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

I forgot to say we got a spoon too.

1. 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 struggled to see how to make the order for 4 people rather than 2 so ended up phoning Gusto. Turns out I'd not got far enough through the order to select the 4 people option.
The recipes weren't the best as they'd get you going on one thing then add in another that you should be doing at the same time - this usually needed prep too. I did read the recipes from start to finish but this still caught me out a couple of times. I like a time line to follow.

2. Thinking about the ingredients and recipes, how confident does Gousto make you feel that you're feeding your family well?
The produce was all lovely and fresh but there was far too much for our family of 2 adults and 2 dc aged 12 and 9. There was more salt added than I would usually use.

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?
I did expect there to be more, but possibly changed less often. 1 dc is particularly fussy and wasn't impressed but the other, DH and myself really enjoyed the meals. The meat in particular was lovely.

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?
Not especially. I was never a big fan of her recipes when the dc were younger and I didn't find those recipes any more appealing or better received than the others that we tried. Having her name attached wouldn't persuade me to buy them again.

5. How did using Gousto differ to how you usually plan, shop for and cook your weekly meals?
We generally meal plan very efficiently and as a result do not end up with much food waste. We generally have a weekly online delivery so it wasn't hugely different for us.

6. Would you purchase Gousto meals again for your family?
Perhaps if we were away in a holiday cottage to save us from bringing or buying all of the spices and sauces etc.

I was very impressed with the packaging and ease of delivery.
My spoon is lovely too!
I've often wondered if this type of meal delivery was any good so really enjoyed having the chance to out it to the test. Thank you.

no spoon for me either. We should start a Spoonless of MN support group.

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?

Website was very easy to use. Good selection of recipes available. Simple buying process. Recipes were simple to follow but quite time consuming to make (and I consider myself a decent cook, well able to cook from scratch). They were not quick after-work meals! Think there may have been an error on one of the recipes (pork chilli) where the meal for 2 needed 1 stock cube and 300ml water but for 4 it was 2 cubes and far less than double the amount of water. As a result the meal was far too salty and inedible.

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

Ingredients were great quality and came in large quantities. The meals for 4 all had enough left overs for 2 adult lunches the next day. The only poor ingredient was the Vietnamese fish in the Annabel Karmel recipe. Tasteless and woolly, recipe would have been much better with decent fish. That said, the kids loved it!

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?

Good choice of dishes, chicken and sweet corn soup and chicken curry were lovely, AK fish was tasteless and the pork chilli was ruined by the saltiness even though the salsa that accompanied it was lovely.

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 wouldn’t choose a recipe just because it was AK. My kids (5&10) just eat the same as me and DP. I’d suggest options within the ‘normal’ recipes to make them less spicy or salty if required rather than a specific AK choice of meal.

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

I don’t usually buy meal delivery boxes like this so it was good to try one! I usually meal plan and batch cook which works out an awful lot cheaper and requires less effort than the Gousto box. I do sometimes do an online foodshop (and often get substitutions!) so was wary that gousto might forget some of the ingredients but everything was in the box all well packaged and chilled.

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

Maybe if we were on holiday as the boxes contain everything you need for 4 meals. Would probably not use again as part of our normal routine due to the time and effort the recipes I picked took to make. I was in the kitchen chopping and stirring for 40-50 mins every night whilst the kids watched tv! In one of the recipes I had 3 pans of food and a jug of stock on the go at once (stress!). I need simple, quick, no mess recipes for after work like the stuff in Jamie Oliver’s 5 ingredients book or john whaites perfect plates.

Thank you for choosing me for the trial!

Ps I did get a spoon!



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? 

Found it easy to order although I struggled with payment as wouldn’t accept card details & then code wouldn’t work. I had to contact customer services & wait over the weekend for a response.
I had to order & pay & it was refunded a day later. Not ideal but hey ho. Delay meant I didn’t get my first choice of meals either.

My concern was that at no time did it say it was a subscription service. Your only ordering meals for a week so don’t know how on earth they would do that as subscription.

The recipe cards were strange as focused on each item individually rather than a step by step recipe. I used them to let my kids cook & was a shame as I had to tell them what to do rather than letting them follow the card. 

I think it’s probably good for someone who’s not a confident cook although I found the recipe order very strange. Some weren’t in correct order so timings would have been all wrong . There was also far too much salt in the meals. 2tsp of salt & pepper in the burgers !!! I put 1/4 of that in. 

I’m not sure the recipes would turn out well if someone followed the recipes exactly.

I think you should have the option to remove items you don’t need as already have. With burgers, I wasn’t spending time faffing with squeezing 6 tubes of mayonnaise & just used a jar & spoon. 

