Find out what Mumsnetters think about Gousto recipes boxes NOW CLOSED

[JustineBMumsnet]

This is the feedback thread for the 100 Mumsnetters who have been testing a Gousto recipe box, including recipes from their new range in partnership with Annabel Karmel.

Here’s what Timo Boldt, CEO and Founder of Gousto says: “For people who want to cook and enjoy good food together but don’t always have the time, ingredients or know-how to do it well, Gousto delivers simple ways to (re) discover the joys of cooking, so you can choose what you want, cook it with confidence and enjoy sharing it with others.

Taking the hassle out of planning, shopping and cooking, Gousto delivers up to 4 meals for the week with the ingredients and recipe ready to make, so there’s no more ‘what’s for dinner’ panic.

This month, we’ve launched a 3-month partnership with family cooking expert, Annabel Karmel to introduce 20 additional family-friendly recipes to our menu. Supporting busy families with tried-and-tested, nutritionally balanced meals, proven to suit fussy eaters, including Heavenly Hidden Veg Bolognese and Mouthwatering Veggie Mac & Cheese – the new recipes will allow you to enjoy cooking dishes which suit everyone around the dinner table.

Each recipe uses Gousto’s fresh, quality ingredients – including 100% British meat, sustainable fish and free-range eggs from trusted suppliers – allowing you to know what’s in every meal and feel confident you’re feeding your family well.”^

Testers, once you’ve tested the recipe box by cooking all recipes, please give your feedback by answering the below questions:
1. How easy did you find Gousto to use? How easy was selecting recipes and placing an order? How easy was it to follow the recipes and create the meals?
2. Thinking about the ingredients and recipes, how confident does Gousto make you feel that you're feeding your family well?
3. What did you think about the number of recipes you could choose from? What did you and your family think about the taste of the Gousto meals you tried?
4. What did you think about the option to order Annabel Karmel's recipes? Is this something you'd like to see continue in the future?
5. How did using Gousto differ to how you usually plan, shop for and cook your weekly meals?
6. Would you purchase Gousto meals again for your family?

All selected testers who give the required feedback will be entered into a prize draw where one MNer will win a £300 voucher.

Thanks and good luck!

MNHQ

Standard Insight T&Cs apply

BE VERY VERY WARY FOLKS

While I was grateful to try this box and was planning on ordering another I won’t ever use them again.

The reason for this is that I went online and chose recipes for a possible delivery this week but never got as far as clicking confirm because a family event came up before I could do so.

Despite this they sent the box and are saying I have reactivated my subscription so they cannot help. I did NOT reactivate my subscription as I didn’t actually go right through the ordering process. Nor did I supply payment details....despite this they delivered it anyway. The phrase “try’s not their luck”springs to mind.

My neighbour took delivery unfortunately ...I was away. Have got back this evening to it.

Am not happy about this at all ...all I can do is freeze the meat as we are away again tomorrow and Thursday.

So thanks Gousto for letting me try a box last week. Yes I would indeed have ordered again but after this debacle I won’t ever bother again.

1. How easy did you find Gousto to use? How easy was selecting recipes and placing an order? How easy was it to follow the recipes and create the meals?

I found it easy to use and look through the meal ideas on the website. It was easy to choose which recipes and great they did Sunday delivery!
I found the recipe cards very useful and easy to follow. Although a couple of my meals did not live up to the image on the cards!!

1. Thinking about the ingredients and recipes, how confident does Gousto make you feel that you're feeding your family well?

Seeing all the fresh ingredients made me feel good about serving my family these meals. There was a good variety and something for everyone.

1. What did you think about the number of recipes you could choose from? What did you and your family think about the taste of the Gousto meals you tried?

I thought the choice of recipes were quite limited and some meals were a bit too spicy for our liking but I particularly loved the chicken dinner and crunchy cottage pie - the cottage pie was loved by all the family and was our favourite.

1. What did you think about the option to order Annabel Karmel's recipes? Is this something you'd like to see continue in the future?

