Gousto recipe box review

Recipe boxes claim to take away the stress of deciding what to eat for dinner each week, making things as simple as possible.

One of the most popular options available, Gousto is a meal delivery service where you choose up to four dishes from over 250 recipes which are updated monthly. Your box is then delivered straight to your front door and contains fresh ingredients measured out and ready for cooking alongside step-by-step recipe cards. Here's how Features & Reviews Editor Emily got on when she gave Gousto a go.

Testing Gousto recipe box

Planning the meals in our house is a job that mainly falls to me and it's one I tend to dread. With both myself and my husband working full time, finding the time to sit down and meal plan and then add the ingredients to our shopping list can be tricky.

Gousto made this whole experience so much more effortless. Each week, we would check out the week's recipes on the website or via the app and select our meals for the following week. These four meals were then delivered to us, consisting of precise ingredients and easy-to-follow recipe cards.

I can't stress how nice it was to not have to scour the internet or rack my brains for meal ideas. Gousto offered a huge variety of recipes including family classics, global cuisine and plenty of veggie, vegan and even gluten-free options. I'm not the most adventurous eater but Gousto really did broaden my horizons, especially because I didn't have to worry about having to source ingredients that I would only use a little of for a specific recipe, only for it to then sit gathering dust in our pantry. While it was disappointing that you had to pay extra for certain recipes, this was usually justified as the ingredients required were more premium.

It was really useful to be able to be given a time indication of how long each recipe should take as I could then look at what our plans were and if we needed quick recipes, I could just choose options that took between 10-30 minutes and that we could easily fit around our plans.

During my trial of Gousto, I was constantly sending photos of our meals to my family chat and sending them to look at the recipes. You can take a look at what we ordered below.

Aside from the ease of having mealtimes sorted, I really applaud Gousto's eco-friendly ethos as well.

Thanks to the pre-portioned ingredients, on average, every Gousto order saves 2kg of food waste, meaning that last year, the UK saved 784,000 waste bins of waste, by ordering through the recipe box. And if UK households replaced supermarket dinners with meals from Gousto for just one year, this could save 10.3 million tonnes of CO2e - the same as taking 141,910 buses off the road.

Gousto also uses an Eco Chill box, an insulation box made from recycled cardboard, which keeps fresh food cold during delivery. Previously the company had been using a biodegradable insulation product that required plastic wrapping. Plastic packaging is still used for certain items, however, so it would be good to see what alternatives Gousto can use in the future.

Although the fruit and veg sent were plentiful, we found that for us personally, the portions of meat could do with being more generous. Though there's every chance this is just us being greedy!

The dates on some of the meat could do with being a little longer, there were a few occasions where I found that I needed to store chicken and mince in the freezer or they would have gone out of date by the time we got around to eating it, which is definitely something to bear in mind if someone in your house works shifts and isn't always home for dinner.

Only once did we run into the issue of not having an ingredient included in the box and while thankfully we had a substitute in our kitchen, it did make me wonder what we would have done if it was a product we didn't have.

I loved that we could finish work and know that other than cooking the meal for ourselves, dinner was taken care of.

Following the recipe cards is really straight forward and I liked that photos were included for each step. The end results of the meals themselves were fantastic - not only did they look just like they did in Gousto's photos but they tasted lovely too. I've actually kept hold of a few of the recipe cards as I'd like to recreate them in the future. Our favourite dish of the week was the roast duck leg with duck fat roasties, Yorkshires and red cabbage although we thoroughly enjoyed all the recipes we tried.

Final thoughts

Although it's not something I would use every week, I'm definitely going to be looking into using Gousto every few weeks to give myself a break when it comes to planning and keeping our meals varied and interesting.

There are lots of recipe box brands out there but I would say the main competitor of Gousto is Hello Fresh.

Gousto is a lot more flexible in terms of the customer being able to order a one-off box without setting up a subscription. The minimum number of recipes you must pick with Hello Fresh is three while with Gousto, it's two.

Price-wise, if you choose three recipes for two people with Gousto, this will cost you £29.99 a week, which is exactly the same as Hello Fresh. However, if you are a family of four, four recipes will cost you £54.99 with Hello Fresh while with Gousto, it will cost you £47.85.

Gousto also offers a lot more recipe choices compared to its competitor, which for me personally is a biggie.

New ‘The Dinner Show’ range

After a study found that Brits are increasingly inspired to cook meals they’ve seen in their favourite blockbusters, Gousto has launched The Dinner Show hub - a collection of screen-inspired menu options. The hub spotlights recipes from the new Dinner Show range including recipes inspired by Game of Thrones, Bridgerton, FRIENDS and Stranger Things, plus many more.

Highlights from The Dinner Show range include Upside Down Umami Burger (Inspired by Stranger Things), New Yorker Meatball Marinara Sub & Fries (Inspired by Friends) and Roast Duck and Duchess Potato Banquet (Inspired by Bridgerton).

Emily Gilbert is the Features & Reviews Editor for Mother&Baby and has written for the website and previously the magazine for six years. Specialising in product reviews, Emily is the first to know about all the exciting new releases in the parenting industry.