Mindful Chef family recipe box product test – Feedback thread!

[MaddyMumsnet]

This thread is ONLY for Mumsnetters who are taking part in this product test.

Hi Mindful Chef testers,

Welcome to your Mindful Chef product test, we’re so excited to have you all here! 🍽️✨

Over the next couple of weeks, you’ll be putting Mindful Chef’s family recipe boxes to the test at home, and this thread is where we’d love you to share your experience as you go along.

We’re really interested in how the meals work in real family life – from busy weeknight dinners to getting everyone around the table – so the more detail you can share, the better.

To get things started, here are a few things you might want to tell us about:
Getting started

• How did you find the ordering process?
• How was the variety of Family-friendly meals on offer?
• What made you pick the recipes you went for?
• First impressions when your box arrived – how did everything look and feel?

Cooking & eating

• How easy were the recipes to cook?
• How well did they fit into your usual family mealtime routine? Did they feel manageable on a weeknight?
• Did they take more or less time than the recipe suggested?
• Did your children get involved in the cooking at all?
• Any favourite meals so far? Or any that didn’t quite hit the mark?

Family mealtimes

• Did the whole family enjoy the meals?
• Any big wins with the kids? Did they clear their plates? 👀
• Did the portions work well for your household?
• Could you see these meals becoming part of your regular routine

Overall thoughts as you go

• How are you finding the quality of the ingredients?
• Has anything surprised you so far?
• Does a recipe box help reduce the mental load of planning and cooking?
• How does Mindful Chef compare to your usual way of planning and cooking meals?

Photos are encouraged if you’re happy to share, we love seeing the meals (and real-life kitchen moments!) 📸

Please make sure you’re updating this thread regularly across the full 2-week testing period - we’re looking to hear from you throughout, not just at the end.

Thanks again for being part of this, we can’t wait to hear how you get on, and we’ll be checking in here along the way too.

MNHQ x

My second box has now arrived and made Aubergine & Sweet Potato Bowl for my third meal. This has been my favourite meal so far as the quality of the ingredients was so fresh and the sauce was absolutely delicious. I’m so glad I received a recipe book as I would love to make this again. I agree with some of the other reviews that the packaging is rather difficult to get in the recycling bin so not sure how I would get on if I continued with the subscription. Overall I’m very happy with the results and quality of the food so I think I will continue with the subscription after the trial ends.

2nd box review.
Arrived in good condition, quick and easy to unpack and kept cool.
First meal was the hidden veg bolognase. Easy enough to make, cooking time was accurate and the kids did enjoy joining in the cooking. However, noone in the family enjoyed the meal and almost all was thrown away - it was an unpleasant flavour and texture and everyone enjoyed the one I make (for much cheaper and quicker) more.

The second recipe was the sticky beef stir fry. I didn't even try to give this to the kids as knew they wouldn't touch it, even if I did the ingredients separately. It was quick and easy to make and my partner and I enjoyed it. The packaging is so wasteful though, I felt very guilty for the waste involved.

Overall I won't be continuing my subscription, my children are just too picky for these boxes and they are so expensive.

We’ve cooked all 4 meals now, one was really tasty, the other 3 were bland. The selection of meals for families was pretty limited and the portions were pretty inconsistent. Apart from that, the main reason I won’t continue the subscription is that the cost is just ridiculous for the ingredients you get. I costed up the same ingredients at Asda and each meal was half the price if not more. I know that part of the value is delivery and convenience etc but it’s so not worth it to me when you’re having to do top up shops for other meals anyway. Absolutely mind blowing to me that they can justify these costs. Also I’m not sold on the concept of the “healthy choice” - the meals are healthy because they’re simple, but there’s really no difference as far as I can see with other meal delivery things like Hello Fresh. Seems like a bit of a con. I’m very grateful for being able to take part in the trial, but it’s definitely not for us.

Getting started

• How did you find the ordering process?

I already had an account so was easy to log in and see the recipes. No space to input code though and accidentally ordered without it so was charged. Customer services were helpful in sorting.

• How was the variety of Family-friendly meals on offer?

Quite a small selection with only a couple of vegan or veggie options. But they all looked tasty.

• What made you pick the recipes you went for?

wanted a mix of veggie and meat recipes and things I thought my toddlers would eat. Quite a few recipes were high in salt which wasn’t ideal.

• First impressions when your box arrived – how did everything look and feel?