It is always nice to have different options but this didn't affect my choice and doesn't make me think any differently so it wouldn't bother me if it continued or not.

1. How did using Gousto differ to how you usually plan, shop for and cook your weekly meals?

I normally just buy lots of different things and try and come up with meals by using the ingredients i have got. With Gousto, it was nice to have an aim and a meal to work towards. It was nice to not have to think too much about what I was going to cook that evening, it was already planned for me.

1. Would you purchase Gousto meals again for your family?

I would definitely purchase if (1) i could afford to do it regularly and (2) if there was more choice - desserts would be good!

Sorry for another disappointed post..😫.... however I have had a terrible experience with Gousto...
I shall go on to explain....

1. How easy did you find Gousto to use? How easy was selecting recipes and placing an order? How easy was it to follow the recipes and create the meals?

Initially I was so excited to be chosen, I found the website easy to follow, great choice in menus and the website easy to navigate.. I put the mumsnet code in... I did it correctly, even checked. 0.00 it said on payment. YET it took my money, causing me to go overdrawn and a £30.00 cost at that!!!!!!! I was oblivious to this of course until I checked my banking. Prior to this it was all thumbs up! I will come onto customer service on the last question... bare with me....

2. Thinking about the ingredients and recipes, how confident does Gousto make you feel that you're feeding your family well?

I am left with such a bad taste with Gousto, however I shall try not to let it tar my review.
I think it was good- I feel like perhaps there wasn't as many portions of veg that I would normally serve, but overall- (mainly because it wasn't chicken dippers and beans) I felt like it did a good job.

3. What did you think about the number of recipes you could choose from? What did you and your family think about the taste of the Gousto meals you tried?

The taste was generally good, I thought the meat quality was good too. Typical of a high quality butcher rather than supermarket style mince etc. We chose as a family together, it was quite fun. The children loved the crunchy cottage pie, infact that was the grown ups favourite too. Very tasty (a little too calorific perhaps)
The tandoori fish was a fail on the kids, I knew it might be but took this opportunity to try them on something they wouldn't normally eat. Double chipotable burger was a winner (all in all quite good- however perhaps a little too much red meat in one week) I found the veg options a little uninspiring which is why we ended up going meat heavy!

4. What did you think about the option to order Annabel Karmel's recipes? Is this something you'd like to see continue in the future?

I associate AK with babies! My kids are 5 and 8. I have no idea why Gousto are trying this idea with AK and I certainly don't think it's necessary- well not to my family anyway. To be honest I struggled to pick one of the AK recipes but it said I had to try one if not two so I did what was asked. We tried the minty lamb koftas. They were ok. Nothing special. The adults least favourite meal. I did think AK had a healthy association???? 778 calories per portion??? That's just ridiculous!!! Not impressed by AK range at all.

5. How did using Gousto differ to how you usually plan, shop for and cook your weekly meals?

I do normally meal plan, a rough sketch of a week at least but I'm flexible. This box did not give me flexibility. The dates were so short that I had no option other to cook it back to back for four days or freeze it. I was quite disappointed with the inflexibility. Life happens, plans change- this box was rigid. I didn't go to Waitrose for four days though so that's good I suppose!😜....

6. Would you purchase Gousto meals again for your family?

I WOULD NOT touch this company with a barge pole. Don't get me wrong, I was very grateful and excited to be picked. However, the customer service is APPALLING!!! It took me 6 days to get a refund. It actually cost me £30 in overdraft fees because of it. They have not responded to my complaints, however they did credit me £10 towards my next box!!! As if I'm ever going to order with them again!😳.... it's a shame, the quality of the ingredients were good, (a bit wasteful on packaging) but to me customer service is very important. Even when I eventually got through to someone on the phone, he sounded about ten and couldn't be more disinterested in my complaint!!!! NEVER EVER will I use this company going forward. The ingredients may be nice, however short dates, shocking customer service.... I have zero faith in them...

