<em>Best recipe box overall:</em>Riverford

• What we love:Exceptional and unusual organic ingredients; free delivery
• What we don’t love:At the expensive end, and not for complete beginners

• From £15 for two-person meal Riverford

Riverford’s organic recipe service started from a car boot. The Devon-based company now also dispatches organic meat, dairy, bakery and drinks, as well as recipe boxes and smaller recipe kits, to homes across the UK.

Why we love it
The best recipe box services include food you can’t just buy at the supermarket; recipe ideas that expand your repertoire; cooking tips that actually work; and sustainability measures that go above and beyond offsetting the carbon cost of delivery. On all these factors, Riverford topped my test.

It wasn’t quite a slam dunk, though. The recipe range is smaller than that of Gousto or HelloFresh, and meals are more expensive. But with about 13 recipe boxes and eight kits each week, the range is imaginative and varied, with recipes that span the globe from curry and pasta to fajitas and mac ‘n’ cheese. There’s always a veggie and vegan option, plus meat and fish (the latter of which is wild rather than organic).

When my Riverford box arrived, I was amazed by the breadth of ingredients and the quality of the veg, which included vividly red and yellow peppers and a lettuce fresher than anything I’ve ever seen in a shop. If, like me, you avoid ordering veg in supermarket deliveries because you prefer to choose the best items yourself, be assured that fresh produce from Riverford is outstanding. Just be careful to use it quickly, because organic veg ages fast.

Plastic levels in the box were low compared with others in my test, with dry items such as basmati rice wrapped in paper. The company keeps emissions down by limiting its delivery schedule to one specific day of the week according to where you live, and it also collects packaging for free, plastic included, for reuse and recycling.

Alan and I cooked a couple of Riverford’s vegetarian meals: falafels with lime salad, and curried tofu traybake. As someone who rarely manages to cook tofu without disintegrating it, I was grateful for the tip about leaving “ample room in the trays”, and ended up creating the tastiest meal in my whole test. I’ll definitely be cooking both meals in future, and may well get the ingredients from Riverford again – not least because the likes of kefir, harissa and tahini are not readily available at my local Tesco Express.

It’s a shame that … Alan felt that the recipes could have used more basic guidance, for example, for cooking unsticky rice. However, I thought this helped avoid making the steps “too wordy” (something my dad, Don, criticised Gousto for).

Subscription type: flexible; pause or cancel at any time
Price range per meal: from £3.98 (side) or £7.50 to £12 (main), depending on recipe and number of people
Delivery cost: free (min order £20)
Delivery frequency: weekly (day depends on where you live)
Areas covered: UK, but not all postcodes, so do check
Dietary options: vegetarian, vegan, naturally gluten-free
Sustainability: 100% organic except fish, which is certified wild; low-emission deliveries; minimal packaging, including paper bags for dry ingredients; packaging collected for free

<em>Best budget recipe box:</em>Gousto

• What we love:Fantastic value and a huge choice of recipes every week
• What we don’t love:Unnecessary levels of plastic

• From £9.30 for two-person meal

Gousto has the biggest recipe range in my test, with more than 175 to choose from every week. It’s outstandingly good value if you’re feeding a whole family, although it gets a little more expensive if you only order one or two servings. Still, the fact that Gousto includes a “one person” option at all is testament to its versatility.

Why we love it
Gousto’s boxes burst with colour, literally, because unlike its rivals, it doesn’t divide the contents into a separate bag per recipe. This helps to save on packaging, but can make for a slightly overwhelming start, because you have to divvy everything up yourself.

Ingredients duly sorted, I took the meat and fish recipes over to my dad, Don. At nearly 86, he’s in fine fettle but has lapsed from his previously adventurous cooking habits, and welcomed the nudge to try something new. He said the produce was fresh and carefully chosen, and liked not having to measure out the smaller ingredients – tomato puree, cumin and so on – by himself, or find cupboard space for any leftovers.

Don cooked the curried basa and lentil dal, using the wipe-clean card that’s more sturdy than the sheets of paper you get with Riverford, HelloFresh and Abel & Cole. The recipe was fairly simple, and he thought it could have been expressed in far fewer words (“I suspect they wanted to fill up the card”), but it seems to have reawakened his culinary mojo. “It was a way of making dal that I’d not tried before, in the oven rather than in the pot,” said Don. “It was easier than my usual way and tasted just as nice, so I’ll use Gousto’s method in future.”

