Last updated: 4 September 2026
By Stiv · Design, technology and personal finance
The best Grubby recipes September 2026 has to offer are warmer, slower and, by comparison with August's, considerably more filling. So I went through every dish on the four September menus, opened each recipe page, and pulled out five that suit a dark evening and a school run.
This article contains affiliate or referral links. If you click through and sign up I may earn a commission or referral bonus at no extra cost to you. It does not affect my editorial view.
I pay full price for my weekly Grubby box, and CoolCuration has a referral partnership with Grubby. The picks below are mine either way. All five dish photographs are Grubby's own.
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The current sign-up offer changes with the campaign, so I keep the live figure and the steps to claim it on my referral page rather than in this post.
Section 01 / How to read this
September is not one menu, it is four
Grubby rotates the list every week, so a dish that looks permanent is usually there for seven days.
This trips people up, and it caught me out in July. Grubby publishes a fresh set of roughly 27 to 29 dishes for each delivery week, so "this month's menu" is really four menus stacked on top of each other. In fact, only one of my five picks appears in more than one September week. Consequently the useful thing is not just which dish is good, but which week it lands in.
Here is where each pick actually sits, checked against Grubby's live menu on 4 September 2026.
| Pick | Recipe | On the menu for delivery |
|---|---|---|
| 01 | Cheesy Miso Mushroom Pasta Bake, #605 | 10 to 15 Sept, and again 17 to 22 Sept |
| 02 | Mexican Sweet Potato & Black Bean Traybake, #349 | 10 to 15 Sept |
| 03 | Glorious Grains Minestrone, #411 | 8 Sept only |
| 04 | Mushroom & Butter Bean Stroganoff, #531 | 24 to 29 Sept |
| 05 | Aubergine & Courgette Moussaka, #373 | 17 to 22 Sept |
Changes close at 11.59pm four nights before delivery, so a Monday box locks on the Thursday. In practice, pick your week first and your dinner second.
Section 02 / The picks
The best Grubby recipes September has right now
Prep times, 5 a day scores, tags and allergens all come from each dish's own recipe page rather than the summary listing, read on 4 September 2026.
Photograph by Grubby.
Cheesy Miso Mushroom Pasta Bake with Spinach
Recipe #605, and still one of Grubby's newer ones. Tortiglioni goes in boiling water for eight minutes while crumbled mushrooms colour in a pan with tamari, garlic and Italian herbs. Then miso paste, nutritional yeast and Oatly cream turn that into a sauce, and spinach and basil go through it. Finally the whole lot sits under a hot grill for seven or eight minutes with Casadei plant-based mozzarella on top.
for the Tuesday when the answer has to be pasta
In fact the miso is doing the heavy lifting here, and it is why this tastes less like a compromise than most vegan bakes. In short: twenty minutes, three of your five a day, and one dish to carry to the table.
Where it falls down: at 812 calories and 17g of saturated fat per portion, it is comfortably the heaviest of the five. It also needs a working grill rather than just an oven, and because it is new it has no customer rating yet.
20 mins · 3 of 5 a day · contains soya, wheat and oats
Photograph by Grubby.
Mexican Sweet Potato & Black Bean Traybake with Smashed Avo
Recipe #349, marked as a star recipe and rated 4.4 out of 5 by Grubby customers. First, sweet potato, red onion and pepper roast for fifteen minutes under Mexican seasoning. After that, drained black beans and loosened chipotle paste join them for another ten to fifteen. Finally, smashed avocado, chipotle mayo, coriander and lime go on at the table.
for the night the washing up matters more than the cooking
Five of your five a day from one tray is a good return, and it carries the Low Calorie, High Fibre, Low Sat Fat and No Gluten tags. Meanwhile there is almost nothing to watch: it roasts while you deal with everything else.
Where it falls down: 26g of sugar a portion, mostly from the sweet potato, is high if you are tracking that. The tray also goes in twice rather than once, so it is not quite the fire-and-forget job the word traybake suggests.
35 mins · 5 of 5 a day · no listed allergens
Photograph by Grubby.
Glorious Grains Minestrone with Cashew Pesto
Recipe #411 is the healthy pick, and the numbers rather than the adjective are why. Its recipe page scores it seven of your five a day. That is the highest figure on any September menu, and it also carries High Protein, High Fibre and Low Sat Fat. Specifically, that comes out at 27g of protein and 24g of fibre for 607 calories a portion.
for the first genuinely cold evening of the month
Onion and carrot soften, tomato paste and stock go in, then butter beans, grains and spinach. Separately, cashews, nutritional yeast, basil, miso, garlic and lemon go through a blender into a pesto that lands on top. It takes twenty minutes and rates 4.5 out of 5, so the extra pan buys something.
Where it falls down: 5g of salt a portion is the highest of my five. The pesto also means dragging out a blender for a soup, which is more washing up than a twenty-minute label implies. Nut allergies are also a hard stop, because Grubby lists no substitution for the cashews.
