With the cost-of-living crisis still ongoing, many of us have been trying to cut back on spending, and for many of us that us come in the form of reducing our grocery bills.

However, it is vital that we continue to eat healthy, filling meals.

So how can you do that whilst also cutting costs? Enter the Muscle Food Plenty for Twenty hamper.

Muscle Food prides itself on offering high quality meat to everyone at reasonable prices.

In their own words: “Whether you’re a money saver that wants to eat well for less, or a gym fan all about that lean, high protein life, Muscle Food has all your foodie needs covered.”

With that mission statement in mind, they recently launched their £20 hamper, packed with protein-rich meat they say could make “21 delicious meals”.

Eastern Daily Press: The Muscle Food Plenty for Twenty hamperThe Muscle Food Plenty for Twenty hamper (Image: Muscle Food)

But does it deliver?

Included in the hamper are marinated chicken breasts, premium steak mince, crispy bacon medallions, flavourful beef meatballs, succulent rump steaks, juicy steak burgers, and savoury pork sausages.

All of them come in freezer-friendly packaging, though even if you don’t have the space in the freezer used by dates are generous enough that you will likely be able to store them in the fridge until you eat them.

That was the case with all but the steaks and marinated chicken in our hamper.

So, what about the claim of 21 delicious meals?

The meat was extremely good quality, lean, and cooked fantastically, definitely fulfilling the delicious part of the statement.

Our hamper stretched to 20 servings, however it could have been drawn out further if needed and nobody would have gone hungry.

These were the meals we used the meat to cook:

  • Four servings of creamy bacon and mushroom penne with the bacon
  • Four servings of tomato and sausage rigatoni with the sausages
  • Four servings of Tex-Mex meatballs with brown rice using the meatballs
  • Two servings of Chili using the beef mince
  • Two burgers
  • Two steak dinners
  • Two servings of chicken and vegetable rice using the marinated chicken breasts

Outside of the meat, the recipes used a brown rice, penne pasta, crème fraiche, peppers, tinned tomatoes, sweet potatoes, mushrooms, onions, vegetable stock pots, chilli peppers, garlic and burger buns.

Those ingredients cost £17.69 from Tesco, on top of the £20 for the Muscle Food hamper, and that left us with enough onions, potatoes, garlic, stock pots, rice and pasta for another hamper’s worth of meals.