Gousto Recipe Box Review

I love to cook but struggle with two big challenges – time and inspiration. 

That’s why I decided to do this Gousto review and share my honest thoughts on this recipe box. 

Getting everything I need to make tasty meals delivered to my doorstep with new recipes really appeals to me as someone who enjoys cooking but has got stuck in a bit of an inspiration rut. 

If you’re wondering whether Gousto is good value for money, what the meals are like and whether it’s worth a try then read on. 

You can also check out what I think of Simply Cook.

This article contains affiliate links.

Gousto quick verdict 

If you love cooking but lack the time or ideas to come up with brand new recipes to try every week then Gousto is a great concept. 

The meals are tasty and recipe cards are very easy to follow. 

The biggest downside is it does work out more expensive than shopping from a supermarket, once your special introductory price has expired and you’re put on the regular plan. 

It’s great for convenience and meal inspiration, but not such great value after your discount has expired, especially when buying fewer meals for a smaller number of people. 

The box of four meals for four people is the best value when it comes to cost, and reasonably competitive compared to even budget supermarket prices. 

Gousto makes home cooking super easy and with the introductory prices, it’s well worth a try for cooking up a storm in the kitchen!

Try Gousto here and get 65% off your first box.

How does Gousto work?

Gousto is a meal box delivery service that provides you with all of the ingredients you need to cook its recipes. 

You browse the recipes available – when I looked there were 80 – and choose the ones you want included in your box. 

Gousto will deliver all of the fresh ingredients – including meat and veg – along with recipe cards for you to follow through the cooking process. 

You choose how many meals you would like in your box – between two and five meals – and how many people you want to serve – between two and four people. 

How many meals and how many people you are serving will change the price, but it works out cheaper per serving to order four meals for four people (the biggest box available). 

When you set up your account you choose a preferred delivery day. I opted for Tuesdays. The use by dates on the meat were the upcoming Sunday and Monday – so I had a week to use everything. All of the veg kept really well and I had no issues.

You need to decide what meals go in your box three days before your delivery date. If you are someone who prefers to eat spur of the moment then having to plan in advance like this and commit to your meals may not appeal. 

What type of meals can you get with Gousto?

There’s a range of different cuisines available on the Gousto website, including Indian, Thai, Chinese, Italian, British, Mexican and more. 

You can find recipes that are quick to cook – including 10 minute meals – plus meals that can be cooked in an air fryer, if you’re one of the many people who have bought one since their popularity exploded! 

There are specific vegetarian options, plus with some recipes you get to pick whether you want it as a meat, fish or vegetarian recipe. 

Is Gousto child-friendly?

There’s a range of recipes available from Gousto from spicy to mild and exotic to more familiar. 

So if you have a child who prefers to stick with burgers and fish fingers, then you can find recipes that will appeal to them. 

Plus Gousto can encourage your kids to try something a little different. 

I like to introduce new things by adding them to the familiar, so we were able to get the kids to try some different pasta dishes with Gousto, including one that used Greek salad cheese rather than the hard, grated cheese they’re used to. 

How much is Gousto?

Gousto gets cheaper per serving the bigger the box you order. Their cheapest box contains four meals for four people – which is what I ordered. 

Their box containing two meals for two people is more than double the price per serving compared to their largest box, as you can see from their prices summary below. 

BOX SIZE	PRICE PER SERVING	BOX PRICE
4 meals for 4 people	£2.99	£47.85
3 meals for 4 people	£3.56	£42.75
2 meals for 4 people	£3.97	£31.75
5 meals for 2 people	£4.30	£42.99
4 meals for 2 people	£4.37	£34.99
3 meals for 2 people	£5.00	£29.99
2 meals for 2 people	£6.25	£24.99

Is Gousto more expensive than shopping at the supermarket?

Yes using Gousto on an ongoing basis does work out more expensive than shopping at budget supermarkets.  

You can easily get a hefty discount for your first few boxes – there are either codes on their website or that you’ll find online. Plus if you go to cancel Gousto will probably offer you new deals to keep you. 

But once that generous discount runs out, my calculations show the cost of a Gousto box works out more than the gram for gram cost of a similar set of ingredients purchased at Aldi. 

My caveat to this would be – to be fair to Gousto – I say this based on the weight of the ingredients in the Gousto recipes. So to be fair I have also priced it based on having to buy a whole jar of white wine vinegar, for example, not just the 30ml or so I need for the recipe. 

As you’ll see below, that costing works out similar to the Gousto box cost. But you will have ingredients leftover – such as rice and spices etc – for other meals. 

Let’s take my box as an example. This contained four meals for four people. 

Cost compared to supermarket:

• GOUSTO BOX INTRODUCTORY PRICE: £17.14 – Discounted first Gousto box containing 4 meals for 4 people, delivered 
• NORMAL COST OF GOUSTO BOX – £47.85 – 4 meals for 4 people plus £3.99 delivery charge 
• GRAM FOR GRAM SPEND SUPERMARKET: £29.54 – What ingredients would have cost at Aldi by exact weight
• ACTUAL SPEND SUPERMARKET: £47.37 – What ingredients would cost at Aldi when purchasing all items needed in whole packets 

As you can see the first box was very nearly half the price of shopping at a supermarket, if you compare to the gram for gram spend, and way cheaper compared to the actual spend. 