Had an email the day before the box was due to arrive to say one of the recipes was delayed and wouldn’t arrive til the next day. Then when the box arrived everything looked great initially (but small portion sizes if for 4 adults or adults plus teens) but the meat was unopened so wasn’t able to use it. Customer services were helpful and refunded credit.

In the next box I received it on the Friday and went to use some meat on the Monday and it had expired the day before. This is despite their promise of a 4 day shelf life. Annoying to throw away more meat again. By coincidence as one of my children was in hospital for several weeks family kindly ordered us Hello Fresh for when we got home. The difference in how smooth things are is very noticeable. No reason to contact their customer services in the month we’ve had them whereas I’ve contacted mindful chef multiple times. No missing items, no damaged items or short dates. I prefer the quality of the mindful chef ingredients but the organisation has been not great.

Cooking & eating

• How easy were the recipes to cook?

Pretty easy generally. Recipes easy to follow although might have benefitted from more detail. In comparison to hello fresh cards they’re not as easy to follow. I find the pictures in hello fresh really handy.

• How well did they fit into your usual family mealtime routine? Did they feel manageable on a weeknight?

Yes definitely. So convenient and I really looked forward to them. I’m not a natural cook and stick to the same things so this was great. I was also surprised at some of the things my toddlers ate (and what they refused).

• Did they take more or less time than the recipe suggested?

I think they’re pretty accurate.

• Did your children get involved in the cooking at all?

No they’re too little.

• Any favourite meals so far? Or any that didn’t quite hit the mark?

Hot Honey pizza risotto was amazing. So easy and delicious. Will defo try to recreate. Gnocchi was a bit bland. Didn’t get to try two recipes because of gone off meat and opened meat package. Pork meatballs were also delicious and my toddlers loved it and were singing “meatballs” for ages afterwards

Family mealtimes

• Did the whole family enjoy the meals?

My partner and I did but kids less so. The meat always went down a treat but veggies etc less so. Which is standard for them.

• Any big wins with the kids? Did they clear their plates? 👀

Never! Loved the meatballs and gnocchi tjough!

• Did the portions work well for your household?

Yes but no way if kids were any older. Very stingy for adults and teens. We barely had any leftovers even with tiny toddler portions.

• Could you see these meals becoming part of your regular routine

Not at the price point or with the issues with the boxes delayed, short shelf life or opened packages. Grossly overpriced and slapdash organisation. Customer service very helpful though

Easy to order, good selection of recipes. Portions are adequate for a family of 4. Tasty meals easy to follow instructions.

Have enjoyed this trial. Had some lovely tasty meals. Would recommend for a busy household.

Our next meal was the pork meatballs gnocchi bake.

This meal was easy to prepare and took around the same amount of time as advertised. I felt it would have been better if the meatballs were pre made, having to roll them ourselves was a bit of a faff and it would have saved some time.

Like a previous poster I cut the onions into small pieces rather than big chunks as my children would be unlikely to eat large chunks of onion, the small pieces went well with the sauce. I also steamed the brocolli rather than baked it, as I know the children prefer it this way. I havent baked gnocchi before I would normally boil it, baking gave it a good texture.

The paprika sachet said you could leave it out for children, but it wasn't spicy and I know my children like the taste of paprika so we kept it in.

We all enjoyed the meal, it tasted good and there was plenty for us as a family of 2 adults and 2 under 10s.

I found week two brilliant we got a chicken fajita traybake and a spaghetti bolognese.
my partner even had a go at cooking one of the boxes as he felt he was missing out 😂 the instructions were easy enough for him to follow and it was lovely seeing him and my 2year spend time together making a family meal for us all.

my 1yr old and 2yr old both cleared their plates along with myself and my partner they were delicious and I think I will continue to get the boxes every now and then for a bit of a break and some variety for mealtimes.

Delayed feedback on the roasted vegetable risotto last week. The recipe was easy to make, with lots of lovely healthy ingredients. It tasted ok - maybe didn't have quite the flavour punch that we like in our meals. Three out of four liked it and ate it, which wasn't bad. Portion size was ok, but if we had this again I would probably have some garlic bread or similar as a side-dish.

As a general note, it would be really helpful to have more nutritional info available for each meal. My daughter has type 1 diabetes, so we need to know values to work out insulin doses. A value per 100g of the risotto element (or main elements of other dishes) would be helpful so that if smaller portions are wanted the nutritional content can be worked out.

Found it easy to order, although I didn't think the choice was huge using the filters we were asked to use. I was a bit surprised at the amount of prepared/packaged food though - microwave rice for the 5 spice beef and chopped chicken for the curry. No complaints from my family though,fussy and very hungry nearly 15yo has had clean plates with every Mindful Chef meal!!