The haddock linguine was the meal I was least looking forward too but I knew my family would enjoy tomato pasta & I was intrigued to see if the kids would eat the fish. It felt wrong to be spooning gorgeous clotted cream into pasta - I really wanted a scone with jam ! I used less than half the chilli & sauce didn’t thicken at all but otherwise, we all enjoyed it. Portions were huge though & we had loads left. The kids didn’t finish it & one left all the fish.

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

The ingredients were fine but I’d like more information on meat - rather than British & farm number. 

Not sure not the veg in most meals (apart from quick chicken dinner). Burgers had weird salad with baby gem lettuce. I put corn on the cob with it but even just some coleslaw would have been better. 

Linguine - weird adding 500g of cherry tomatoes to a pasta dish & cooking them 

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?

We ordered burgers, linguine, speedy chicken & AK pesto pasta.

We enjoyed the burgers. Youngest wouldn’t eat chipotle mayo as to spicy for him. 

We all enjoyed the quick chicken dinner. We loved the gravy ! I’d make that again. Never thought to roast long stem broccoli & we all enjoyed it.

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 don’t rate AK at all & only ordered because I had to. Given my own choice, I wouldn’t have ordered any of her recipes. I don’t associate her with heathy eating & she clearly uses far too much salt. She’s not a good ‘celebrity’ to partner with I’m afraid.
We chose pasta recipe & didn’t follow it as no one wanted cooked cherry tomatoes with pesto. I also left out the soy sauce & balsamic vinegar as that was just odd & I didn’t want to ruin the meal & have to bin it.

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

I still had to do my weekly shop & added to some meals. Felt burger meal was light on veg. Little gem salad was just very odd. I added corn on the cob. Luckily box came before I went shopping so I bought extra chicken breast to go with chicken dinner. 1/2 chicken breast was fine for kids but not adults. The chicken dinner was brilliant for veg but both fish linguine & pesto pasta came with cherry tomatoes which I wasn’t keen on.


I liked not having to plan from shopping to cooking but found it quite rigid in trying to fit it in with family’s schedule for the week with the cook times. Luckily I got it on a Friday so cooked 2 meals over the weekend but it was difficult to fit the other 2 in around work & kids clubs during the week.

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

Not very likely I’m afraid. I can shop for 4 people for a full week for cost of 4 meals. I also don’t like the amount of packaging. I’m not really sure who your target market is. I assumed it was aimed at professionals who were short on time but lots of the meals are quite time consuming.


I found the short shelf life a bit of a pain & had to freeze some of the meat so I could leave dh the quickest meal to make on work / school & kids clubs night. I selected to receive box on a Friday so it meant I could do cooking when I’m off. We found froze the haddock as ended up eating out that day. We only ate AK pasta 7 days later (frozen chicken) but that wouldn’t have worked if fresh ingredients needed hadn’t kept that long. Recipes mostly took a while to cook so not something that could be quickly prepared after work.

I loved the chance to try this ! Thanks for choosing me & I got a wooden spoon 😊

Forgot to take photo of pasta

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've used a recipe box site like this before so i was familiar with how it works - I do think it's quite complicated. I was using a smartphone and the site does not seem optimised for a phone.

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

I thought the recipes were quite high calorie and low in veg compared with what I'd normally try to feed our family (me, DH, DS9 and DD5, all omnivores)

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?

Generally quite a good choice although we eat meat, fish and vegetarian food happily - if we were vegetarian or had any dietary restrictions I think it would have been harder. The recipes I chose were burgers with chipotle mayo, chicken pesto pasta, Chinese pork with egg fried rice and lamb koftas with pitta. All were OK, the Chinese pork and the burgers went down best.

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 chose two Annabel Karmel recipes because of the product test but I wouldn't have done otherwise. I associate Annabel Karmel with baby and toddler food, not family meals; and a particularly fussy, slightly neurotic attitude to feeding small children which i don't have and wanted to avoid! The Annabel Karmel meals would not have been my choice had I had entirely free choice and they were the two we liked least; the koftas were fine although a bit over sweet with the honey in the meatballs, but the chicken pesto pasta had balsamic vinegar and soy sauce in it which made it very sweet and slightly odd tasting (as well as murky looking). Generally I remember Annabel Karmel being convinced children only like bland sweet tastes and no vegetables, which is not how I like to feed my kids and not how they (so far!) seem to want to eat!

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

More meat and less veg than I would usually cook during the week, and more pans! But it helped having all the ingredients and a clear plan and avoided the midweek "I've run out of ideas". We had the box in half term which was great as we had busy days out and didn't need to shop as much.

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

Probably from time to time, in a busy week or if there was a special offer. I think it's too expensive to do regularly especially given the limited veg which would mean I'd want to supplement with more veg. But definitely tasty and convenient.

I didn't get a spoon!

I didn't get a spoon I got a canvas bag

How can you stir your food with a canvas bag?

Well I've just ordered another so will see how it goes

Thanks for all your feedback! The winner of the prize draw is @ShatnersBalloonFromPennywise