We tried a pack of four recipe kits from Simply Cook for £1 and the results were amazing

When you start looking into the meal kit and recipe box market, you'll notice there are a few different types of offering.

We’ve rounded up ten of the best selling kits here. Some companies send you a box of fresh ingredients, ready to whip up your next meal, while others send you a complete meal, ready to pop in the oven or microwave.

Simply Cook does it a bit differently. You source the ingredients yourself, you bring them home, prepare them as per the recipe, and then you add the final flourish. That's the bit you're paying for.

It gets delivered to your home in a slim box that the postman can fit through your door, and each of the four packs you get contains three little pots. Depending on your recipe, there's usually a sauce or two, and some ground spices in powder form. It's all super concentrated, so there isn't very much of it, even for a four-portion recipe.

You might think this is a trifle pointless, paying for some herbs, spices and sauces to be delivered, when you can just dig those out of your cupboard, but you do actually get a lot more than that.

Your Simply Cook journey starts with a rummage around the website. It's a very nice place to be, with clear recipe cards showing pictures of the feast you could rustle up, and a brief run-down of what's involved.

The cards tell you most of the meals will take 20 minutes to prep. Some take a little longer, some a little less, but that's generally the benchmark.

You pick a selection, sign up for a subscription you can cancel any time, and the box is on its way to you.

The best bit is, at the moment, you can try your first four recipes for just £1. The boxes usually cost £9.99, but you get it for free as long as you pay a £1 delivery fee and you sign up for future boxes. Importantly, you can cancel the subscription at any time.

As you wait for the box to arrive, you can have a play with the app, meet other Simply Cook fans on social media, and start to plan your shopping trip for all the ingredients.

When the box does land on your doormat you'll find it filled with not only the pots, but four physical recipe cards. And each one has a tear-off, bookmark-shaped shopping list outlining the ingredients you'll need.

One supermarket trip later, and I had everything I needed for my four meals. I chose a wild mushroom Penne, a crispy chilli beef, a chicken saag curry, and something called a Jambalaya.

Because there's effectively no expiry date on the three pots I had for each meal, I was able to pace out the cooking and eating across a few weeks, which suits me well.

First up was the saag curry. I'm not a brilliant cook, but I'd call myself an enthusiastic learner. I've cooked a few curries from scratch before, with mixed results, but the Simply Cook recipe kit really did make it easy.

The recipe card said it would take about 25 minutes. It took me longer, but I'm a tidy cook and I take my time over things, so fair enough. It was actually very easy to make, in the end. The instructions are brilliant, they make things so easy. And I picked up a few tips about making future curries I hadn't thought of before.

One criticism I'd send Simply Cook's way would be the way the small pots are sealed. They have peel-off lids that just don't peel. You end up using a knife to cut them open, which is fine for powdery herbs, but less fun with rich, sticky sauces.

The curry tasted excellent though, lots and lots of flavour, and certainly not a mix of herbs and spices I could have crafted on my own. An impressive start.

Next up was the crispy beef. Again, this was a brilliant recipe, a really easy set of instructions, it took longer than Simply Cook quoted but not by much, and the meal was fantastic. Another success.

The wild mushroom penne was such a success I've already popped another one in my virtual basket, and I haven't got around to making the Jambalaya yet, but I'm convinced that's going to be delicious too.

Part of me is still not 100% certain that £9.99 is worth it for 12 small pots of flavourings because, when all's said and done, that's all they are. Having said that, some of the meals serve two, some serve four, and there are notes on each ingredients card explaining what extra quantities you’ll need if you want to cook for more people, or batch-cook.

So the recipe cards are brilliant, the app's good, there's loads to choose from, and it really does motivate you to cook fresh meals, but should I not just learn how to make sauces and spices? Wouldn't that be cheaper?

Of course it would, but that's not really the point. I'm never going to be bothered to whip out the pestle and mortar, wash out all the bowls for the sauces, and mix up all the ingredients. I'd far rather pick it all from a picture and wait for it to arrive in the post.

In a way, it feels like an expensive luxury, getting someone to add incredible flavours to the food you buy in, chop up, cook, and serve, but it genuinely turns a basic meal into something fabulous.

There are people out there who will know how to whip up superb sauces, or grind up the perfect mix of spices, and this subscription honestly isn't for you. Don't even bother.

For the rest of us, those without a Michelin Star, this is a fabulous way of adding another dimension to your dinner, and inspiring you to try new things.

For that reason, I do think it's worth the £2.50 per recipe. If only just.

It’s absolutely worth 25p though, and the special offer is too good to miss.