Weekday cooking with flavour – is Gousto the answer?

Source of Luxury Rating: 8/10

I’m a foodie. I love combining ingredients and the excitement of what you get at the end. I find cooking enjoyable and I don’t even hate the shopping part of it. If it can be delivered too, then you’re onto a winner.

Riverford, Hello Fresh and Abel & Cole are a few of the food subscription companies that are all striving to provide the perfect balance of convenience, quality and taste in a growing market.

These have never really appealed to me through – I don’t want a bunch of random ingredients delivering to me just because they’re in season. I want to eat seasonal but I also like to know what’s the meal plan for the week so I know how much time to set aside. This is why Gousto appealed to me.

You can choose if you want Gousto for either two of four adults and the number of nights. We opted to buy enough for four adults for four nights so we could have leftovers for lunch.

So now the important part, choosing what to eat from the 22 recipes. The recipes change constantly based on what ingredients they have available and seasonality. As you get closer to the delivery date there are less options available so I advise you order at least 7 days in advance.

I selected the following for to try:

• Jewelled chicken freekeh
• Minced lamb Moroccan lasagne
• Pork fillet with panko crumbs and roasted potatoes
• Brown cod with new potatoes and vegetables

The recipes come with all the ingredients including spices and things like balsamic vinegar in pre-portioned packets and recipe cards.

On Monday I was super excited when our delivery arrived. It was extremely well packed and insulated. Just look at how much was packed into the box! I noticed a couple of the accompaniment ingredients had split and leaked. Everything looked fresh and most ingredients come from the UK.

Minced lamb Moroccan lasagne

First to be put to the test was the Moroccan lasagne with a 55-minute guideline including oven time. You’ve got this I thought – it’s a lasagne, it’s semi Italian. After getting the vast number of ingredients ready (was it really two bags of kale?) I set upon it. I think I’m pretty nippy in the kitchen and usually get the time spot on – even Jamie Oliver’s 15-minute meals. 55 minutes later and it still wasn’t in the oven! How on earth did that happen? I followed it to a tee. On I go and another 30 minutes later, it’s on the plate. There’s so much food – enough for 8 people, must be all the kale!

The taste test. It’s pretty good, there’s an overwhelming amount of kale but that’s healthy, right? It’s got quite a lot of flavour and tastes a bit middle eastern. It could do with some more spices but it’s good overall.

Pork with panko crumbs and roasted potatoes.

This worked much better time wise and only took an extra 8 minutes over what it said it would. The panko mix did burn and wasn’t quite as stuck to the pork as it could have been (I think it needed dipping in an egg before) but was pretty tasty. The balsamic and apple mix was really easy and complemented the pork.

Brown cod fillet with new potatoes and vegetables.

As much as I love cooking when Jonathan offered to cook this one as it looked pretty simple I accepted willingly. He did a great job and the end result was really tasty. It took way longer (20 minutes longer) than the guideline of 30 minutes but Jonathan does like to go at a leisurely pace in the kitchen. His review of Gousto was that it was quicker to prepare by having everything measured out in its little bags. He didn’t like that the recipe cards were double sided which meant that you had to keep turning over to see the quantity of ingredients you needed. He was really impressed that he had managed to cook a tasty meal for us and found it easy.

Jewelled chicken freekeh.

This was incredibly easy and was spot on timing wise. The ingredients for this were really simple but the chicken was delicious and went really well with the freekeh and mint.

The Verdict. Will we be doing dinner the Gousto way again next week?

The amount of meat is generous but the fish dishes generally needed more fish. The meat meals easily fed four adults but the fish ones were more of a push. Some of the meals would have been better with more vegetables and a wider choice of carbohydrates.

Being able to choose the recipes and trying new meals was exciting. The meals were flavourful and had a lot of fresh herbs which I liked and is how I’m used to eating.
We’re going to give it a try for another couple of weeks but long term I’m sceptical whether there will be enough variety. I would also like the option of more fish recipes to choose from.

If you’re keen to give Gousto a try you can get 50% of your first two boxes with my voucher.

This post is not sponsored.