Best food delivery boxes and UK recipe and subscription services to order now

Best: Overall and for pasta lovers

• Feeds: One or two 
• Delivery: Once a week 
• Cost: From £6.50

Pasta Evangelists feels like a recipe box for grownups. A letterbox-friendly parcel gets posted through your door, containing two different fresh pasta recipes – you can choose from 10 different recipes each week, and you can also get next-day delivery, which is a big tick.

It’s an incredibly clever idea because pasta is so easy to transport and takes so little prep – as the sauces are premade, you’ll never have to spend more than 10 or minutes cooking, and you get up with near-restaurant quality food. Dietary requirements are well-catered for: we had vegetarian cacio e pepe and vegan orecchiette with pesto and a pistachio crumb (we ended up adding a fair amount of salt and pepper to this, but that’s a very minor complaint). Now all you need is a nice bottle of wine…

Best: Healthy recipe box

• Feeds: One or two adults, or four adults, or two adults and two children
• Delivery: Two-three recipes, delivered once a week 
• Cost: From £22

B Corp-certified Mindful Chef operates with impressive sustainability credentials: founders Myles and Giles visit each supplier first to make sure they maintain the same values of transparency, quality and sustainability with their produce. The company also works with charity One Feeds Two, runs a packaging returns programme, and encourages its employees to get involved with charity and sustainability initiatives. Not only this, but it continues its domination of the recipe box market with new services, and recently expanded to offer frozen meals, family recipe boxes and an increase in vegan options.

You get a recipe booklet with your order with all the recipes and three different ingredient kits arrive, neatly packaged in three different brown paper bags, while fresh ingredients are insulated in wool. Everything was measured out and ready to go, which is obviously convenient but there was quite a lot of unnecessary plastic involved. We had chicken jambalaya and courgette and lentil bake, but you could be eating dishes like South African-inspired bobotie (curried meat) with turmeric rice and tenderstem broccoli, or flat iron beef steak stroganoff.

You did need to slice some of the items (unlike some of the other services out there), but the recipes were straightforward – we managed to cook while entertaining and chatting to guests. Portions were just right for one helping per person and a spoonful more, and were hearty enough to satisfy, despite the healthy feel to the branding.

Best: Vegan recipe box

• Feeds: One or two
• Delivery: Whenever you like 
• Cost: From £40.50

New kid on the block Allplants allows you to choose six pre-prepared totally vegan frozen meals (there are 54 dishes to choose from), with delivery to suit you. Each dish is as vibrant as the last: choose from the likes of three mushroom risotto, teriyaki udon, a bbq jackfruit burrito bowl and more, with new recipes being added all the time. We particularly liked that the oven and microwave-friendly packaging is also recyclable, if you give it a rinse, and you can send the cardboard box it all arrives in, along with wool insulation, back to Allplants for free through Collect+. They even ask you to fill in a feedback survey, and plant a tree on your behalf if you do so. It’s an admirable commitment to sustainability.

We loved the rainbow-bright dishes, and the easy way to make things more sustainable, although admittedly the food could have been more flavoursome. In fact, this was ideal to order as a one off and keep six dishes ready to go in the freezer for busy weeks. We also liked that you could order for one rather than two, although doing so sets you back a bit more (£7.67 per serving rather than £5.67, although if you subscribe you get a slim discount).

Best: For variety

• Feeds: Two or four
• Delivery: Up to four recipes kits delivered once a week
• Cost: From £24.99

Last year’s winner Gousto offers more than 50 recipes that change weekly, with different types to choose from: we sampled the 10-minute lemony chicken and pea spaghetti; the health “kitchen” spicy chicken and greens grain bowl; the further-flung “global kitchen” Goan fish and spinach curry; and the meat-free kofte with Greek bulgur salad.

With your first order you get a small binder that you can clip your weekly recipes into so you can use them again, should you like them enough. And you may well do – these recipes balanced interesting ideas and simple techniques to create mid-week recipes that would satisfy keen cooks. Food arrived pre-packaged and pre-sliced, keeping cooking and faffing times down, although of course this results in additional packaging. The seasonal meals were great for both kids and grownups, and the company spent the past year working to reduce the amount of plastic it uses by 50 per cent, a goal it met comfortably, and it will soon roll out an eco chill box made out of recycled paper and zero plastic.

The food was good, if not mind-blowing – but when it comes to delivery, this offered an impressive all-round service.

Best: For families

• Feeds: Two, three or four
• Delivery: Three, four or five recipe kits arrive once a week
• Cost: From £25.49

HelloFresh is one of the best and biggest companies in the recipe box world, with technology to match. This means its service is one of the most convenient and best-thought out there: you pick a plan – family, classic or rapid – how many people you want it for and how many recipes you want a week, and away you go. It’s also one of the best value, with three recipes a week for two people ringing in at £5 a meal.

The company has dedicated itself to making wholesome homemade food accessible to all, which means that alongside keepings its meals affordable, it works hard to source produce from brilliant suppliers like The Tomato Stall on the Isle of Wight, or the Kepak beef farmers in Ireland. As for the recipes themselves, each one genuinely took 20 minutes and was super simple to follow: mushroom and chicken crumble, lamb linguine and vegetarian tacos with feta, mushroom and chipotle mayo.