Maybe I was unlucky... however- this trial has cost me £30 and a lot of wasted time and angst. Sorry to be a misery, and I was very very grateful and excited to be selected. However I have just been left out of pocket and with a very sour taste... literally!!!!!😨😨😨😨😨😭😭

Yep.... not good customer service at all is it?

ARE YOU READING THESE RESPONSES GOUSTO?

If so perhaps look at your customer service...it needs a big overhaul.

I only received my box today but have already cooked one meal. I'll post full feedback in a couple of days when I've cooked the other meals.

My initial thoughts are that there is a lot of very fresh food in my fridge now, and I'm looking forward to trying the recipes.

On the down side, there is an awful lot of packaging, with individually wrapped portions rather than consolidated tubs e.g. tomato puree in 1 and 2tbsp pots (see pic).

The creamy haddock linguine was a huge hit with the whole family, even picky DS(9)!

DeloresJaneUmbridge Shocking isn't it!! I get the impression they actually don't care! They certainly don't care that this trial cost me £30! Sorry to hear you had a bad experience too! 🙄🙄🙄

Bit concerning to hear of people being billed in error. I can't now remember what information you have to enter - is it a credit card? I recall the MN code and I entered that but I feel I now ought to check whether I've been billed but I can't remember which method of payment was requested and don't want to go onto the website as someone got another unwanted box just from browsing it appears.

We absolutely LOVED our Gousto box!!

1. It was really easy to use & we enjoyed choosing the recipes. Only problem was deciding as they all looked delicious.

1. I felt confident that I was feeding my family well. Perhaps not as many vegetables in the dishes as I would normally serve but you could always top up or just have more fruit/veg that day. Plus the ds tried foods they wouldn't normally try so that is a bonus.

1. There were a good number of recipes to choose from with a great variety of dishes. We all found something we liked the look of. Funnily enough it was the recipe we were looking forward to the least (pork & pineapple tacos) that everyone enjoyed the most!

1. It's a good idea to include an AK recipe but actually we enjoyed it the least. It was salmon & rice & pretty uninspiring. I didn't like the fact the salmon had the skin on yet it was cooked briefly in the oven - i skinned it which meant the salmon portions were a little meagre (not very good at skinning slippery raw fish!).

1. I don't t normally plan as exactly as this so I felt nice and organised. However I did miss inventing meals with leftovers which I usually do at least twice a week.

1. I will definitely order from Gousto again. I thought it was a great success & I'm really sorry to hear of others' poor experiences.

Backingvocals mine was a debit card- unfortunately poor timing before I got paid. Fingers crossed you will be fine- I don't think too many of us were charged........ 😳

We have these and they are amazing xxx

I didn't get to try the gousto box, my email account was hacked, and when I finally got back in my code had expired

We've had great fun cooking this week with our Gousto box. Both DC have enjoyed cooking a full meal with minimal input from me.

1. Very easy to use website, liked the option to change my mind quite late.

Recipe cards were foolproof and I liked the step by step images.

1. I felt confident I was feeding my family well as the ingredients were so fresh. I often cheat with pre-made sauces so making from scratch was good.

1. I liked the choice of recipes, would have preferred 3-5 more.

We loved the lamb kofta and the hoisin chicken was a hit.

1. I associate Annabel Karmel with baby food, not that I ever used it.

The connection meant nothing to me and only chose the dishes as we had too. It certainly wouldn't influence me to buy in the future.

1. My normal shopping is to wander aimlessly around supermarkets getting overwhelmed and coming out with the same old food, week in and week out.

I loved that everything was included in one box. Made me feel very organised!!

1. I would order Gousto again if the price could be justified. For instance, if we had a mad busy week where the easiness would offset the price.

I'd prefer if it was 5 meals for a full working week. 4 is a bit neither here nor there. Also would like desserts. Loved the wooden spoon.

Thanks for choosing me MNHQ

Loved the wooden spoon.

What wooden spoon? Did I miss out on something?! I WANT A WOODEN SPOON!

Shatners
Fine big long handled wooden spoon came with mine.

Can I add to my feedback please?
I forgot to say that the portions are HUGE.

