Recipe boxes are all the rage- and with good reason. You can have the convenience of ingredients delivered straight to your door- and the best part? You can try out new recipes and flavours, and cook a meal from scratch without the hassle of buying lots of individual condiments, herbs and spices (that you may only use once!)
Another bonus? You can often receive an introductory offer on these meal delivery kits too. There are many brands of recipe boxes and meal kit delivery services, but how does SimplyCook measure up? SimplyCook is definitely the UK’s cheapest recipe box currently on the market. You may have seen the adverts, but is SimplyCook worth it? Is it worth the money? And how do the ingredients stack up against the price you pay for the kit?
Testing out SimplyCook
We put SimplyCook to the test to see whether it’s really worth the money. As well as the flavour pots themselves, you are also paying for the recipes, and the convenience of having the ingredients carefully weighed and measured, ready for cooking.
If you’re feeling in a bit of a rut when it comes to meal planning, recipe boxes can give you some new ideas, and introduce you to new things. The SimplyCook meal kit comes with recipe cards, so you can recreate your favourites forever more if you wish to. Ever been put off by a recipe with about 6 different spices required? With the SimplyCook recipe box, you are able to try out new flavour combinations and recipes without needing to buy all those specialist ingredients. So let’s dive in to determine if SimplyCook is really worth the money.
How does SimplyCook work?
SimplyCook works on the basis that you receive one delivery box on a subscription basis. You can choose to receive a recipe kit every week, 2 weeks, every month, or every 6 weeks. Don’t worry, you can also change, cancel or pause anytime. SimplyCook’s mission is to get Britain cooking! According to SimplyCook, Brits have a repertoire of just 6 meals or less! They’d like to change that by making cooking a ‘simple and hassle free process, without meaning bland or boring.’
SimplyCook is slightly different to traditional recipe boxes, in that they will provide herb and spice blends and stock pots, but you will need to source the ingredients yourself- e.g. the meat, vegetables and pasta. However, because the box is so affordable (especially as the first box is free- just pay £1 for delivery), you can source your main ingredients from budget supermarkets such as Aldi or Lidl to keep the cost down. SimplyCook says it’s likely you’ll have to add 4-6 of your own ingredients. This makes the recipe box very competitive compared to the likes of HelloFresh, Gousto and Mindful Chef.
Take a look at our HelloFresh and Mindful Chef reviews to see how SimplyCook compares.
Upon signing up to SimplyCook, you can choose 4 recipes for your recipe box. You can filter by dietary requirement (vegan, vegetarian, meat, fish), spiciness, dish size, main ingredients, allergens and cuisine. The best part? You can choose from a whopping 140 recipes! The website is very user-friendly, and has photographs listed with easy recipe to tantalise your tastebuds.
With so much choice, you’ll find something for the whole family to enjoy. After you’ve made your choices online, SimplyCook will deliver the recipe box straight to your front door. It’s super slim line, and so it might even fit through your letterbox.
What do you get in a SimplyCook box?
Inside your SimplyCook box, you’ll find a booklet that tells you exactly what to expect from your SimplyCook subscription. You’ll then see the four mini cardboard boxes which contain three, what SimplyCook calls, ‘pots of pleasure.’ They contain the herbs, spices and flavour pot for each of your chosen recipes. Each pot is packed with up to 23 special ingredients! All you do is pour in the pots as you cook- it’s super simple.
You’ll also find the four corresponding recipe cards. All the recipes have been carefully curated and by expert UK chefs to ensure maximum tastiness. Each recipe card has a photo, a description of the flavour pots, a calorie estimation, a spice rating, serving size, timings, and also lists all ingredients, allergens and nutritional information on the reverse. Each recipe card even has a tear off shopping list to take with you to the supermarket.
The spices and stock pots are already blended and measured out, so your meal prep is kept to a minimum to save you time. All recipes take just 15-20 minutes to create. There’s also much less waste, and everything is more cost effective. No more lingering jars of once-used spices in the cupboard!
SimplyCook Free Trial
SimplyCook is extremely affordable compared to other recipe kits. It’s helped by the fact that you source your own main ingredients for the dish. Your first box is free, so technically the recipes and flavours for those four meals will be free. Delivery is just £1, so it is worth the money just to try out some new ideas in the kitchen and experiment with some new flavours.
After your free trial, your subscription will cost £9.99 per box, with free delivery. That means that for each of the four recipes, you’ll pay around £2.50 for the recipe card (which you can keep forever more!), the herbs, spices, and any stock. Each recipe will serve 2-4 people, making it around £0.63 per serving. If you don’t want to pay £9.99 every week, you can stick to once every 6 weeks to add some more variety and options to your cooking. It is a highly flexible recipe box compared to others on the market.
And if it’s not for you? You can cancel after your first free box if you wish. There is no commitment to continue the subscription.
Is SimplyCook healthy?
