16 best BBQ meat boxes
Feast on the finest cuts of meat delivered directly to your home
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Your support makes all the difference.BBQ season is finally here. No time to go out and buy the meat? Or not sure you really want supermarket meat anyway? Why not choose a mixed selection of great quality meats online to be delivered straight to your door? Whether you want a small box of sausages and burgers or a luxury box of steaks and marinated goodies to feed all the neighbours, read on to find out the best barbecue meat boxes available this season.
You can trust our independent reviews. We may earn commission from some of the retailers, but we never allow this to influence selections, which are formed from real-world testing and expert advice. This revenue helps us to fund journalism across The Independent.
1. Eversfield Organic BBQ Box: £30, Eversfield Organic
This box uses organic meat reared on and around the 45-acre Eversfield Farm in Devon, set on the edge of Dartmoor National Park. All the beef (burgers) and lamb (cutlets) come from animals grass-fed for life, while the pork used in the sausages comes from pigs allowed to roam freely around the farm. The chicken (spicy wings, plus thighs and drumsticks) is free-range and corn-fed. We found it full of flavour and lacking the unwelcome water content of supermarket equivalents.
2. Park Farm BBQ Meat Bundle: £20, Farmdrop
Here’s one that will keep a hungry family quiet. You get six each of burgers, sausages, lamb riblets and pork ribs from the Clarke family’s Sussex cows, Romney sheep and Berkshire pigs. The herds are predominantly raised on the Kent-based farm on traditional grasses, which they say is a method that results in lean, flavoursome meat – we can vouch for that. We particularly liked the aromatic mint and rosemary glaze on the lamb riblets, which made a change from having to come up with a marinade ourselves.
3. Abel & Cole Brilliant Organic Barbeque Box, Large: £34, Abel & Cole
Abel and Cole’s known for its organic veg boxes, but its meat boxes are well worth a look. This one has more variety than some out there and everything is really succulent and tasty. As well as four burgers and eight gluten-free chipolatas , you get four minute steaks and organic chicken breast as well as a generous pack of pork belly strips. We had the burgers and sausages one night and then whipped up some super-quick steak sandwiches the next, along with the pork belly strips, which we dried out overnight then barbecued with a brushed over-marinade. There’s also a smaller BBQ box available for £15 with sausages, burgers and chicken thighs and drumsticks, feeding three-four.
4. The Hampstead Butcher Barbecue Feast Box: £79.50, The Hampstead Butcher
This meat box comes packed full of British, traditional breed, free-range, fresh and ethically reared meats – two T-Bone steaks, four spatchcooked poussin chickens, eight homemade lamb kofte kebabs, eight Blyburgh pork belly spare ribs from Suffolk, four homemade steak burgers and 12 homemade Cumberland sausages. The taste is a cut above the rest, with particularly delicious burgers and steaks. The meat is vacuum packed, which makes it last and it freezes well if you aren’t ready to eat it all in one go.
5. Rhug Organic BBQ Meat Box: £30, Rhug
The meat in this box – lamb burgers, cutlets and kebabs, beef burgers, hot n spicy pork belly slices, sweet chilli chicken wings, hot n spicy drumsticks and pork sausages – all comes from Lord Newborough farms in North Wales, which are fully organic and supply to over 20 Michelin starred restaurants in the UK and Far East. You can see why when you take your first bite – the flavour is much more meaty than most, whilst the texture is moist.
6. Allens of Mayfair Cabrito Goat BBQ Box: £50, Allens of Mayfair
Kid goats are a similar size to a spring lamb and have a delicate, sweet and musky flavour, which is why the guys at this top butcher have used pure goat in their barbecue box. The meat takes well to punchy flavourings such as Mediterranean and Middle-Eastern herbs, spices, and rubs, although it’s also good plainly barbecued – hence their mixture of butterflied shoulder with Italian herb rub, diced leg with Tandoori rub, plus two leg steaks and a pack of sausages. Goat is healthy too – much lower in fat than beef or pork, rich in potassium and has twice as much iron as beef.
7. Waitrose Chicken Fillet and Kebab Pack: £17, Waitrose
Don’t eat red meat? This mixed chicken pack contains really succulent and flavoursome chicken in the form of mini-fillets that are marinated with honey, ginger, lime, coriander and chilli, plus chicken breast fillets with a spiced lemon and spearmint marinade. There’s also sweet mango chicken thigh kebabs. You’ll need to plan ahead, though, as this pack requires six days’ notice to order.
