Meal box by diet: which UK recipe box fits you?

There isn't one meal box that's best for every diet. Gousto can make sense if you mainly want plenty of choice, while Green Chef is much more deliberately built around nutrition-led preferences such as keto and lower carb. If avoiding certain ingredients is the priority, you may end up with a different shortlist again.

This guide compares the main UK recipe boxes by diet, dietary preference and household type. Use it as a starting point, then follow the links to our more detailed comparisons where the distinction matters.

Important: a recipe labelled vegan, gluten-free or dairy-free is not automatically suitable for someone with an allergy, intolerance or coeliac disease. Always check the latest ingredient and allergen information with the meal-box provider if this is medically important to you.

Last checked: 26 August 2026. Menus, dietary filters and recipe ranges change regularly, so exact availability can vary from week to week.

Want to compare everything rather than start with a diet? See our complete UK recipe box comparison, or try our meal box chooser.

Meal boxes by diet at a glance

Vegetarian meal boxes

If you are vegetarian, we'd look at the size and variety of the weekly menu before anything else. A meal box can technically cater for vegetarians while still giving you only a small handful of recipes you actually want to cook.

Gousto is one of the strongest places to start if choice matters most. Its overall menu is particularly large, which generally means a much broader vegetarian selection as well. That makes it more interesting for someone ordering every week than a service where the same type of vegetarian dishes quickly starts to repeat.

Green Chef takes a different approach. Vegetarian is one of its selectable dietary preferences and its menu is more deliberately positioned around nutrition and dietary goals. Mindful Chef is another sensible option if the nutritional profile of the meals matters as much as sheer recipe choice.

HelloFresh also has vegetarian recipes each week and remains a practical option if your household mixes vegetarian and meat-based meals.

Compare them properly: see our vegetarian meal box comparison.

Vegan meal boxes

Vegan is one category where we wouldn't choose a meal box based on the brand name alone. What really matters is how many vegan meals are available in the particular week you want to order.

Green Chef includes Vegan as one of its core dietary preferences, so plant-based eating is more explicitly built into the service than it is with many general recipe boxes. Gousto's much larger overall menu can also work well if enough vegan dishes are available in a particular week.

The main distinction is between a service offering some vegan recipes and one that gives you enough variety to order several dinners every week without compromise. We'd therefore always open the current menus of two or three providers before choosing.

Also remember that vegetarian and vegan are not interchangeable. A vegetarian recipe can still contain dairy, eggs or other animal products.

See the current options: compare vegan meal boxes.

Pescatarian meal boxes

Green Chef stands out here because Pescatarian is one of the dietary preferences you can select when setting up your box. You're not simply left searching a general menu for recipes containing fish.

That said, a dedicated preference doesn't automatically mean it has the largest number of fish dishes. Gousto's large weekly menu can also give pescatarians plenty to choose from, while Mindful Chef regularly features fish and seafood within its health-focused menu.

If you eat fish but otherwise prefer vegetarian food, we'd compare Green Chef and Gousto first: Green Chef for the clearer dietary structure, Gousto for sheer menu breadth.

More detail: our pescatarian meal box comparison.

Gluten-free meal boxes

This category needs a bit more care than simply looking for a gluten-free label.

Mindful Chef is one of the first services we'd look at if gluten-free eating is important to you. Gluten-free options form a significant part of its proposition rather than being an occasional menu filter.

Gousto now also lets you browse gluten-free recipes, which is useful if you'd prefer its much larger overall menu. However, a filter on a mixed menu is not the same thing as a service designed specifically for someone with coeliac disease or a serious allergy.

One important correction regarding Green Chef: despite its strong diet-focused positioning, Green Chef UK currently says it does not cater specifically for a gluten-free diet. Some individual recipes may be suitable, but gluten-free is not one of its selectable dietary preferences.

If you have coeliac disease or a serious gluten allergy, don't rely on this comparison alone. Check the provider's latest allergen and cross-contamination information before ordering.

Compare the options: gluten-free meal boxes.

Dairy-free meal boxes

If you're avoiding dairy regularly, Mindful Chef is a useful place to start because dairy-free options are an established part of its menu and nutritional approach.

Gousto also lets you filter for dairy-free recipes, which makes it considerably easier to use than manually opening every recipe and checking the ingredients.

Green Chef's Vegan preference is naturally relevant as well, because Green Chef describes those recipes as plant-based and free from meat and dairy. That may work if you're happy eating vegan meals, but it isn't the same thing as having a dedicated dairy-free preference across meat and fish recipes.