Looks like a very interesting brand. Will be doing some research, of my own, on this brand. 💋

1. How easy did you find Gousto to use? How easy was selecting recipes and placing an order? How easy was it to follow the recipes and create the meals?

The recipes were very clear and easy. I asked my husband to make one of the recipes (lamb and hummous flatbreads) and although the recipe was clear, it took him ages and I had to explain timings to him, as he wasn't entirely sure how to do "meanwhile" as he doesn't cook very often. I'm not sure I needed a recipe for aubergine parmigiana but can see that some people would. Instructions were clear and pictures helpful.

1. Thinking about the ingredients and recipes, how confident does Gousto make you feel that you're feeding your family well?

I liked that it was all fresh food and think you could eat really well, if expensively, on this plan.

1. What did you think about the number of recipes you could choose from? What did you and your family think about the taste of the Gousto meals you tried?

For this test, it seemed limited as to the number of recipes available, as I'd seen loads on the website I wanted to try, that weren't on the selection list, including some good sounding family recipes. But I was happy with what we had, even though some weren't particularly family friendly (too spicy for the ten year old). Subsequently looking at the choice, it's massive. There's something for everyone here.

1. What did you think about the option to order Annabel Karmel's recipes? Is this something you'd like to see continue in the future?

I thought this was excellent, it would be a great idea for new parents or for when kids were staying with families, or even just to get some new ideas for what to cook. My 13 year old hates salmon and as that was the only AK recipe available to test, I had to pass on it.

1. How did using Gousto differ to how you usually plan, shop for and cook your weekly meals?

I Normally cook most things from scratch with the occasional trick like pre-done chicken Kiev up my sleeve. I have a huge store cupboard and so wouldn't buy staples like onions and spices and stock weekly. It was very easy to shop, I have to say, and no danger of forgetting a critical ingredient. I usually do Ocado on my iPad which is also easy, but must confess to sometimes mucking up!

1. Would you purchase Gousto meals again for your family?

Probably not for normal daily life. This is because it would make my store cupboard redundant, and is a very expensive way to eat. It was £47 for four meals for a family of four. I also didn't like the packaging waste, though it was clear that they'd tried to be green, but titchy little pots of harissa, pesto etc were annoying. And then when my Thai lime leaf wasn't packaged it crumbled and got lost amongst all the other ingredients! If I were moving house I would totally get this for the first week, it would be a lifesaver. Otherwise, it was a fun experiment, and we enjoyed the food (well, not so much the 10 year old), but it's not going to be part of my regular repertoire. If I were to go away for a week I might order for my DH though he found it quite stressful. I've kept the pork and pineapple taco recipe and will make it again. Delicious. Portion size was also generous.

No wooden spoon here either. but I did take a photo or two. These were our favourites, pork and pineapple tacos and lamb with hummous and flatbreads, cooked by DH. Thank you so much for choosing me MNHQ.

Firstly, thank you! We’ve had such fun with this, the DC enjoyed making a meal each too which was doable as it’s half term.

1. How easy did you find Gousto to use? How easy was selecting recipes and placing an order? How easy was it to follow the recipes and create the meals?

Easy to select recipes, place order. Recipes easy to follow, results looked similar to expectation ( see pics ).

1. Thinking about the ingredients and recipes, how confident does Gousto make you feel that you're feeding your family well?

We chose pulled hoisin chicken with sesame noodles, AK ultimate chicken pesto pasta, double chipotle burger and Chinese roast pork and egg fried rice. All had a reasonable amount of veg in: the two Chinese dishes had masses of spring greens, the burger cake with a big lettuce salad and the pesto pasta had two cartons of fresh tomatoes in. All were a good mix of veg carb and protein. The only thing I’d say is that as the food was delivered on Sunday and had quite short shelf life, we cooked them every night for 4 nights in the spin. I’d not normally cook such intensive meals with so much meat in 4 nights on the spin. I’d break it up and have maybe soup and cheese one night or a simple veg pasta dish.

1. What did you think about the number of recipes you could choose from? What did you and your family think about the taste of the Gousto meals you tried?

