Hello Fresh vs Gousto vs Mindful Chef

Recipe boxes and meal-delivery kits offer a convenient way to add variety at home and find fresh inspiration for mealtimes. Our experts can help you find the best option.

There are plenty of services to choose from, each catering to different audiences. Some kits focus on healthy recipes, while others offer organic meals or low-carb options. Some deliver restaurant-style meals to your front door as an alternative to a takeaway.

To help you decide, we surveyed thousands of people who have used these kits, gathering their opinions on everything from the variety of recipe ideas to the quality of ingredients and value for money. Some brands stood out above the rest.

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Best recipe boxes: Hello Fresh vs Gousto, Mindful Chef and more

The two highest-performing companies in our survey achieved a customer score of 70%, while a well-known brand ranked last with a disappointing 55%.

Which? members can log in now to find out how customers rate different companies and find out which is a Which? Recommended Provider.

If you're not a member, you'll see an alphabetically ordered list of the companies reviewed with insights on pricing and what they offer. Join Which? today to see the full results.

Below, you'll find an overview of what the different brands offer.

For ease of comparison, prices are based on three meals (including meat options) for two people including delivery (excluding any offers).

Green Chef

Price of a three-meal box (inc. meat options, feeds two): £38.50

Green Chef, which is actually owned by Hello Fresh, has a focus on sustainable ingredients and minimising waste. It allows you to choose meals based on a range of dietary needs, including vegetarian, vegan, lower carb and pescatarian.

You can order meals for two or four people, and customers can order two to five meals per box. The brand also offers discounts for students.

Join Which? to see how customers rated Green Chef in our survey.

Want to order without reading our full results? Visit Green Chef.

Gousto

Price of a three-meal box (inc. meat options, feeds two): £30.99

Gousto offers a choice of more than 75 recipes a week. You can filter recipes by factors such as 'quick and easy', 10-minute meals, calorie controlled and family meals.

You must order a minimum of two meals per box, and meals are for one to five people. Students can get a 10% discount and it's worth noting that you can get money off your first order.

Join Which? to see how customers rated Gousto in our survey.

Want to order without reading our full results? Visit Gousto.

Hello Fresh

Price of a three-meal box (inc. meat options, feeds two): £31.49

One of the most well-known options, Hello Fresh, says it offers more than 100 recipe choices each month, with a fuss-free subscription you can easily cancel or change as needed.

You can filter meals by a range of requirements, including protein-rich, calorie-smart, quick cook and family, as well as veggie and 'mostly meat'.

You can order for two, three or four people. If you order for two people, the minimum order is three meals per box. But if you're ordering for three or four people, your minimum order is two meals per box. 

Join Which? to see how customers rated Hello Fresh in our survey.

Want to order without reading our full results? Visit Hello Fresh.

Mindful Chef

Price of a three-meal box (inc. meat options, feeds two): £57

Mindful Chef says it aims to balance nutritious meals with great taste, to make healthy eating easy and delicious. It never sends refined carbs such as white pasta or rice, and says its chicken is 100% British and free range. It's also very flexible, allowing you to skip or pause at any time.

Customers can choose from 20 recipes each week. You can order meals for one, two or a family, and the minimum order is two meals per box. 

Join Which? to see how customers rated Mindful Chef in our survey.

Want to order without reading our full results? Visit Mindful Chef.

Riverford

Price of a three-meal box (inc. meat options, feeds two): £48.75

Riverford is the only recipe box in our survey that delivers solely organic ingredients.

There are around 13 recipes to choose from a week. Most boxes contain two portions, but there's one Family option that contains four. The minimum order is one meal per box. 

Join Which? to see how customers rated Riverford in our survey.

Want to order without reading our full results? Visit Riverford.

Simply Cook

Price: £9.99 (sauce kit only, no ingredients)

Simply Cook works a little differently from other recipe boxes. Each box contains four recipes, and for each recipe you get three 'flavour pots' that form the base of each meal.