But then when we get to the normal Gousto prices it goes beyond the supermarket price, when you do a gram for gram comparison. 

If you were to take these recipes and purchase the ingredients from the supermarket, you would have to buy whole jars, packets and larger quantities. That means it costs more, but you would have more leftovers to cook with another day – for example rice and herbs and spices that keep for a long time. 

Of course what you’re paying for here is the convenience of everything being measured out for you and delivered, the selection of meals, the cooking inspiration and the fun of picking out your meals online each week. 

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you do decide the regular price is a little much and go to cancel your subscription then Gousto will actually offer you a fresh discount on the next box, so that’s worth considering. 

What did I think of Gousto?

My Gousto box recipes were: 

• Hoisin pork wraps 
• Oven-baked Greek cheese, tomato and chicken farfalle
• Sweet and sour chicken with rice 
• Warming chicken bhuna with rice and naan 

As you can see this box came with a lot of small portioned out ingredients, such as vinegar, herbs and spices. 

So getting the box organised took a good 10 minutes when I unpacked it all. 

There were two large ice packs inside the box and everything was fresh and in good condition. 

In terms of the quality of the ingredients I did think the cherry tomatoes weren’t as nice – they were a bit green and dull – compared to what I would normally pick out at the supermarket. Everything else was fresh and looked fine. 

The delivery arrived on a Tuesday and the meat expired on either the Sunday or Monday, so I had six days to eat the four meals which I think is reasonable. 

I would say that a recipe box like Simply Cook provides better flexibility in this regard, because it only includes the flavour elements of the recipe such as spices and stock. These keep for at least six months, so you have a lot longer before you need to use the recipe box. 

I found all of the recipes easy to follow, some were definitely a quicker cook and more straightforward – plus produced less washing up – than others. 

I was happy with the results of every recipe, especially the chicken farfalle dish. The portion sizes were decent for us – a family of two adults and two young children. Plus we had leftovers from the pasta dish. 

The bhuna was a particularly pleasant surprise, as I find home-cooked curries are often so disappointing, but this one was delicious! 

What are the pros and cons?

Pros 

• Fun way to try to new recipes 
• Decent selection of different types of meals 
• Air fryer recipes are on here – caters to the new surge in popularity of the air fryer! 
• Not buying loads of jars and bottles of vinegars and sauces that go less than half used. 
• Exact quantities means you save space 
• Makes cooking from scratch easy 
• Good offers for new customers makes food cheaper than getting from supermarket BUT after those offers it works out more expensive than buying from the cheapest supermarkets 
• Website is very easy to use 
• Flexibility. It is easy to edit your subscription settings – changing how frequent your box is, the box size, your delivery day and frequency. Plus you can skip a box if you are going away 

Cons 

• Everything arrives mixed up in the box and you need to spend time going through small sachets to check what goes with which recipe. 
• As everything is fresh you need to eat it within a week of it arriving – so planning ahead it key to avoid wastage 
• More expensive than buying from supermarket – especially so if you buy fewer meals for fewer people as the largest box is the best value 
• Delivery can be a little unreliable – we were given a 4pm to 6pm delivery slot but it arrived at 11am in the morning. This isn’t really much of an issue, but if you need to be home to take your delivery for whatever reason then this could be a little annoying. 
• You need to put your order in a few days ahead of your delivery date – for me it was Saturday at midday for a Tuesday delivery. This means food could be wasted if you have any last-minute changes of plan. 

Gousto review 

I really enjoyed our Gousto box and the recipes were all delicious – even our fussy kids enjoyed the pasta dish. 

The ordering process is simple and the recipe cards are easy to follow. It’s great to have the ingredients such as vinegars and sauces weighed out precisely, to save clogging up your cupboards. 

For those without much time to cook, Gousto highlights the recipes that are quick cooks when you’re picking out the meals you want to try plus it also highlights the cost differences between particular meals. 

As someone who loves to cook I found the recipes satisfied that foodie urge to make something from scratch, and the results were tasty. 

We don’t plan to stay signed up on an ongoing basis due to the cost, as I think we can keep our grocery costs down by supermarket shopping instead. 

I would definitely recommend taking advantage of the introductory offers that Gousto has, because for me this worked out cheaper than a supermarket shop. Plus it’s so convenient to get your fresh food delivered!

However don’t forget to cancel your subscription because it will just auto renew unless you intervene and cancel via your account online. 

I suspect Gousto is a recipe box you’ll enjoy trying, but if you’re on a budget you’ll find you can save money by getting your food from the supermarket. 

Of course thanks to the flexibility of Gousto you could just order a monthly box – or even less frequently – and enjoy the recipe inspiration and convenience of getting your meals delivered. 

Want to save money on food? You may also like to check out my tips for saving money on food shopping and a guide to what time supermarkets add yellow stickers to food.