If you're avoiding dairy because of an allergy rather than preference, check individual allergen information before ordering.

See the full comparison: dairy-free meal boxes.

Keto meal boxes

This is where Green Chef has one of its clearest points of difference.

Keto is a dedicated Green Chef dietary preference. Its current UK menu labels keto recipes separately, with Green Chef defining them as recipes containing under 20g of carbohydrates. That is much more useful if you're deliberately following a keto-style diet than scrolling through a general recipe-box menu and trying to work out which dishes happen to be lower in carbohydrates.

That doesn't mean every person following keto should automatically choose Green Chef. Recipe choice is narrower than at a large mainstream service such as Gousto, and Green Chef tends to sit towards the more premium end of the recipe-box market. But if dietary structure matters more than having the biggest possible menu, it is the most obvious mainstream box for us to compare first.

If you're simply trying to reduce carbohydrates rather than follow keto closely, the next section is probably more relevant.

Compare your options: keto meal boxes in the UK.

Low-carb meal boxes

Low-carb and keto aren't quite the same thing, which is why we think it's useful to keep them separate.

Green Chef currently distinguishes between the two itself. Its Lower Carb recipes contain under 35g of carbohydrates, while its Keto recipes use the stricter under-20g threshold.

That makes Green Chef a particularly straightforward option if you want lower-carb meals without necessarily trying to stay in ketosis.

If you're much less strict and simply want the option to choose protein-forward or lighter dishes a few times a week, Gousto and HelloFresh may give you more overall choice. You'll just need to select suitable recipes yourself rather than having your subscription centred on a lower-carb preference.

See our dedicated guide: compare low-carb meal boxes.

Calorie-conscious meal boxes

If you're watching calories rather than following a specific diet, we'd concentrate on how clearly each service displays nutritional information and how many suitable recipes there are each week.

Green Chef currently labels its Calorie Conscious recipes as meals under 550 kcal. This sits alongside its other nutritional labels rather than replacing its core dietary preferences.

HelloFresh also makes lighter recipes easy to identify within its menu, while Gousto's large weekly selection usually includes plenty of lower-calorie choices. The best option therefore depends on whether you'd rather have Green Chef's more nutrition-led approach or the broader menu choice of a mainstream recipe box.

One thing we wouldn't do is choose purely on the number of calories. Portion size, protein, fibre and whether you actually enjoy the meals matter too.

Compare lighter options: calorie-conscious meal boxes.

Family-friendly meal boxes

Family-friendly isn't a diet, but household size can be just as important when choosing a recipe box.

HelloFresh remains one of the obvious places for families to start. Its mainstream menu and family-focused recipes work well if you need dinners that have a reasonable chance of pleasing both adults and children.

Gousto is arguably more interesting if flexibility and variety matter most. Its boxes can now be configured for households from one to five people, and the large menu gives you more opportunity to work around different tastes.

Green Chef and Mindful Chef can still work for families, particularly where nutritional preferences matter, but neither would be our automatic first recommendation for a family simply looking for easy midweek dinners.

Compare family options: family-friendly meal boxes.

Meal boxes for one person

Cooking for one used to be an awkward fit for recipe boxes because most started at two portions. That is beginning to change.

Gousto now offers a proper one-person box, making it one of the clearest mainstream choices for solo households. You can order recipes portioned for one rather than paying for two servings and planning around leftovers.

Mindful Chef is also worth comparing if you're cooking for yourself, particularly if its nutrition-focused menu suits you better.

Green Chef does not currently offer a dedicated one-person box. Green Chef itself suggests solo customers use a two-person box and save the second serving for another meal, which can work, but it's not quite the same proposition.

For someone living alone, we'd therefore look at genuine one-person sizing before comparing introductory discounts. Paying less per serving isn't particularly useful if you have to order twice as much food as you wanted.

See the options: compare meal boxes for one person.

So, which meal box fits your diet?

There isn't a single winner across all of these categories, and that's really the point of this guide.

Green Chef becomes much more interesting once you have a specific nutritional goal, particularly keto, lower-carb or pescatarian eating. Gousto is harder to beat when sheer recipe choice and flexible household sizes are the priority. HelloFresh remains a strong mainstream option, especially for families and mixed households, while Mindful Chef deserves a closer look if gluten-free or dairy-free cooking is particularly important to you.

Those differences are more useful than trying to name one overall ‘best' recipe box.

If you're still unsure, try our meal box chooser. It looks beyond diet at things such as household size, price and the type of meals you're actually looking for. Alternatively, head to our complete UK recipe box comparison to see the main services side by side.