Choice was good but as DS is fussy it sadly ruled out all the fish dishes which DH, DD and I would’ve enjoyed. We all really wanted to try the Brazilian chicken curry but that was sold out. The pulled chicken and the pork dishes were very similar and I probably shouldn’t have chosen both. Both had near identical ingredients incl masses of spring greens. But did one Day 1 and one Day 4 and both enjoyed. DS likes the burger best —probably because that’s the one he made— the rest of us liked the AK pasta best. I was surprised there were no fresh herbs included and added my own fresh basil to the AK pasta.

1. What did you think about the option to order Annabel Karmel's recipes? Is this something you'd like to see continue in the future?

As other posters, my DC older at 11 & 13 but having said that we really loved the AK pasta dish.

1. How did using Gousto differ to how you usually plan, shop for and cook your weekly meals?

Very weird not going to my store cupboard! I usually meal plan and online order from Ocado, still had to go this for other meals, milk bread etc. It was lovely not having to think about it at all!

1. Would you purchase Gousto meals again for your family?

Possibly. Expensive at £47 for 4 meals, and it’s not like I’d do it when I’m really busy as every recipe took a good 30 minutes and created way more washing up than usual! I hadn’t realised how many one pan dishes I cook...

A few other points to note: we will be reusing the packaging: the weeny chipotle paste pots will be fab for food tech for DD ( bring one tablespoon oil etc ) and the larger plastic pots and free wooden spoon have been claimed by DD for Slime making .

The helpings are huge so I’d say a box for 2 would be fine for a family of 3, and a box for 4 fine for a family of 5.

Thank you again - we had a ball with it!

I was very happy to be chosen for this trial and excited that my box just arrived.
However after reading this thread I have checked my bank and they have taken all the money out of my bank even though when I checked out it said I had £0.00 to pay.
I have contacted them using the Mumsnet customer service email that was given.and am waiting for a reply.

The quick roast chicken, AK lamb koftas and stir fry hoisin chicken wIth whole wheat noodles and spring greens.

And tonight's crunchy cottage pie with spring greens, recipe cards and box contents.
Feedback to follow shortly. :)

Thank you for picking us to test this box, it's been great!

1. It was so easy to order, the site was well laid out and there was plenty to choose from.

However, I'm a bit scared to go back and browse as I have read that people have been charged for second orders they haven't meant to place. The recipe cards were very straightforward but the timings were a little off, so I'd chop a few bits before I started.

1. The recipes were very well balanced, with good quality fresh ingredients. I would probably add more veg in general.
2. We loved all of the meals we tried (Pulled Hoisin Chicken stir fry, quickety quick roast chicken, crunchy cottage pie and AK's lamb koftas). They were all very easy and enjoyable to make, I've picked up a few handy tips along the way and it's been a great way to cook and eat together over half term.

The portions were very generous (could do a family of 5 with a little tweaking) with the exception of the roast chicken- half a chicken breast each wasn't quite enough, even though there were loads of potatoes to fill you up.

1. It was the recipe I expected to be the least popular but everyone really enjoyed it. The lamb koftas were really tasty. I would usually associate Annabel Karmel with baby/toddler meals but this was very good.
2. I usually cook from scratch several times a week but it's been great to have less pasta!
3. Yes, absolutely. I will be trying a few other boxes and then keeping an eye out for special offers, as £47 for 4 meals isn't bad value at all, but I do like to make savings when I can.

OK, have now cooked & eaten the meals 😃
Thank you for selecting me for this product test, I and my family have really enjoyed it..

1. How easy did you find Gousto to use? How easy was selecting recipes and placing an order? How easy was it to follow the recipes and create the meals?

Somehow my box came to a total of £57 so I was charged the extra £10 over the price it should have been.
The website is easy to navigate, but I can see that it would be easy to succumb to the upselling of desserts and wine!
The recipe cards were clear and easy to follow, even for DH who is not a confident cook.

1. Thinking about the ingredients and recipes, how confident does Gousto make you feel that you're feeding your family well?

