Recipe & Food Subscription Boxes
If you find yourself Googling 'What should I make for dinner tonight?' all too often, perhaps you should consider signing up to a recipe box. A recipe box includes a recipe of what to make for dinner, as well as the ingredients to make it, including pre-measured spices, and a step-by-step guide on how to prepare it.
Recipes boxes are especially useful if you want to try out something new but don't want to buy an entire bottle of, say, white wine vinegar, when you only need a tablespoon. It's also a great, healthy way to eat, as the ingredients come fresh straight to your door. Options are endless, as well, depending on how many people are in your household, whether you're a meat eater or a vegetarian, and the number of meals you'd like to receive for the week.
Top Recipe & Food Subscription Services
Recipe Boxes
Abel & Cole provides four different options for their recipe boxes including one for vegetarians, one for foodies, a light option, and a simple option. Each box provides enough ingredients for three different meals and is enough for two people. With Abel & Cole, you get more than just recipe boxes with fresh ingredients, you can also order dedicated meat and fish boxes, boxes with fruits and vegetables, boxes to mix up fresh juices, snacking boxes, crisp salad boxes, and much more.
Mindful Chef offers healthy recipe boxes that are both gluten and dairy free that come with the recipe cards and all the fresh ingredients needed to make nutritious dinners throughout the week. Mindful Chef offer a great array of vegetarian options, alongside meat and fish options and, additionally, cater for the 1-person household, offering a recipe box for either one, two, or four people.
Hello Fresh offers fresh ingredients along with easy recipes to help you make healthy and satisfying meals each week. The boxes can feed 2-4 people and can include 3-5 meals for a week, depending on what option you choose. With Hello Fresh, you have the option of choosing your recipes each week, which, of course, includes vegetarian choices too.
Gousto’s service delivers all of the ingredients you need to cook healthy, well-balanced meals. With 10 different recipe options weekly, including vegetarian options, Gousto helps you explore your culinary horizons with flavourful new recipes in pre-measured quantities so that you’re able to try new things without the added expense of buying everything in large quantities.
Riverford is all about seasonal and organic food grown by their own farmers and delivered straight to your door. Box options vary greatly and include an array of recipe boxes to make complete meals to boxes with just vegetables and everything in between. You can also make one-off purchases of meat and dairy all of which are 100% organic.
Simply Cook offers a different type of recipe box where you receive four recipes with each box that comes with all the pre-measured spices, rubs, and marinades with easy-to-use recipes. The box does not come with fresh ingredients, but these can easily be picked up in your local shop with the box promising only 4-6 fresh ingredients needed for each 15-20 minute recipe..
Food Boxes
Degustabox allows you to try new food and drink products from the market whilst saving you a fair few quid at the same time. The box tends to contain betwen 10 and 15 mystery items and can be delivered monthly with the option to unsubscribe at any time. Items vary from granola to sauces, spices, crisps, candy, interesting drinks, and more.
More Boxes
Artisan Foods
Made in France Box sends out a monthly supply of food items made in France, such as snacks and other gourmet food items.
Monthly Flavors is a selection of both healthy and tasty Mediterranean food products chosen by a team of experts, including a wide variety of snacks, olives, oils, and more.
La Gourmet Box sends a monthly box of artisanal food products from a premium selection of farmhouses, including spreads, sweets, cheese, cured meats, and more.
Bonjour French Food delivers French gourmet food straight to your doorstep, including things like olives, charcuterie, pâté, and more - ooo la la!
BoroughBox Discovery Box allows you to do just that - discover new food from local food artisans and producers. Expect a combination of meal prep, snacks and drinks.
Hot Sauces
Formerly known as Lick My Dip, this hot sauce club sure packs a punch, sending out hot sauces and fiery snacks, rubs and cooking products.
The Hot Sauce Club sends out a subscription of 4-6 products monthly or quarterly, including at least one hot sauce and fiery-flavoured snacks, including crisps, popcorn, and more.
Spices
The Spicery offers a monthly spice box filled with spices and recipes to help you prepare curries at home with options for chilli lovers, classic curries, vegetarian, and more.
Souk Spice Club is a monthly subscription service that sends out three freshly ground spice blends along with easy-to-use recipe cards to inspire you to try new recipes.
Spice Concept sends out four fresh spice blends each month, along with recipes where you simply need to add a few fresh ingredients.
A Pairings Box from Turntable Kitchen is both a recipe of the month club and a subscription service for vinyl records, pairing tunes & tastes.
Which Companies Offer Recipe & Food Boxes?
There are three main companies that offer recipe box subscriptions, with each promising something slightly different from the other. Hello Fresh, Gousto and Riverford have really taken the world of recipe boxes to another level, delivering top quality ingredients, as well as simple to follow instructions about what to do with them.
Hello Fresh has a number of options available, promising healthy meals for between two and four people for three, four or five of your weekly meal times. Gousto is a company that wants you to push your culinary boundaries, sending you everything you need in already measured out quantities to make life simple. Riverford, meanwhile, are all about the organic options available on the market.
As for gourmet food boxes, the main contenders aren't quite as well known as their recipe box counterparts. BoroughBox Discovery Club and Bonjour French Food offer great gourmet box options, allowing you to try interesting artisan foods from independent products within the UK. The kind of stuff you receive tends to be what you'd expect to receive in a fancy food hamper. Degustabox offers more standard food products that you can usually find in your local market. Their main aim, however, is to get you to try newer products on the market all whilst saving you a fair few quid, as the retail value of the boxes amounts to much more than what they charge monthly.
What Comes Included?
The content of recipe boxes can vary wildly depending on the company you opt to place your order with. One thing that tends to be the same across all of the boxes, however, is the way that the content is measured out. What these companies are about almost above all else is waste, so you’ll get perfectly chosen amounts of food, spices and everything else you need to make a perfect meal.
There are vegetarian recipe boxes available from every company, so don’t worry if you’re not a meat eater. If you are, though, then you’ll get well-sourced meat and the in-season vegetables that complement them perfectly. The most important thing you’ll find in your box is, of course, the recipe booklet. This explains in a step-by-step process everything you need to know in order to turn your box full of raw materials into a delicious and healthy meal.
With the food boxes, you'll receive an array of mystery food items with some boxes offering more gourmet options, like chutneys, nuts, cured meats, and others offering a selection of standard goods you might be able to source in the market. At the moment, none of the top mystery food subscription boxes listed here allow you to choose what you receive, so these are, perhaps, not recommended for people with food allergies.