About the family meal boxes
As a parent of (young) children, you probably know the challenge of preparing a healthy meal every evening that is enjoyable for the little ones. That’s where a meal box suitable for the whole family comes in handy.
Family meal boxes are perfect for families who want to eat healthy and varied meals together without the stress of having to think about what to cook every day and doing groceries. These boxes contain meals suitable for the entire family, with child-friendly and nutritious recipes. They offer a mix of familiar favourites and new dishes tailored to the tastes of both adults and children.
An exciting variety of dishes
The meals are usually healthy, but you can occasionally choose a hamburger or flammkuchen. However, we must say that when these dishes come from a meal box, they often have been given a healthier twist.
How to compare family-friendly meal boxes
Portion sizes and flexibility matter more here than in most other categories: check whether you can order for exactly your household size, whether portions are generous enough for growing appetites, and how much genuine variety is in the kid-friendly recipes each week, some boxes lean heavily on the same handful of “safe” dishes. It is also worth comparing price per portion, since family boxes are often ordered for more people and more meals than a two-person box.
Which family-friendly box should you choose?
HelloFresh and Gousto are the two most obvious starting points: both have large weekly menus with a genuine family-friendly selection, and enough recipe choice that you are not stuck repeating the same few “safe” dinners every week. Gousto’s bigger recipe library gives slightly more room to manoeuvre if you are cooking for fussy eaters. Green Chef leans more health-focused, useful if you want the family eating better without a special “diet” framing, though its menu is smaller.
We have tested HelloFresh and Green Chef ourselves, though so far only their Dutch meal boxes rather than the UK versions. The recipe format and menu structure work the same way internationally, which is why we are comfortable describing how they compare, even though we have not yet run a UK order with either.
Who are family-friendly meal boxes best for?
These boxes suit households who want to eat together without a nightly negotiation over what is for dinner, and who would rather have the child-friendly filtering done for them than pick through a general adult menu each week. If your children are especially fussy eaters, it is worth checking a provider’s actual recipe list before committing to a subscription: “family-friendly” can mean quite different things between providers.