All of the ingredients were fresh and of very good quality. Each meal had plenty of veg in it. I felt that I was feeding the family fresh, wholesome food.

1. What did you think about the number of recipes you could choose from? What did you and your family think about the taste of the Gousto meals you tried?

There was a good choice of recipes, although I ordered a few days into the week so some were sold out.
The taste of the food is great, and the seasoning good. We had;
Annabel Karmel's lamb meatballs
Creamy haddock linguine
Warm lemony lamb tabbouleh
Cowboy bean bowl

1. What did you think about the option to order Annabel Karmel's recipes? Is this something you'd like to see continue in the future?

I'm not interested in this - the AK recipe we tried was no different from the other recipes. I expected it would be smaller/blander.

1. How did using Gousto differ to how you usually plan, shop for and cook your weekly meals?

Much easier as all the ingredients are delivered and measured. It made me try a couple of recipes which were outside my comfort zone, which is a good thing, and my DCs tried and enjoyed them, another big win.

1. Would you purchase Gousto meals again for your family?

Yes, DH was asking about the subscription service earlier, too, which is unprecedented! The portion sizes were very large though, so I would consider ordering 2 portions and padding out for 4 of us with extra salad etc.

Very easy to use the website to search through recipes and choose. I found it a little difficult to choose due to DH being quite fussy does;t like spicy food or lamb. I also like to avoid dairy. It was easy to follow the recipes I tended to prep everything first and have it ready as a lot of the recipes required multi tasking - a lot of meanwhile etc.
The recipes resulted in meals which felt quite fresh not too processed.
There was a fair selection of recipes to choose from. Really impressed how well packaged everything was. We loved the pulled chicken noodle and pork tenderloin with egg fried rice. The soup was ok - DH wasn't overly keen on it. DD liked the chicken pesto pasta.
Not so interested in the Annabel Karmel's recipes now as DD is 15, however would have been a draw when she was a toddler as I did have a couple of Annabel Karmel's recipe books.
I found it quite relaxing to have a few days worth of meals sorted - I usually buy a days worth at a time depending on what we fancy which can be exhausting after work.
Yes I would definitely buy again if I had a particularly busy week and would be great for a self catering holiday.

1. How easy did you find Gousto to use? How easy was selecting recipes and placing an order? How easy was it to follow the recipes and create the meals?
Very easy to select recipes and place an order, although some of the recipes I would have liked to have tried were sold out. The recipes were mostly easy to follow, but preparation took longer than the recipes implied.

2. Thinking about the ingredients and recipes, how confident does Gousto make you feel that you're feeding your family well?
The ingredients were fresh and mostly healthy, the recipes seemed to be nicely balanced, but there were a lot of add salt steps which I mostly omitted.

3. What did you think about the number of recipes you could choose from? What did you and your family think about the taste of the Gousto meals you tried?
As already said, some of the recipes were already sold out and as a family of fussy eaters I picked things I wasn't sure about. We had Roast chicken, Lamb Koftas, Pork pibil and Meatballs and noodles in ramen.
The chicken was lovely and the stuffing was as easy to make as Paxo. The lamb was ok, nothing special. The meatballs were lovely, although the ramen was too hot for the DC. The pork pibil was lovely and not something I have ever come across before.

4. What did you think about the option to order Annabel Karmel's recipes? Is this something you'd like to see continue in the future?
The lamb koftas were AK. They didn't really seem any different to the other recipes.

5. How did using Gousto differ to how you usually plan, shop for and cook your weekly meals?
Usually I shop online and only have a vague plan. I don't normally cook from scratch everyday, I usually save that type of cooking for the weekend.

6. Would you purchase Gousto meals again for your family?
I'm not sure, I was impressed with how easy it was and how nice the food tasted, but the amount of packaging was quite off putting and receiving lots of individual sachets of soy sauce and cloves of garlic felt really wasteful.

On the whole I was impressed, but the cooking was quite time consuming and didn't really work when we all needed to eat at different times.