Mine comes tomorrow and I'm looking forward to trying it out!

Much prefer Gousto to hello fresh - I think they're much more interesting meals, if a bit more of a faff to cook. Surprised you didn't think there were many veggie options, I was showing my veggie SIL yesterday and there were 43 veggie options available for the date we were looking at. A lot of their recipes there's the option to swap the meat out for either a meat substitute or veg.

Mine went missing so I haven't got it yet, sadly!

Ours arrived today, I found it quite similar to Hello Fresh in that I can’t stand the wasteful packaging but like it to get new ideas for family meals (and because it was free!).

we had the gnocchi with chicken & cheese/pepper sauce, 3 of us loved it and one was so-so, which counts as a success in our house!

I doubt I’d ever subscribe as I don’t think they are good value at full price, mostly because I enjoy cooking and already have a lot of the ingredients in my cupboard so to be delivered two teeny sachets of balsamic/soy/honey/cornflour just seems a bit pointless.

But if I didn’t really like cooking, had plenty of money & wanted to eat well then I’d order every week!

Also Hello Fresh boxes divide up the ingredients between recipes so you have four bags each containing what you need for a dish with one further bag with any ingredients to be shared between recipes. Much easier to sort out and put away.

They’ve literally made this change in the last 2 weeks - previously each was in a separate bag with the number of the recipe card printed on it. It’s to cut down on packaging. I agree the individual bags are more convenient, but I really hate packaging waste so I’m hoist by my own principles really.

I find the range really great and never choose pasta - or very rarely. What does happen though is that if you leave ordering late then interesting stuff sells out so ordering as soon as you can helps. You can order up to 3 weeks in advance and then just change it the week before if you need to.

This is part of the reason I like it so much - the vegetarian range is so good and if you want to add meat instead to some portions it’s easy to see what works. Very helpful in a family of varying dietary preferences.

We had the Philly steak on ciabatta with potato salad tonight. All enjoyed it and was something a bit different. V impressed with quality of meat and freshness of ingredients.

Love Gousto. Way better than Hello Fresh.

I prefered it to hello fresh. Found some of the recipes a but fiddly though.

I didn’t get a free box but used a code from here to get the four meals for four people for about £17 deal, we then continued with the 30% discounts - I then ‘referred’ DH and we are working through those boxes now, before I’ll pause and use the credit that got me on the original subscription in my name - I also just referred a friend for a free box so that’s another £20 credit on that one.

In between all that we used a ‘free’ box from hello fresh and then tried one subsequent box from them.

I vastly preferred Gousto for the choice of pescatarian and vegetarian meals, I’m really surprised you thought the hello fresh ones were more interesting. I also found the ordering process more complicated on hello fresh and thought I’d chosen my meals but when they came it was something different entirely - with 3 out of 4 of the recipes being meat based. DH eats meat and so does the relative we had staying with us that week, so all was not lost, and I was able to adapt/ take some of the ingredients to make my own veggie version but that kind of cancelled out any perceived ease of preparing the meals gained by having pre measured ingredients. To be fair it was a very busy and hectic week and I could have just been distracted and a bit thick when ordering so possibly more a me issue than a Hello Fresh one!

I was slightly dubious before the very first one but honestly they’ve really made a difference to our meals and I’m enjoying looking forward to dinner and the cooking process again instead of feeling stuck in a bit of a rut as we had been. I’ll probably continue with Gousto even when I’ve exhausted all options for referrals/ discounts and have to pay full price!

We've found the recipes pretty bland in truth and always had to add seasoning or fresh herbs etc to spice them up in truth. Good value with the offer but won't order again. We've only had veggie recipes.

Can you Pm a code aswell if you still have one? ☺️ I tried hellofresh but wasn't impressed.

I got my box on Saturday. Made 2 recipes so far and both were very tasty. I've also got 60 of free credit sitting so I'll be ordering again

I love Gousto and can’t live without it. I’m also vegetarian and there are about 20 different options every week to choose from 🤔

We've really enjoyed ours and have another box coming on Saturday.

I did a quick price check with Sainsburys and Gousto is a little bit more expensive, but I've not had to think of what to cook and then check what we have in and buy in what we need, and if it's an unusual item might not even be able to buy it. To me, it is worth it, especially as I have been in a bit of a food rut.

What I didn't realise with my first one was the added surcharge for certain items or if there is more than one item of protein in it.

What I did like was having a dedicated dairy free section, though when I had a look through at the other sections there were df meals in those which weren't in the df section.

We have had the crispy chilli beef noodles (yum), chicken teriyaki (yum) and Sri Lankan prawn and crab curry (our fave so far, and the reason for the surcharge). Tomorrow we are having chicken laksa which I am looking forward to.

I think we will continue, for a while at least. I think it might help us cut down our current stupid food bill as we will only have to think of three meals, which will be much cheaper as they will probably be much plainer foods (roast chicken, cooked breakfast, spaghetti Bol or chilli for eg)

I haven’t had it free as already a regular but love Gousto. Imo so much more choice than Hello Fresh and more interesting meals.