People who use recipe boxes…

[Menonut]

I’ve tried both Hello Fresh and Gousto.
As someone who was never taught to cook, I’m finding they are really helpful in getting me out of the rut of cooking the same 5 meals all the time without spending £££ on different ingredients while I find my way. We really like the food and once I’ve learnt a recipe I’m adding it to my repotoire and buying the ingredients separately.

My question is this - do you find the portion sizes in the boxes small or are we overeating? I find I have to either bulk out the recipes with extra meat or pasta or I have to get a box for one person more than I’m actually cooking for? Just wondered if we were out of the ordinary?

For reference I’m cooking for me, plus husband and 21 year old son. Husband and son would never survive on the portions they provide.

I have a good appetite and was surprised to find that most were sufficient, although I sometimes added more veg or salad.

We do the 3 person box for 2 which gives me a small lunch the next day with some meals. I do think these have been an eye opener to how much we over eat though.

I use Gousto from time to time, and i find the portion sizes really good, we often have leftovers, depending on the meal.

I'm amazed. I'm an over eater & I get the gousto one person meals. They are huge! I've had to stop eating the whole lot & saving it for the next day. Today's chowder was 2 big bowls full.

I add extra veg sometimes, but otherwise no I think the portions are good

We use Gusto and find the portions perfect. It makes me realise how much I was over cooking before and I love the fact there’s no waste.

I’ve tried Gousto, Hello Fresh, and Mindful Chef and found the portion sizes were tiny. I also thought the quality of the fresh ingredients was very poor.

We’ve used Gousto a few times and found it hit and miss with portion sizes. Some things were a decent portion and others were small and needed something extra - crusty bread, salad, veg etc

We use Gousto, love it. The portion sizes are usually too big, we usually have leftovers.

I agree with you OP, I find the portion sizes small. But this is Mumsnet: home of competitive under-eating and a place where posters will tell you they can feed 20 people using a small chicken, so you may be asking the wrong crowd…

You can see the calorie counts on the recipes. The Hello Fresh ones really vary from 600ish up to a ridiculous 1100 for some! So if you're looking for a heartier portion , you could just choose the higher calorie ones.

Honestly, I'm an over eater, I'm two stone over weight & I can eat the portions but realised that it was almost (not quite) the amount I would cook for 2, so now I'm trying to save some to have the next day, probably with some bread or something.
I've just checked & the meals I've had seem to be in the 550-650 calorie bracket.

I actually find the portions pretty good (Hello Fresh). My 22 year old son, who has a bottomless pit, does too. Sure I could eat more, but I think the portions are correct in terms of being ‘normal’. It’s surprisingly how small the amount of meat looks, but it’s adequate.
I do find they rarely include enough vegetables though, so always add - and when I rate the meals I say this every time! This does increase volume but in a healthy way.

I promise I’m not a mumsnet massive salad-er but I think the portions as big. I get Hello Fresh 3 people and it does me, DH, both kids and a lunch the next day. Granted the kids don’t eat massive amounts.

We used to find that a three-person Hello Fresh meal fed four, but maybe they've changed it? Haven't used them in a while.

DH is 18 stone so there's no competitive teeny eating going on here.

We do Gousto and it works for us by getting a 4 person box for 3. Having said that DH is 6 foot 5 and does a manual job so he needs 2-3 x as much dinner as me 😂

We've tried Hello Fresh for the first time this month. We're usually fairly big eaters but have found that we're usually full after the portions provided. We've been snacking less in the evenings too.

I do Hello Fresh, two meal portions, for myself and 23 year old son. We only choose the veggie options as there wasn't enough meat in the meat recipes to fill him up! Veggie recipes can vary. Some are filling - had one with bulghar wheat this weekend and we could have eaten double the quantities!

We use Gousto, my friend does too and said sometimes her husband is still hungry but we have found it to be enough, albeit one meal that was skimpy - since then I check the calorie counts and recipe details so I can see the quantity of meat etc in it and occasionally order additional sides like veg spring rolls if we are having a Chinese or the tenderstem broccoli if it's a casserole type meal for example. We were definitely cooking too much food before we used Gousto and would often throw leftovers away despite good intentions to have it the next day. I was surprised at the weight of rice in the recipes when we would have easily cooked double that for ourselves, yet somehow it is enough to keep us satiated. I especially like that we have no more food waste. There is only two of us in the household now though, I'm not sure the boxes would work for a family with hungry teenagers in it!

We found them generally big.. we got a 3 person box for 4 both HF and Gousto. And still got left overs. We might add extra veg for meals that seemed light on it

I find them really inconsistent. The pasta dishes always seem like loads but anything like chicken/steak and potatoes seems like a tiny portion. Quite often I can stretch a pasta dish for 2 between 4 if I add a couple more handfuls of pasta which we always have in anyway.

I order 3 person box for 2 people, as I also find that they can often be a bit small. It's a bit hit and miss though, for example today I'm still hungry after dinner, but yesterday couldn't finish it all. Overall they are too small rather than too big though! Maybe 20% of the time the portion is too much when I order 3 person box for 2. Rest of the time the amount will do us, or I could eat more. We're not overweight or very tall, btw! Maybe we exercise too much?

We found hello fresh to be stingy with portion sizes - half of a 2 person serve was a good amount for me (average height & weight woman) but not enough for my husband (moderately fit man). After spending some time buying things to bulk out the meals we've just given up on them. It's not worth it to have to buy other things to make the meal sufficient, might as well just plan meals and cook from scratch.

I’m a glutton and was surprised to find the Gousto boxes to be adequate. My husband didn’t though, he was still hungry.

They spot on or too much usually for us. We have Hello Fresh.