Most of the SimplyCook recipes are healthy. A great bonus of SimplyCook is that the recipes are extremely flexible. For example, if you wanted to eat a mostly organic diet, or a diet with non-refined carbs, or free range or grass fed meats- you can do so! You can pick and choose the types of ingredients that you use for the recipes. You can switch white rice for brown, or traditional pasta for quinoa pasta instead.
SimplyCook encourages you to switch the ingredients you use to suit your family’s tastes. You might want to us up the vegetables you already have in the fridge, or maybe you don’t like bell peppers and want to switch them out. You can make it your own. All of the recipes are adaptable, and SimplyCook even add swap suggestions on their recipe cards.
Because you are able to filter the recipes by cuisine and other parameters when you first select your recipes, you can opt for healthy options at this stage if you wish to.
Does SimplyCook cater to dietary requirements?
SimplyCook does cater to dietary requirements which makes their recipe box service stand out above the rest. When you are choosing your recipes, you can filter by
You can start by filtering the recipes by vegan, vegetarian, meat, and fish. Then, if you or any of your family members have any specific likes or dislikes, you can filter out main ingredients. For example, if you don’t like fish or lamb you could filter these out of the results.
Finally, if you have a specific allergen that you want to avoid, you can filter by recipes which do not contain fish, milk, crustaceans, shellfish, gluten, soya and eggs. SimplyCook do not use peanuts, nuts or sesame seeds in their recipe kits. For any further details of allergens, you can check out the individual recipe details page to make sure that the recipe you choose is suited to your requirements.
Is SimplyCook worth the money?
SimplyCook is certainly worth the money if you are looking for a way to cook healthy meals conveniently and quickly. This is especially true when you make the most of the free first box (with £1 delivery). It’s a great way to try new dishes which makes it worth it. It certainly beats all other recipe boxes currently on the UK market for price.
Despite the fact that you need to add 4-6 of your own ingredients, because it is so flexible, you can switch out ingredients depending on what you already have. You can also choose to source ingredients cheaply from budget supermarkets to bring down the cost of the meals.
If you’re unsure, it’s definitely worth trying out the free SimplyCook trial box. You never know- you might find a new recipe that you love! It’s super easy to cancel or pause if you don’t want to commit to the £9.99 full price boxes.
Try the SimplyCook free trial here (just pay £1 delivery).
How does SimplyCook compare to other meal kit delivery services?
SimplyCook is the cheapest recipe box available on the market at this time. There are a number of different recipe box delivery services, each offering different recipes, offers and pricing structure. For recipe boxes with all ingredients included, HelloFresh currently offers the best price per serving, and the best discount introductory offer over 4 boxes.
SimplyCook is without a doubt the best value option. It also caters very well to specific dietary requirements. However, the fact that you need to add 4-6 of your own ingredients could be off putting for some.
| Meal delivery service | Introductory offer | Price per serving (3 meals for 2 people) without discount | Other information |
| HelloFresh | 50% off first box, 35% off for next 3 boxes. | £4.75 | 37 different recipes per week. Free delivery for introductory offer. |
| Gousto | 60% off first box, 25% off all other boxes in the first month. | £5.00 | 75 different recipes per week. £1.99 delivery cost. |
| Mindful Chef | 25% off your first 4 boxes. | From £6.00 | 20 different recipes per week. Have the choice of vegan, gluten free, dairy free, and low carbon impact options. |
| SimplyCook | Free trial with first box (just pay £1 delivery) | £0 for free trial | £9.99 per box after the free trial ends, with free delivery. 4 recipes with flavour blends per box. |
How do you cancel SimplyCook?
If you decide that you’d like to no longer continue with your SimplyCook recipe boxes, or you just wanted to try out the free trial, you can cancel at no extra cost. If you sign up simply for the free trial, do remember to cancel in time so that you are not stung with the weekly £9.99 charge!
You can cancel by heading to their website, logging into your account, and managing your subscription in the ‘Membership Settings’ section of the website after the 7 day trial period. Select ‘stop my regular deliveries’ to cancel your subscription. It’s super simple.
Is SimplyCook worth it? Last thoughts
SimplyCook is certainly worth it when you’re making the most of the free trial box. It’s also super flexible and a low-cost way to try out new recipes and add some excitement back into your meal times. It’s also likely that you’ll be making a saving compared to the cost of buying each individual spice ingredient from the supermarket. You’ll also be trying out some brand new recipes, which is worth it for the experience too- especially as the flavour pots are hand picked and blended by expert chefs.
The fact that you can switch up your ingredients and tailor them to your own tastes is also a massive plus point of the SimplyCook subscription. It’s also super easy to change how regularly you receive a subscription, with the option for a delivery every 6 weeks.
- Value flexibility and taste? SimplyCook is a great option.
- Low cost, with a free trial box. The cheapest recipe box on the market right now!
- You can cancel or skip your subscription whenever you like
- Choose from over 140 recipes, and keep the recipe cards
- Great options for specialist diets and allergens
Try out the SimplyCook free trial now!