8. Field and Flower Healthy Grilling Box: £45, Field and Flower
These lean and nutritious cuts are great for healthy barbecues. The meat is free-range, including grass-fed beef and lamb, with complete traceability. It contains two of everything – chicken breasts, rump steaks, lamb leg steaks, salmon fillets, wild venison haunch steaks, lemon ginger and chilli chicken strips and pork loin steaks with sage butter, all of which we found to be generous in size. Handily, you don’t have to be in when they deliver. Use the code SUMMER10 for a 10 per cent discount.
9. Newboulds Deluxe Large BBQ Meat Box: £80, Newboulds
With an impressive 16 succulent sirloin steaks, the same number of tasty lamb kebabs and 14 exceptionally thick and juicy pork sausages, your barbecue will be the talk of town with this luxury pack. Too plain? These guys will add a marinade to the kebabs free of charge – testament to their excellent customer service. All meat comes from parent company Country Valley Foods, which supplies locally sourced meat raised in North Yorkshire and Durham, to some of the UK’s top restaurants.
10. Farmison Barbecue Meat Box: £39.95, Farmison
Here’s one for kebab lovers. Containing four beef rump steak skewers, four pork rump steak skewers and four lamb leg skewers – all from Nidderdale, Yorkshire and from some of Britain’s favourite native breeds – they don’t take long to cook and taste scrumptious, as well as being exceptionally tender. You also get five pork sausages, four chicken legs and four burgers, so there’s plenty for a big gathering. This is one of 20 different types of meat boxes available.
11. Turner & George 2.4 BBQ Box: £50, Turner & George
As its name suggests, this is designed for an average family with 2.4 children, although we found there were leftovers. It includes chicken wings, burgers, ribs, and rib steak – all of which is ethically sourced from rare and native breeds in the UK (and now from Spain too), with the pork dry aged on the bone in the London shop. Handy extras include demi-brioche burger buns, Spicy Pig Rub, Kimchi ketchup, original recipes and even two kids’ t-shirts.
12. Upton Bridge Farm BB2 Box: £17, Upton Bridge Farm
This farm is run by a father and son team, Timothy and Charlie Walford, and is renowned for producing juicy cuts of pedigree grass-fed beef reared on the Somerset levels – that is, happy animals and tender meat. All the beef is aged on the bone for 21 days and the box includes four burgers, rump steaks and a kilo of Bavette (a beef steak cut from the abdominal muscles or buttocks of the cow). The meat tastes seriously good and comes beautifully wrapped in brown paper and string – Enid Blyton style.
13. Donald Russell Deluxe BBQ Variety Selection: £102, Donald Russell
This is a lot to spend on a barbecue, but this butcher has a royal warrant and sells some of the most delicious and finest cuts of meat you’ll ever taste. Plus, there’s plenty of it. Includes a range of melt-in-your mouth steaks, Barnsley chops, marinated pork chops, spiced lam koftas, sticky pork ribs, handmade burgers, sausages and seasoning. Expect your guests to ask where on earth you got the meat from – it’s that good.
14. Battens Farm Luxury BBQ Meat Box: £60, Battens Farm
This fifth generation family business in north Somerset has clocked up over 100 years of trading and its comprehensive box includes six of everything: Aberdeen Angus sirloin steaks (dry-aged for 21 days), burgers, sausages, lamb steaks, pork loin steaks, chicken breasts and a scrumptious pot of Rose Farm bbq relish. It owns and runs its own small abattoir, so that it controls every part of the process and the flavours are memorable.
15. Hook'N'Block Value BBQ Party Box: £39.99, Hook'N'Block
This box of locally sourced and traceable meat can be delivered before noon – good for an impromptu barbecue. You get masses of fodder for the price, so send those invites round to the neighbours – four rump steaks, two minted lamb chump chops, tandoor chicken drumsticks, piri piri chicken oyster thighs, hot 'n' spicy chicken wings, smokey BBQ pork belly ribs, chipolatas and a whopping 18 burgers. Note that the burgers and lamb have been pre-frozen.
16. Heck Full Deck: £29.99, Heck Food
If you’re feeding a crowd, this great-value pack gives you one of each of Heck’s full sausage range as well as their three types of burgers and meatballs. This includes their chicken-based “Italia” range – chicken with basil, tomatoes and mozzarella – and their distinctive square sausages. As you only get one pack of each, you end up with about 60 sausages, six burgers and one pack of meat balls, so this is one for a hot dog party. All the sausages are gluten free and really succulent and flavoursome.
Verdict
Our best taste awards go jointly to Donald Russell and The Hampstead Butcher. The meat is the juiciest, most mouth-watering we tried. But they are pricey, so if you’re after something cheaper, our recommendation goes to Eversfield – it’s great value and includes lots of tasty meat.