You still need to buy the ingredients, but this means you can adapt recipes to your requirements – for example, swap beef for chicken. It's also good if you have an unpredictable schedule, as the pots have a longer shelf life and you can just buy the fresh ingredients when you need them.

Join Which? to see how customers rated Simply Cook in our survey.

Want to order without reading our full results? Visit Simply Cook.

Make sure your food stays fresh with our guide: What temperature should a fridge be?

Best meal kits: Nonna Tonda vs Pasta Evangelists and Pizza Pilgrims

While recipe-kit meals typically take 20 to 40 minutes to prepare, home-delivery meal kits are more like ready meals. Meals need a little prep, such as cooking pasta or heating things up, but they've already been prepared and are usually ready to eat in as little as five to 10 minutes.

We asked customers to rate the most popular and widespread options, to find out which ones hit the mark for a quick and tasty meal by post.

One brand impressed enough in our survey to be a Which? Recommended Provider, while another high-profile option scored less well, with users less impressed at the value it offers.

Which? members can log in now to see the full results.

If you're not a member, you'll see an alphabetically ordered list of the companies reviewed, with insights on pricing and what they offer. Join Which? today to see these and thousands of other independent reviews.

Here's an overview of what each company offers. Prices for meal kits are based on two meals for two people, including delivery (excluding special offers).

Nonna Tonda

Price of a two-meal box for two: £27

Nonna Tonda is run by a husband-and-wife duo who make fresh pasta for the dishes each day. Each week, there's a choice of two meat and seafood-based pastas and two vegetarian pastas.

Customers can order two, four or six portions a week. Customers can also top up their boxes with an antipasti selection.

Join Which? to see how customers rated Nonna Tonda in our survey.

Want to order without reading our full results? Visit Nonna Tonda.

Pasta Evangelists

Price of a two-meal box for two: £21.60

Pasta Evangelists has more than 40 dishes to choose from each week, including family favourites such as lasagne and carbonara. There are vegetarian and vegan options, child-sized portions plus sides and desserts. Some bundles include three courses.

Dishes come in single or double portions, with a discount of around 10% on double portions. The company also delivers cooked, hot meals in some areas.

Join Which? to see how customers rated Pasta Evangelists in our survey.

Want to order without reading our full results? Visit Pasta Evangelists.

Pizza Pilgrims – Pizza in the Post

Price of pizza kit: starts at £25 (margherita)

This restaurant chain – which is largely London-based, with a few outposts in Leeds, Oxford and Brighton – delivers pizza kits in the post.

Kits can be delivered weekly, fortnightly or monthly, and each kit contains the ingredients to make two or four pizzas. You can choose from margherita, double pepperoni and spicy honey, plus a Chef's monthly special. Gluten-free bases are available. 

Join Which? to see how customers rated Pizza Pilgrims in our survey.

Want to order without reading our full results? Visit Pizza Pilgrims Pizza in the Post.

Newer meal kit brands for 2025

Since we first conducted our survey of recipe boxes and meal kits, several new brands have entered the market, each putting their own spin on the concept.

Here are some of the newer options to consider. We don't have survey ratings for these yet.

Planthood

Price: £45 for three meals (each serving two people)

Planthood claims to be the only meal-kit company that delivers 'chef-made sauces, garnishes and fresh vegetables'.

All the brand's sauces are cooked from scratch using 100% natural ingredients, and the meals are designed with gut health in mind – they contain high-fibre fresh vegetables, fermented foods and polyphenols.

Customers can pick from a weekly changing menu, and the food arrives cold in a fully recyclable, insulated box. The website says that opting for Planthood is 'quicker than a recipe box' as the meals are 'mostly ready in 15 minutes or less'.

For more details, head to Planthood.

Stocked

Price: £53 for a one-off order (up to 16 meals, or 32 blocks)

Stocked offers 'flexible food for your freezer' in the form of conveniently portioned blocks. You can choose between a subscription package (which unlocks limited-edition blocks voted in by customers) or a one-off order.

