Chances are you’re somewhat familiar with Gwyneth Paltrow, best known for her Hollywood roles as Viola in Shakespeare in Love, Pepper Potts in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and even her cameo as the fun-loving substitute teacher Holly Holliday on Glee. Paltrow’s also known for her wellness and lifestyle brand Goop, which aims to provide “cutting-edge wellness advice from doctors, vetted travel recommendations, and a curated shop of clean beauty, fashion, and home.”
Goop is notorious for having some pretty far-reaching content and products. According to the New York Times, the brand had to pay $145,000 in 2018 for unsubstantiated claims that their $66 jade eggs could promote vaginal wellness. Goop also sells $3100 silk dresses, $165 “cosmic health” meditation kits, and $104 candles with interesting names.
Needless to say, Goop’s not exactly the most accessible brand for young women, especially college-aged women like myself who are trying to balance the cost of tuition with rent and packets of ramen noodles. But given the hype and controversy, I couldn’t help but wonder what it might be like to try something from Goop just to see if it would change my life as radically as it seems it could.
I figured the easiest way of joining the Goop lifestyle without shelling out the cost of a textbook would be using recipes from the brand’s Food & Home section. My goal was to see if the brand’s high costs translate into its recipes, and if I could figure out my own methods of following them while sticking to a budget for each meal. I also wanted to know if my Goop recipe interpretation could still create something delicious.
My plan was to minimize costs and time by substituting ingredients with things I already had in my pantry and fridge, then only buying ingredients when I absolutely had to. I also planned to keep each meal under $3.50 since that’s roughly the cost of a frozen dinner that I normally like to buy. I eventually settled on meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner that I felt could be prepared in a reasonable amount of time.
- Goop Breakfast
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I started with Savory Oats with Mushroom and Egg. For the most part, I already had all of the ingredients, and only had to substitute the shallot for a yellow onion, the chicken stock for broth, and the white wine vinegar with regular vinegar.
Cooking it wasn’t so bad! It did look a bit Goop-y at first (lol). The instructions were easy to follow, and the meal was very savoury and had a great umami flavour from the seaweed and shredded cheese with the added textural element of the egg. Best of all, because I already had the ingredients and their substitutions, this meal was cheap!
I did some calculations, and if I were to buy all of the generic ingredients I used from my pantry at my regular grocery store, each serving would cost roughly $3.60. While that’s about ten cents over my budget, in my opinion, this meal is worth the price because it’s nutrient-dense with protein from the egg, fibre from the oats, and vitamins from the mushrooms. Even better, it’s extremely filling! It kept me satisfied until lunch.
This meal was very yummy and I’d definitely make it again. My only suggestion is adding some garlic to the recipe when stir-frying the onion and mushrooms.
Officially, I give this Goop meal 4.5/5 stars!
- Goop Lunch
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Next up for lunch was the Black Bean and Spinach Quesadilla. It’s only a four-ingredient recipe minus the optional fixings, which I liked. Goop called for a more expensive brand of organic refried beans, but I already had a can of generic refried pinto beans in my cupboard along with some slices of cheddar in my mini-fridge and a bunch of spinach, so all I needed to get were the tortillas. The Goop recipe calls for gluten-free spinach tortillas which were more than double the price of generic tortillas at my grocery store, so I just bought the cheaper ones.
Not going to lie, it didn’t look that amazing. I was just thankful that it didn’t require that many ingredients and the cooking time was minimal (it took less than 10 minutes to assemble and cook!). The Goop recipe also has a tip: “Serve this along with Mexican rice to bulk up the meal.” So I did just that thanks to good ol’ Uncle Ben and my trusty microwave.
This meal was decent. Not mind-blowing or groundbreaking or special by any means, but most definitely a tasty and easy meal to make on a college budget, especially since it’s got greens in it and some filling beans that are easy to keep a can of in your pantry. I liked how the tortilla got crunchy from the pan, but I definitely didn’t like how the cheese didn’t add much in terms of flavour since the taste of beans was so overpowering.
A rough cost of this meal per serving with the rice is about $3.10, but without the rice, only $1.10! You could definitely make your own rice for just a few cents to make it a more complete meal, but even just the quesadilla itself was pretty satisfying. Since I personally found that the cheese didn’t add much to the dish, you could bring the cost down to as low as $0.90 per serving!
In terms of being very budget-friendly and yummy, I give this Goop meal 3.75/5 stars! Not as satisfying as the savoury oats, but still something I would definitely make again.
- Goop Dinner
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Finally, for dinner I decided to go with Hainanese Chicken, a traditional Chinese dish with simple ingredients. This was the first and only recipe where I had every single ingredient on hand and didn’t require any substitutions, so I really felt like I was getting The Goop Experience, as if Gwyneth herself was cooking for me. Also, anything I get to eat with white rice is already a win in my book.
This dish definitely smelled the best as it was being prepared. The smell of garlic and ginger with chicken was nothing short of heavenly, and seeing the rice simmer on the stove made my stomach growl.
Though this dish had few steps like the other ones, it was definitely the trickiest to cook. While I cooked the rice on the stove, the chicken breast sat aside and became a bit dry and cold, so I wasn’t sure if my timing was off or if I should have done something differently.
Regardless, this was delicious! The rice was so flavourful and soft and fluffy, and the chicken with the poaching liquid was very yummy. The rough calculated cost per serving was about $2.98, and I got two servings out of this.
In my own research, I found that this dish is traditionally served with a chilli sauce or a soy dipping sauce. I think that either of those could have really elevated this dish and I wish this Goop recipe included them, so it definitely lowered my rating. However, this dish strongly reminds me of a popular Filipino chicken soup that I ate growing up called Tinola, so I’m slightly inclined to adjust my rating based on my own childhood comfort.
Officially, I give this Goop dish 4/5 stars! I would make it again with a sauce on the side.
Overall, I went into this expecting that all of the recipes would require ingredients as outlandish and expensive as some of the products in the Goop beauty shop. I imagined struggling to find a substitute for something like luxury hand-picked organic saffron or goat cheese from southeastern Spain. To my surprise, many recipes on the site (especially the ones I tried) can be made in a pinch as many have few ingredients or require ingredients that could easily be substituted.
I was especially happy to learn that these recipes are possible to make on a college budget and weren’t too time-consuming. While it took some last-minute substitutions for cheaper generic-brand products, none of the recipes were particularly hard to follow and I definitely plan to make all three of them again in the future. One thing I would definitely suggest to any potential Goop-er is to not be deterred by any recipe that may be intimidating, as it’s always possible to create something delicious through your own avenues.
Ultimately, while I’m sure many college-aged women don’t plan on purchasing a $311 face cream, it’s possible to still have a Goop lifestyle while keeping your bank account happy and tummy full.