Our first recipe this week was cod nuggets with sweet potato wedges. I'll be honest, I wasn't sure how this one would land with the family, but I was really pleasantly surprised! This was a good healthy take on fish and chips. The seasoning on the sweet potato wedges was delicious and the crumb on the cod nuggets was super crunchy. Everyone ate and enjoyed this meal which is impressive given that certain people can be a bit fussy about fish! Portion size was spot on for four.

I like the concept of mindful chef - I just can't get past the amount of packaging used. I appreciate that it can be recycled, but the huge boxes and thick cardboard do take up a lot of space in a bin. I also found that the gel in the cool packs doesn't wash down the sink particularly easily - I had to remove gloopy handfuls the first time I tried it, which put me off doing this again.

Great website, easy to see all the meals with photos and details about the ingredients and how to prepare before choosing. Plenty of choice.
we really enjoyed our meals as a family and I prepared them with my 10 year old daughter. Some were a bit more complicated and they were t quick to prepare so they were weekend meals for us when we have more time.
portions good for a family with a 10 and 7 year old. 7 year also ate and like sweet potato for the first time which was great as he normally leaves this.

I’ve just had the second box and again really enjoyed it. The food has been enjoyed by my family and having new easy recipes has made me enjoy cooking again. Unfortunately one of the food bags had split when it was delivered which impacted the ease of putting the bag in the fridge and the appearance but the food itself was still good.

Overall I would recommend mindful chef to others who wanted inspiration for family meals with lower effort.

My second delivery arrive today and again a very slick process, an email and text first thing to tell me about the delivery 1 hour slot and it was accurate. I've unpacked it all and am excited to try it out. It's so nice feeling a couple of meals for the week are sorted without having to think. There was one minor substitute from green curry to yellow curry but nothing major. Never have thai yellow curry before hopefully it's nice. I made an error when ordering, I didn't realised chick'n was plant based. Had I known I wouldn't have ordered it. Maybe my fault but it didn't seem obvious, us mums don't have a lot of time to read small print, we need obvious-make it easy for us. I also saw that it says a family meal can feed 4 adults and i had a little laugh as that's just absolutely not true. 2 adults ands 2 younger children it is absolutely perfect size wise for though.

Our first box was missing our receipe book which was a little annoying but not too bad as they website has an option to follow on there and a button to toggle to keep your device screen on. One of the packets of meat was leaking which meant we had to use it straight away which wasn't ideal as we had wanted it ideally for the next day due to already having things planned that night.
Meal 1 was Peri Peri Chicken Thighs with Sweet Potato Wedges, Mangetout & Peas. The receipe was easy to follow and turned and myself husband and eldest enjoyed it but my youngest age 7 did not like the chicken or mangetout so I ended up cooking her some thing different.

Sticky Five-spice Beef with Egg Fried Rice & Rainbow Veg was our second dish and it was so simple to make. My youngest enjoyed it and my husband but myself and my eldest thought the 5 spice was just too overpowering a flavour in an odd frangrant/sweet/Christmassy way!

Our second week's box arrived with it's receipe book which was good and I liked thar you could see all the receipes rather just those we had ordered. I also really like how you an just put the whole receipe bag in the fridge (lthough you need space!) And just open it on the day. Our 3rd dish was Fajita-style Chicken Traybake with Mixed Potato Wedges & Avocado Salad which had a couple of issues. The box arrived sat afternoon and we used the meal on the Monday a few days before the use by date. By the time we used it the avocado was over ripe (both children refused to even try the avocado) and when I opened the bag of salad it was rotten and the smell was foul. Luckily I had some lettuce in the fridge and manage to salvage the dish. You would think you eould get more at lwast 48 hours on the salad etc and usually when we get Gousto the salad etc us good for at least a week. The meal itself was lovely and 3 of us really enjoyed it but again my youngest did not eat much even thougg I left the spice off her chicken this week.
We are going to try out last meal tomorrow and will post again.
The pros so far are are easy to follow receipes and no faff sorting ingreients as they are all in 1 bag.
Cons are issues with freshness, missing receipes and the fact the family friendly section did not have much choice, I think my whole family would have like things from the other sections more! Also as a family we usually use Gousto and get the 3 person portion which works out much cheaper and as my youngest is still so fussy she can still try everything but we aren't wasting money on a full portion. With no option for a 3 person box we will be sficking to Gousto going forward.