The brand sells a four-pack subscription of up to 16 meals (32 blocks) or a six-pack alternative of up to 24 meals (48 blocks). Options include classic bolognese, beef chilli and creamy mushrooms.

Visit Stocked to build your bundle.

Dishpatch

Price: £42-£136

Dishpatch isn't a subscription service, so you order as and when you need to in a way that fits your schedule.

While other services just provide the ingredients, Dishpatch dishes come pre-prepared with 'only a few easy steps to finish and serve'. If you sign up for the Supper Club for £69 a year, you get free delivery on all orders, access to exclusive member-only menus and £120 of credit.

Explore Dishpatch to see if any meals catch your eye.

Grubby

Price: £21 for two meals (each serving two people)

Grubby sells plant-based recipe kits and delivers them straight to your door, saving a trip to the supermarket.

The meals take around 30 minutes to cook, and the brand says it has created more than 200 tasty recipes to date. It also says that, on average, each Grubby recipe contains at least six varieties of fresh veg. 

At the time of writing, meal options include crispy sweet chilli tofu wraps, creamy sundried tomato pesto linguine and sticky mango tofu with coconut rice.

The Grubby website has more information.

Other meal-kit options include:

• Frive – sells 'nutritionist-approved' meals that are freshly prepared and ready to heat and eat in minutes. 
• Dishoom Store – a selection of meal kits inspired by the brand's physical stores. Options include naan roll kits and vegan options. 
• Cookaway – world food recipe kits. Among the 'bestsellers' are the beef wellington, chicken katsu curry and Spanish tapas. 
• Detox Kitchen – choose between daily deliveries or Resets, which are short three-to-five-meal plans delivered all at once.
• Côte At Home– for 'restaurant quality' French-inspired menus at home.

How to choose the best recipe kit or meal box for you

Recipe boxes and meal kits offer convenience and the chance to have a 'home-cooked' meal without too much planning and shopping, and give you the chance to try new dishes.

They can be useful for people learning to cook or who struggle to get to the shops, such as those who work long hours and who are less mobile. You can also minimise food waste, because ingredients are pre-measured for specific meals.

Recipe boxes such as Hello Fresh, Gousto and Mindful Chef send you the ingredients and instructions to cook a meal from scratch. Often the ingredients are pre-measured and sometimes also peeled and chopped, which means meals can be prepared relatively quickly.

You can choose how many meals you want each week, but there's usually a minimum order of two. Depending on the company, meals can be for between one and five people.

Meal kits require even less work. You receive the prepared components of a meal and need to do minimal prepping or cooking before serving up.

Take advantage of trial offers

It's worth browsing the menus on different sites to see what tempts you. Consider the importance of factors such as having organic veg, higher welfare meat or a B-corp certification when choosing.

If you're looking to mix up your meals, don't be afraid to swap around and try a few different boxes. This will give you a better idea of what you like or don't like.

Most companies have generous introductory offers (for example, Hello Fresh is currently offering 60% off your first box and 20% off for two months, while Simply Cook has a month's free trial), and make it relatively easy to pause or cancel your subscription, so you can take advantage of these to get a flavour of the different options.

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How we tested recipe kits and meal boxes

The results are based on an online survey of 2,477 adults – members of the Which? Connect panel and members of the public – in November 2023 who had used recipe boxes or meal kits in the past two years. 

We asked them to rate the companies they'd tried on a range of factors including value for money, the amount of unnecessary packaging used, variety of recipes, quality of food, ease of following recipes and portion size. 

Our analysis is based on 3,856 different customer experiences, as some people had tried multiple companies.

The overall customer score is based on satisfaction and the likelihood of recommending the company to others. 

To give a company a rating, we needed a minimum of 30 responses. The sample sizes for each company are in brackets in the tables.

Prices and availability last checked: 12 January 2025