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Alan made hoisin king oyster mushroom bao with sesame fries. The buns came ready-made, but the fries had to be rustled up from scratch. No disrespect to the chef, but this wasn’t one of my favourites, partly because the buns were a little dry and there wasn’t much sauce to compensate.

It’s a shame that … 175 recipes means there’s something for everyone, but it gave me choice paralysis. Also, a cucumber does not need to be wrapped in two layers of plastic, even if it’s been cut in half.

Subscription type: flexible; cancel or pause at any time
Price range per meal: from £3.20 (five recipes for four people) to £10.25 (two recipes for one person)
Delivery cost: £3.99 per box
Delivery frequency: weekly, fortnightly or once a month (customers choose delivery day)
Areas covered: England, Scotland, Wales, NI and Ireland
Dietary options: vegan, vegetarian, dairy-free, gluten-free, weight loss, high protein
Sustainability: B Corp certified; works with trusted suppliers for 100% British meat and responsibly sourced ingredients; uses recycled paper for its Eco Chill Box

<em>Best letterbox meal kit:</em>SimplyCook

• What we love:Letterbox delivery; creates a meal with what’s in the fridge
• What we don’t love:You have to buy most ingredients yourself

• £2.50 for two-person meal

By far the cheapest box in my test, SimplyCook doesn’t even add a delivery charge for its boxes, which are sent by Royal Mail and posted through your letterbox. It was never in contention for “best budget”, though, because its kit of seasonings, sauces and pastes (plus recipe cards) is all you get. You have to buy the big ingredients – veg, starch and protein – yourself.

Why we love it
SimplyCook’s chef-prepared pots are what my dad, Don, calls “the interesting bit of cooking”. They’re the ingredients that can be hard to find at the shops – or at least hard to find in quantities small enough for one dinner.

This approach makes the recipes easy to customise according to your tastes, dietary needs and what you’ve got lying around. Alan made a “beef” stroganoff using Quorn, for example, and it tasted glorious. He found the recipe “idiot proof”, even when altering it to suit us, and he said the suggested cooking time was accurate and short enough to fit in after a long day at work.

SimplyCook’s format also removes the time pressure that comes with boxes containing fresh ingredients. The pots have a long shelf life, so you don’t have to find time to cook them right away or find space for them in your fridge. It also widens the range of recipes on offer at any one time, covering a huge variety of cuisines and dietary requirements.

The subscription model continues the uncomplicated theme. Your first box is £5 including postage, and you can cancel after that if you just fancy a one-off. If you do continue it’s £11.98 per box, with four recipes per box and three little pots of perfectly measured flavourful ingredients per recipe.

It’s a shame that … while I liked the freedom to choose my own bulky and fresh ingredients, it won’t suit you if you don’t have easy access to a supermarket.

Subscription type: flexible; cancel or pause at any time
Price range per meal: set price of £9.99 for four recipes
Delivery cost: included in box price
Delivery frequency: weekly, fortnightly or monthly
Areas covered: all of UK
Dietary options: vegan, vegetarian
Sustainability: packaging is mostly cardboard, with plastic used minimally; small box means no need for courier delivery

<em>Best recipe box for quick meals:</em>HelloFresh

• What we love:Wide range of recipes, including quick and easy family meals
• What we don’t love:Recipes are hard to find on the website without subscribing

• From £9.80 for two-person meal HelloFresh

The recipes from HelloFresh were the most accessible in my test, and came with the clearest step-by-step instructions, including a photo for each step. There’s a lot of choice, too, with a rotating menu of 80+ weekly recipes in categories including family friendly, low calorie, vegan and high protein.

Why we love it
HelloFresh’s jolly green box was waiting on my doorstep after I’d nipped out one grey January morning, and it brought much-needed joy – albeit wrapped in slightly more plastic than seemed necessary. Beans were in Tetrapaks rather than cans, while potatoes, broccoli and lettuce were in non-essential single-use plastic. It was easier to forgive the plastic ice packs that kept fridge items cool – that’s hard to avoid – and I was glad to see recipe-specific ingredients divided into numbered paper bags according to recipe.

My sister Maeve took HelloFresh’s pack of beef and pork mince off my hands and cooked the cheddar cheeseburger. As an experienced cook, she went a little off-piste with the recipe, but she said the quality of ingredients and clarity of the steps made this easy to do. “I could see which bits were essential and which bits I could play around with a bit more,” she said. The finished result was delicious, according to her family, and the mince was excellent quality, but she would have welcomed a higher veg count.

