Hello Fresh

I tried both Hello Fresh and Gousto because they had big discounts on offer for your first box, and while the meals were very nice, I certainly wouldn't be buying them at full price. I felt Gousto's meat was better quality than Hello Fresh - with Hello Fresh, I felt the chicken was particularly poor. I think they are a good idea if you want to try new types of recipes - it's good to be able to have just the right quantities of things like herbs and spices, for instance. It means you don't have to go out and buy jars of things for just the one recipe, especially if you might not use those particular herbs or spices again.

My daughter uses them a lot, but she doesn't have to worry about the cost, lucky girl. They are expensive, and quite fiddly to cook. Things like spices, tomato passata etc are measured out for you, and each one comes with its own recipe card. I cook for her once a week, and she suggested I use one of her meals each time but I was frustrated with some of the ingredients which I couldn't eat, so have gone back to cooking a meal at home and taking it over.

My daughter orders them as they are advertised as easy for those who are busy, but there is a lot of chopping and preparing, and she tends to just cook from them another dish with the ingredients the children will eat, so there is some wastage.

We use use and enjoy them . They are not the cheapest way to buy meals but there is no waste.
Best of all, because of the easy instructions and the fact that everything supplied DH will cook a couple of times each week.
Once you have had your initial boxes you can chose if and when you want a delivery.

I use HelloFresh but haven't tried Gousto.
I tried them initially to try and get my then teenage son ( with learning disability- so I hoped picture instructions would be helpful) and my husband more involved in meal preparation. The now adult son quickly lost interest ( he helps choose what to order) but helps with chopping and stirring.
The boxes also help with inspiration!
Some meals take quite a bit of time and energy to prepare- which can be difficult if you have caring commitments alongside cooking. The estimated time to cook each meal is indicated when choosing meals, but I always find preparation on the more complex meals slow things down. Some of the 'quick meals' have some ready chopped or tinned ingredients to speed things up.
I thought it was very expensive at first but with 3 of us to cook for (prepacked supermarket foods usually cater for 2 or 4-5) its not as bad as I originally thought. We do find the portions mostly generous ( others may not) so we often have leftovers for lunch. DH now shares the cooking and on the day I work ( I'm mostly retired) will often come home to the dinner on the table.
We originally just had a box ( 3 meals for 3) -alternate weeks, but during lockdown changed to weekly boxes as not only was I advised to shield but our local supermarket had mostly empty shelves.
We like lots of vegetables so we often add an extra vegetable to the recipes/meals. I avoid choosing recipes that include ingredients that we need to avoid in our household, (such as peppers) but occasionally an unavailable vegetable will be substituted - and its almost always peppers that comes instead! It is not often thankfully.
With HelloFresh you can order up to 6 meals a week- and the price for the extra meals is lower per meal ( than the standard 3), so that it is more cost effective per meal to order a box of say 5 meals a fortnight than 3 meals a week- however you would have to choose carefully to avoid difficulties with too many items that are likely to have short use by dates such as fish.
Before meal boxes I hardly ever used pulses but now have a better idea of how cook pulse based meals.

Thanks everyone, I did order a box and it came last Friday, I have cooked two of the meals already and they were both really nice and will keep the recipe cards and try to recreate them myself. I have cancelled the delivery for the moment but would consider using them again. Only 2 negatives I could see , 1 was their website I thought was a bit clunky, 2 was as someone else said the volume of packaging but I don't know how you get over this. I think it you had visitors for a few days it would be a great way catering fairly stress free without thinking about what to cook and shopping for the ingredients. I might take a look again nearer Christmas . I like Simply Cook boxes too but these just supply the recipes and spices/ sauces and you buy the ingredients your self.

My daughter used hello fresh for a while.

She didnt find it too expensive, but only did around 3 meals a week, and there was no waste.

We found piling our trollies high in Aldi meant more waste, on the whole.