Lots of the pre-measured ingredients were wrapped up in plastic, which felt a bit unnecessary. For getting a delicious meal that’s far from boring on the table mid-week, HelloFresh more than did the job.

Best: Organic recipe box

• Feeds: Two
• Delivery: Once a week, on a day when the Riverford van is in the area
• Cost: From £12.45 for one meal

Like Abel & Cole, Riverford is a brand rightly associated with the highest quality organic produce, farmed with the highest standards of sustainability and ethics – so you know it’s going to be good. All the ingredients in your recipe box are fresh from the farm in Devon and are seasonal and organic; the recipes themselves are developed by a team of leading chefs, and change on a weekly basis; and the box gets delivered the same day the Riverford van is in your area to minimise carbon emissions.

It gets an extra thumbs up for including a leaflet with explicit instructions on how to recycle every last bit of packaging, and they reuse their ice packs, wool liners and chill bags.

The week we tested the boxes, we tried the light range (under 550cals), mainly because we found a lot of the recipe boxes revolved around pretty substantial dishes. We made a cashew stir fry on a bed of spiced cauliflower rice, and a tofu tom yum with “noodles” made out of ribbons of vegetables. Both were brilliant, ticking all the boxes of being easy to follow but enough to feel like “real” cooking, with flavoursome results. The price is pretty reasonable, too, especially when you consider the quality of the produce – this is one for foodies who want an organic, interesting meal without the fuss.

Best: For baking

• Feeds: Varies
• Delivery: Once a month
• Cost: From £14.99

One for the many Bake Off acolytes out there, Honeywell Biscuit Co’s monthly bread-baking recipe box brings something a bit different to the table. All the dried ingredients are measured out and sweetly wrapped up in paper (bonus points for very little plastic), alongside a collectable recipe card with your step-by-step instructions which all comes in a letterbox friendly box. Almost all the ingredients are supplied, although any fresh ones you need to add are clearly marked with an asterix, and swaps for allergens and dietary preferences like dairy, gluten and veganism are handily provided. If you fancy cakes or want something to do with the kids, there’s the straight up Bakers Club, or the Young Bakers Club.

This is such a lovely idea, especially when sweet bakes tend to get all the attention, and it’s a way to discover totally different breads. We made mosbolletjies with garlic and sage butter, a traditional Cape Dutch sweet bread traditionally made by wine producing areas in South Africa’s Western Cape, something we’d never heard of before. The recipe was simple enough for the whole family to follow, but make sure you read it thoroughly before starting, as otherwise you could end up waiting for the dough to rise in the middle of the night. It’s also worth watching how it gets on while it’s baking as ovens can vary so much.

Best: For Indian food

• Feeds: Two or four adults
• Delivery: Weekly or fortnightly, ready to heat or ready to eat
• Cost: From £28

There’s always something a bit sad about a takeaway, all packaged up in soulless plastic and polystyrene – it can take the shine off even a Deliveroo from your favourite restaurant. But order your dinner from premium service DabbaDrop, and you get something else entirely: a dabba – a stack of traditional Indian boxes – thoughtfully wrapped in a cloth and delivered by some brave soul on a bicycle. If you sign up to the subscription you pay £15 for the tins, which are exchanged each week, meaning there’s no waste or plastic used. It’s also important to note that you need to live in a certain postcode in London to be eligible.

The bottom box contains rice, then there are two curries and on the top is a veg or a salad dish, and there are a couple of samosas, chutneys and roti tucked away in there, too. But this knocks your average Indian takeaway out of the park. Food is prepared by home cook Anshu, who polishes up her family’s favourite recipes from around India. She and her neighbour Renee are the Hackney residents behind DabbaDrop, the idea being to deliver utterly delicious, plastic-free takeaways.

Service is faultless. You can order your dinner ready to eat (these have a later delivery slot), or ready to heat, and you pop your dabbas in the oven for 20 mins to warm them through. The week we sampled, food was inspired by Sri Lanka, with kottu roti (a seasonal veggie stir fry with fried roti strips), a rich and unctuous tomato and aubergine pol curry, a vibrant beetroot dal, red rice and handmade roti. Depending on the week, you could be eating food inspired by Kerala, Pakistan, Kashmir and beyond. The portion fed two, but because it was so delicious, we easily could have eaten more…

Best: For one person

• Feeds: One
• Delivery: At least two days of food a week 
• Cost: From £39.40

Kurami is one of the newest food delivery services on offer, with a focus on gut health. You choose from two “meal paths”: signature (1,600 calories) or calorie-controlled (1,300 calories), and you get breakfast, lunch, snacks, dinner and drinks. Everything from the website to the food itself feels super luxe and beautiful, which really sets it apart from some of the other services, which feel kid-friendly.

The food was undeniably lovely, and portions were enough to satisfy: we had a punchy hibiscus white tea and a berry smoothie bowl topped with seeds for breakfast, along with a generous mediterranean cauliflower salad for lunch, as well as some incredible moreish signature chocolate truffles. It did feel super healthy where many of the other offerings are fairly pasta heavy (presumably for time and cost reasons). And even though it is beautiful, it does seem quite pricey…