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 always found them tiny as well. For me they are not worth it as I am a competent cook and only really explored them when I had discount codes. Last gousto we had DH and I used a box for 4, for the two of us.

thanks everyone. Can see it varies widely.
Never thought of checking the calories before I order. Will look at that next time. I think what prompted it was that I had a meal last night and they sent pork sausage meat to make meatballs. 150g between 2 people. It was tiny! I ended up cutting up a pack of sausages to add to it and bulk it out. It was a lovely recipe though so will keep it to make again buying my own ingredients.

Hello fresh we found the portions small. With Hey Gusto we have fared a lot better with the portion size unless it is a more expensive meat such as diced beef then it was too small for DP apparently!

But you see a standard serving of raw meat actually is 75g and would be about 200 calories which when served with a sauce and pasta would be a normal sized meal. However much of the sausage meat did you consider would be a normal one person portion/ how much extra did you add?

We've just cancelled it and are going to try meal planning for a few weeks. We always got a box for 4 for three of us and the portion sizes really varied.
My task for the next few weeks is to see if I can spend less than £65 a week for four meals.

I keep the recipe cards I like to do just that.

Annoyingly I didn't keep many. Only got about 8 or so but I've found plenty of similar recipes online. We're on a bit of a mission to reduce outgoings at the minute so Gousto was one we'd see if we can save money on.
Plus it's one less massive cardboard box to get rid of every week 🤣🤣😅

150g of sausage meat is about 2 sausages (Sainsburys pack is 400g for 6, so 2 sausages 133g). I feel like one sausage per person isn’t a standard portion. Though if it’s small meatballs dotted in a pasta sauce, it might feel like it goes further. We had 2 chopped up chicken breasts in pasta bake for 4 of us the other day, but there were lots of veggies in there too, felt like enough as a part of the dish.

You didn’t make soup with the carcass? 😳😳😳

I think Hello Fresh does tend to bulk up their meals with pasta/rice/potatoes and with most recipes you can pay to double up on meat if you want more, so maybe do that? But the NHS does suggest no more than 70g of processed or red meat per day - https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/eat-well/food-types/meat-nutrition/

This seems sensible. But I’d manage that by having eg a sensible 2 sausage portion one day, and no meat the next, rather than small amounts daily.

That's really weird because I had a meatball recipe recently and they sent 240g of pork mince for 2 people to make the meatballs. Was it Hello Fresh?

In fact all the recipes I'm looking at have about 240g of meat for 2 people. Has something gone wrong with your order?

I’m just here to congratulate you in giving cooking a go ! 👏👏👏

We have Slimming World Kitchen boxes and the portion sizes are generally pretty generous. Meals are generally great - we have veggie ones but the odd meat one I’ve had has been good too

I like them all. Portion sizes are hot and miss, I just like not being stuck for food ideas most evenings.
Calorie wise I just have a smaller amount as I'm trying to get my wedding body in check.

We started HF a while back and I posted on here as the first box I received, the chicken pesto portion looked tiny! Most people said it would be fine and tbf they always have been and we don't feel hungry after.

Same here - been doing them for years, totally agree. If it’s a meat/fish plus salad and potatoes, I usually end up with a tiny bit of protein and most of the salad, because there’s not enough protein for my very tall, skinny, sporty teenager.

But 240g for two people is tiny!

Like a PP said, they’re inconsistent. If you look at the calories some of them are very low for an evening meal.

I kept to what was given but my DP sometimes needed to add some sides.

I tried Hello Fresh once and thought it was stingy.

And yet DH and I have been having their meals for years with no problems with the portion sizes.

But if you were buying meat to make your own meatballs, surely you would buy a pack of 400 or 500g of mince for two people?

I have a big appetite and we have Grubby (which is vegan). The portions are massive.

No, I'd buy something like 450g of meat for three people (me, DH and teen DS) so not that far off Hello Fresh portions.

If I’m making sausage pasta, where I break sausages up into chunks to go with the pasta sauce, I’d use one pack of 6 between 4. That’s about 400g. If it was sausages and mash for tea, I’d need more than that (honestly, nearly double). But for meatballs with sauce and pasta, I think 400/500g is ok for 4 - and i always always over cater for massive hungry teens. I’m not being all “teeny tiny portions”.