Most of the recipe collections I tested are easy to browse online before you decide to sign up, but HelloFresh prefers to hide its recipes behind pages and pop-ups urging you to take out a subscription. I found a trick to bypass this: click delivery areas, then use the recipe category links towards the bottom-right corner of the page, just above the QR code. When I did this, I was delighted to see that every recipe’s thumbnail is loaded with at-a-glance information, including cooking time, difficulty level and allergens.

As with most of the services I feature here, you can get a one-off HelloFresh box by signing up, then immediately skip or cancel future deliveries.

It’s a shame that … portion sizes and ingredient measurements were occasionally inconsistent, and I’d like to see the amount of plastic reduced.

Subscription type: flexible; cancel or skip five days before next scheduled delivery
Price range per meal: from £3.50 (five meals for four people) to £7.25 (two meals for two people)
Delivery cost: £4.99 per box
Delivery frequency: weekly
Areas covered: UK, but not all postcodes, so do check
Dietary options: vegetarian, vegan, dairy-free, naturally gluten-free
Sustainability: B Corp certified; the company’s new cool box is fully recyclable

<em>Best recipe box for healthy meals:</em>Mindful Chef

• What we love:Good range of light recipes that don’t sacrifice flavour
• What we don’t love:Delivery is pricey at £5.99

• From £13.99 for two-person meal Mindful Chef

As a health-conscious vegetarian, I felt right at home with Mindful Chef. Its light, wholesome recipes are easy to follow without being uninspiring, and there’s plenty of culinary variety among the 28 weekly recipes, which include meat and fish along with all the veggie and vegan options.

Why we love it
The fresh ingredients in my Mindful Chef box were superb quality, and storecupboard ingredients were premeasured and packed using minimal plastic. Items that needed refrigerating were in a cardboard cool section with ice packs, while other ingredients were divided into three numbered paper bags that corresponded to my three chosen recipes.

I took the role of chef this time, whipping up a creamy miso and tahini ramen in slightly less than the suggested 40 minutes. The steps were clear, with just enough wriggle room (“season to taste”), and I was delighted by my finished meal, which I’ll be cooking again. Actually, I’ll be cooking several of them without the need to buy another Mindful Chef box, because every box comes with a booklet containing all 28 of the week’s recipes in full.

Mindful Chef is a service after my own heart, but not everyone will love its emphasis on wholesome eating. Confident cooks, too, may wonder why a recipe box would include a pack of microwave rice.

It’s a shame that … fans of slap-up roast dinners and puddings may feel a little short-changed here.

Subscription type: flexible; skip or cancel any time
Price range per meal: £5.12 to £11.85, depending on recipe and number of people
Delivery cost: £5.99
Delivery frequency: weekly
Areas covered: UK except Isle of Man
Dietary options: vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, weight loss, high protein
Sustainability: certified B Corp and carbon-neutral; aims to be net zero by 2030 and operates a 0% food waste model

Abel &amp; Cole

• What we love:Outstanding quality organic produce in sustainable packaging
• What we don’t love:Recipe kit range is limited at the moment

• From £3.50 per main meal Abel & Cole

Best for: confident cooks who love organic and don’t always need a recipe

Abel & Cole got into the grub-in-a-box game early, starting in 1988 with its organic veg box service. It now delivers organic meat and fish as well, plus a whole range of household goods from champagne to bin liners. Look closely, and you’ll find recipes and recipe kits, too, including meat and veggie options.

I was impressed by the quality of Abel & Cole’s ingredients, which included a staggeringly beautiful cauliflower and carrots that tasted more like actual carrot than anything I’ve bought from the supermarket. They were mostly wrapped in paper (even the box had no tape, just clever folding mechanics and string), and the minimal plastic was in the form of food storage bags that I was able to reuse. Abel & Cole even runs a plastic pickup service to collect the stuff you’ve used.

Alan cooked the hot and sour Syrian-style lentil stew, which turned out to be one of my favourite meals from this whole test. The recipe card was a sheet of paper that got soggy quickly, and the instructions were a little wordy with no pictures, but the end result was gloriously tasty – and big enough for seconds the next day.

It didn’t make the final cut because … Abel & Cole’s recipe kits section is a nice addition to its food box service, but it’s a relatively small part of the company’s remit. In many ways, it’s up there with Riverford, but its recipe range is less broad and its instructions less clear.