Weve had our 2nd box and finished making everything. Both of us agree the instruction books need to be cleaer. Also its not clear for the person who doesnt order which bag was which dinner. The bags have week numbers on etc, i knew what we were getting because i ordered them, but my husband had trouble figuring out which meals id ordered. He had to open the bags to figire it out.

The quality of meat was superb, and the fresh veg was also great condition. Packaging waste is still a problem though, yes the bags can be recycled but the millions of little sauce packets were not ideal. Maybe give option to leave them out most people have garlic soy passata etc at home.

My favourite was the sticky beef strips. Absolutly gorgeous. All of us liked that, the kids didnt like the visible veg though. All the meals had too much visible veg for them. I had to seperate things 🙄🤨

I couldnt afford to do this often, and if we did it again we would do just a 2 people dinner. The price per meal for 1 is still a lot for what id pay for a dinner. However, they are definately healthy options that you offer.

Cooked our second meal tonight: cardamom korma with green beans and brown rice.

Thoughts on prep: took longer than anticipated, but the produce was fresh and easy to prepare (just need to sharpen up my knife skills, pun intended).

Cooking process: fewer steps than the beef dish we had on Monday, which I appreciated after a busy day at work today. More of a chuck it in recipe, which was good for a midweek meal.

End result: the curry was bright and appetising, and the portions were huge for our family of four (two adults and two primary school kids). Nice mellow heat as you’d expect from a korma, so even my youngest liked it, although he wasn’t a huge fan of the spinach.

Overall a good midweek option: not a ‘premium’ dish, but easy to put together (even with the prep taking a bit longer than expected) and a tasty end result. Looking forward to trying next week’s order now!

Have now completed the Mindful Chef trial. For around 5 years we have flipped between Hello Fresh and Gousto but never tried MC as it is at a higher and more premium price point. The meat is slightly better quality than the the other boxes we use, but I don’t feel this justifies the uplift in price point.

Our favourite meal was the steak salad. The salad dressing was lovely, the potatoes turned out well and the steak was good quality.

My kids are 4 and 7, with varied appetites and the portions worked fine for us. Had they have been large teenagers they might have been too small.

I find cooking a chore on weeknights juggling work and parenting, so I would tend to stay away from more meal boxes that can take a while to prepare. The first meal we had, was making patties and this was too much trouble for a quick dinner.

I would recommend MC to others, but only as a slightly better option than comparable companies.

Second box arrived today. We ended up ordering three meals and paying the extra for the third. Tonight we cooked the chicken Parm. It wasn’t bad and my four year old enjoyed it but the sauce wasn’t thick enough or flavourful enough. We boiled the broccoli too as we prefer it boiled to roasted.

The portion size for this meal was good.

Overall we won’t be continuing due to some slightly poor quality ingredients, the bags in the fridge take up a lot of room and I can make healthy food my kids enjoy a lot more for a lot less money. Our full weekly grocery shop is £80 and this wouldn’t fit into budget with other bits and pieces needed. I have enjoyed trying it but I still think Gousto has been the best recipe box with family friendly options I’ve tried. I am glad to have tried this though.

I am so glad that I got to try out Mindful chef as I have been super impressed with the boxes that I have received.
I have now cooked all 4 recipes.
I must say that I have been blown away by the quality of the ingredients; even the vegetables are fresh and better than the ones I get at the supermarket. The meat also looks and tastes like premium quality produce. It comes with ice packs to keep it cold.
I am not normally that imaginative when it comes to cooking meals; Mindful chef has given me the opportunity to use ingredients that I don't normally cook with like Pak Choi. Plus I don't have to buy full-size packs of sauces or pastes, which often go to waste if I don't use them often.
I like how they have included the recipe book in the box but we can also access it online.
Calories, protein etc are all shown in case you are watching your diet carefully.
I am actually planning to buy one-off boxes each month, as it has given me inspiration to try out new recipes.
My kids loved all 4 recipes. We were all so impressed with the flavours.
It was very easy to make and the instructions were very clear.
Thank you Mindful chef!

This week we have made
creamy peanut pork
which was nice and easy to make however a bit tasteless to me - I didn’t want to add too much salt. I also felt there wasn’t very much pork compared to the amount of rice and broccoli, and so the portion seemed a bit small to me.

we also made the sichuan style beef stir fry which was delicious - even to my Chinese husband!

overall I’ve enjoyed using mindful chef, but it is just too expensive for me to use ongoing. There is also quite a lot of cooking involved for me to consider it as something that would help me or save time.