20 mins · 7 of 5 a day · contains soya, nuts, wheat and barley
On one September menu the 5 a day scores run from one to seven. Plant-based is not the same as plant-packed. Checked on Grubby's live menu, 4 September 2026
The 5 a day scores swing from one to seven
In practice, that gap changed how I pick a box. On the week of 8 September the Sticky Teriyaki Tofu scores one of your five a day, while the minestrone above scores seven. Both sit on the same list, under the same plant-based banner. So if the box is doing your vegetable shopping, the score on each recipe page is worth reading before you tick anything. The NHS guidance on 5 A Day explains what actually counts towards a portion, which puts Grubby's figures in context.
Photograph by Grubby.
Creamy Mushroom & Butter Bean Stroganoff, Roasted Roots & Seeds
By comparison, recipe #531 leans hardest into autumn. First, parsnip and carrot go into the oven skin-on for twenty-five to thirty minutes, with pumpkin seeds thrown in at the end to toast. Meanwhile portobello mushrooms, smoked paprika and Dijon build the sauce. Butter beans then go in undrained to thicken it, and plant-based mayo turns it creamy at the last minute.
for the evening you put the heating on for the first time
At 551 calories with 24g of fibre it is the lightest of the savoury four on paper, yet it eats like the heaviest, which is a decent trick. It also carries Low Calorie, High Fibre, Low Sat Fat and No Gluten.
Where it falls down: a roasting tray plus a deep pan plus a sieve is three things to wash for a midweek dinner. It is new enough to have no rating yet, and because the butter beans go in with their liquid, how thick the sauce ends up depends on the tin.
35 mins · 4 of 5 a day · contains mustard
Photograph by Grubby.
Aubergine & Courgette Moussaka with Cashew Bechamel
Recipe #373 is the one I would save for a Sunday. Cashews soak in boiled water while sliced aubergine and courgette roast. Meanwhile lentils, tomato polpa, oregano and a pod of Henderson's Relish reduce into a thick ragu. Then the soaked cashews go through a blender with nutritional yeast to make the bechamel. After that the whole thing layers up and bakes for twenty-five to thirty minutes.
for a Sunday when cooking is the point rather than the obstacle
So: six of your five a day, 461 calories, 16g of fibre and a 4.3 rating. Above all it is the only dish on my list that feels like an occasion, and the cashew bechamel is a genuinely good answer to a sauce that usually needs dairy.
Where it falls down: fifty minutes and a blender is a real commitment. Equally, 461 calories is light for that much work if you are properly hungry. Nut allergies rule it out entirely, since Grubby lists no swap for the cashews.
50 mins · 6 of 5 a day · contains nuts
Section 03 / The money
What a September box actually costs
Every figure below came off Grubby's live pricing on 4 September 2026, so treat it as a snapshot rather than a fixed price list.
A two-recipe box for two people is £29.00 and a five-recipe box £57.50, so that is £7.25 and £5.75 a portion respectively. Family boxes serve four and run from £48.50 to £89.99, which puts the five-recipe family box at about £4.50 a portion. Separately, ready-meal boxes start at £43.50 for six.
Delivery is £4.99 a box and it is not included, although the first box ships free. If you order most weeks, Grubby Plus covers delivery for £5.99 a month or £49.99 a year, which pays for itself at roughly ten boxes. In addition, Grubby does not deliver to Northern Ireland, the Isle of Wight, the Isle of Man, the Isle of Arran, the Channel Islands or a list of remote Scottish postcodes.
Compared with the rest of the market that sits in the middle rather than the bargain end. Similarly, my roundup of the best UK meal kits put it there. For the fuller picture on whether the subscription earns its place, I keep a separate Grubby service guide, and every past edition of this series lives on the Grubby recipes hub. Equally, I will refresh this list of the best Grubby recipes September brings if the menu shifts before the month is out.
Who this month suits
So September's list rewards anyone cooking for two on weeknights and willing to spend fifty minutes once at the weekend. If you want the shortest possible route to dinner, the pasta bake and the minestrone both land in twenty minutes. If the box is doing your vegetable shopping, the traybake, the minestrone and the moussaka carry the scores. Meanwhile anyone with a nut allergy loses two of my five outright, so check the allergen line before you subscribe.
Frequently asked questions
What are the best Grubby recipes in September 2026?
My five are the Cheesy Miso Mushroom Pasta Bake, the Mexican Sweet Potato and Black Bean Traybake, the Glorious Grains Minestrone with Cashew Pesto, the Creamy Mushroom and Butter Bean Stroganoff, and the Aubergine and Courgette Moussaka. Each one sits on a specific delivery week, so check the table above before ordering.
How many recipes does Grubby have on its menu each week?
Roughly 27 to 29 meal-kit dishes per delivery week, refreshed weekly, alongside frozen ready meals. The wider archive runs to more than 400 recipes, but only the current week's list is orderable.
How much does a Grubby box cost?
Meal-kit boxes ran from £29.00 for two recipes to £89.99 for a five-recipe family box on 4 September 2026, which is £7.25 down to about £4.50 a portion. Delivery adds £4.99 unless it is your first box or you hold Grubby Plus.
Is Grubby suitable for nut allergies?
Some dishes are, but not all. Grubby marks allergens on each recipe page and also flags whether a dish can be made nut free. Both the minestrone and the moussaka above use cashews with no listed substitution, so neither works.
Can I still order the dishes in this post?
Only during the delivery weeks listed in the table. Grubby rotates the menu weekly, and changes close at 11.59pm four nights before delivery. So a dish on the week of 8 September is gone by mid-month.
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