Subscription type: weekly or ad hoc; price range: from £3.50 (two sides) to £40 (special occasion for two); delivery cost: £3.50; delivery frequency: weekly; areas covered: most of UK except Scotland; dietary options: vegetarian, vegan; sustainability: certified B Corp with sustainability pledges include zero air freight; organic certification by the Soil Association; delivery routes planned to minimise emissions; plastic packaging used only where necessary to avoid food waste

Grubby

• What we love:Great selection of plant-based recipes
• What we don’t love:Boxes are for two or four people only

• From £12.50 for two-person meal Grubby

Best for: vegans tired of reading the small print on everything in the supermarket

If you think shopping for ingredients is exhausting, just try doing it as a vegan. Recipe boxes help by doing the ingredient-checking for you, and Grubby’s recipe range – which includes dishes designed by guest chefs such as the Bosh team – is entirely plant-based, so you don’t even have to look for a “vegan” or “vegetarian” stamp.

Grubby started as a ready meals service, delivering UPF-free meals for vegans in a hurry. It still does them, but it’s now added a meal kit range that you can see in full by clicking “order now”. Recipes aren’t published in full on the website, but dozens are published in a hardback book that you get with your first order, which also comes with free delivery. Prices are reasonable, and the ingredient quality is excellent.

It didn’t make the final cut because … I’d have liked less plastic for ingredients that would have been fine in paper bags, such as peanuts and pumpkin seeds.

Subscription type: flexible; make changes by 72hrs pre delivery; price range: from £4.49 (two recipes for two) to £7.25 (five-recipe family box); delivery cost: £4.99 each or £5.99/mo; delivery frequency: weekly; areas covered: UK except Northern Ireland, Isle of Man, Isle of Wight, Channel Islands; dietary options: vegan, vegetarian; sustainability: B Corp-certified Grubby uses biodegradable pods and “mostly organic” tins, and donates a meal to a child in poverty for every box sold

Planthood

• What we love:Meat-free meals with healthy ingredients; quick to prepare
• What we don’t love:Relatively expensive; too preprepared for adventurous cooks

• From £15 for two-person meal

Best for: vegans who find other recipe kits too time-consuming

Planthood is another entirely plant-based meal kit, and it’s an even bigger time-saver than Grubby. Planthood’s chefs preprepare many of the meals’ elements, including sauces, garnishes and fresh veg, much of which arrives already peeled and chopped. This may sound dangerously close to ready meal territory, but Grubby says it’s all “zero additives or UPFs”, and most of its proteins are organic.

The range is small, but with 10 meals each week, there should be plenty to keep a regular subscriber interested. Alan rustled up a high-protein dish of tempeh “meatballs” in smoky tomato sauce, and while I loved the braised green kale accompaniment – which deployed a green-veg-cooking trick that we’ll be using again – I wasn’t a fan of the preprepared sauce, which I found rather cloying.

It didn’t make the final cut because … there’s little opportunity to learn to cook new dishes, because elements are pre-prepared and recipes are only available via a QR code.

Subscription type: flexible; price range: £7.50 per meal; delivery cost: £3.99; free for orders over £50; delivery frequency: weekly, fortnightly or monthly; areas covered: UK except NI and islands; dietary options: all vegan, some gluten-free; sustainability: aims to be 100% organic “in the future”

Pasta Evangelists

• What we love:A good range of pasta dishes, and no need to subscribe
• What we don’t love:Not much cooking to do, and few veggie options

• From £11 for two-person meal Pasta Evangelists

Best for: pasta lovers who don’t want to spend hours in the kitchen

Pasta dishes aren’t exactly notorious for being difficult, but the sauces and other elements can be tricky to master. Unfortunately, Pasta Evangelists won’t help you master them, because it provides them ready-prepared, but it can certainly help to broaden your pasta palate.

Like Planthood, Pasta Evangelists employs chefs (it’s a restaurant chain, too) to make its sauces and other pasta-adjacent dishes such as focaccia and tiramisu, which are delivered ready-made. All you have to do is cook the pasta, which is fresh and therefore needs very little cooking indeed.

We tried the cherry tomato and fresh basil rigatoni, one of only two meat-free mains at the time of writing. Beans on toast would have required more actual cooking, but it was delicious, and at less than £7 each, it was cheaper than a takeaway.

It didn’t make the final cut because … it’s less a recipe box and more an Italian takeaway that requires a few minutes on the hob.

Subscription type: weekly or ad hoc; Price range: from £4.25 (two sides) to £9.75 (lobster ravioli main); delivery cost: £2.99 or free over £30; delivery frequency: ad hoc; choose delivery date (normally within 2-3 days); dietary options: vegetarian, vegan