Sunbasket Review

Sunbasket is more healthful than your average meal delivery service, with relatively few refined carbs, lots of organic vegetables, and modest calorie counts. Plus, with a large selection of add-ons and fresh, fully-prepped single-serving dinners, Sunbasket's service goes way beyond meal kits. And with a wide variety of dietary profiles—like paleo, gluten-free, lean and clean, vegetarian, Mediterranean, pescatarian, and diabetes-friendly—as well as numerous protein substitutions for every dish, Sunbasket is about as flexible as they come.

Meal delivery services tend to cater to a specific audience, so finding the service that is right for you is about knowing your tastes and needs. What's your budget? How much time do you wish to spend cooking? What are your dietary preferences? All these questions and more will help you find the perfect service for your particular situation. We put Sunbasket to the test, breaking down many aspects of the service to help you decide whether you should give it a try.

Learn More: Read Our Full Methodology

How It Works: Healthy, Organic Meals Weekly

Signing up for Sunbasket is very simple. The first question you must answer is whether you're more interested in meal kits or Sunbasket's "Fresh & Ready" heat-and-serve meals. Next, you'll be asked about your diet, preferences, the number of people at your table, and how many meals you'd like per week. Sunbasket is a subscription, so this process will set the framework for your weekly delivery. However, you can change all of these settings at any time.

Once you've signed up, Sunbasket will send you a box on your chosen delivery day each week. You can either leave the meal selections up to Sunbasket or actively manage your subscription by choosing your own meals. Shipping costs $9.99 per box, but Sunbasket will waive the shipping fee for your first order.

Pricing: Simple and Straightforward

While some meal delivery services offer volume-based pricing structures, Sunbasket's pricing simply depends on what you order. Meal kit pricing starts at $11.49 and increases depending on selection. For example, a vegan dish like tofu curry might ring up at the $11.49 price point, while a meat-forward dish like chicken and orzo comes out to $12.79 per serving. "Speedy" meal kits, which are pre-prepped and meant to cook in 20 minutes or less, are a bit more expensive, with some meals as high as $17.99 per serving. Shipping is free for your first order, and after that, you'll pay $9.99 per box.

Choosing Meals: Large Selection of International Flavors

Sunbasket features a wide array of culinary styles and ingredients, and the menu changes every week. There are currently 20 meal kit options and 13 Fresh & Ready choices available each week, with selections like Japanese curry udon with edamame, spicy Sichuan mapo tofu with mushrooms and kale, pinto bean and hominy pozole rojo with queso fresco, and Black Angus rib-eyes with artichoke butter and garlicky green beans on the menu. Sunbasket's breakfast and lunch choices are classified as "add-ons."

As mentioned, you can either choose your own meals or accept Sunbasket's selections based on your dietary preferences. If you want to make your own selections, the cutoff to do so is Wednesday at noon PT. Each Sunbasket box can hold up to eight items. You can order as many boxes as you like, but you are limited to eight orders of any one kit or Fresh & Ready meal. Sunbasket meal kits serve either two or four people, and Fresh & Ready meals all include one serving. We found the portions to be a little on the smaller side, but they were still satisfying.

Sunbasket is most flexible when it comes to protein selection. Some dishes allow you to select from nearly a dozen options across multiple protein categories, from fish to poultry, beef, pork, lamb, and plant-based proteins like tofu and meat substitutes.

What We Made

For our Sunbasket delivery, we ordered four meal kits and four Fresh & Ready prepared meals across a range of cuisines, flavors, and protein options. The meals we chose are as follows:

Meal Kits:

• Sea scallops over fresh fettuccine with sun-dried tomatoes and spinach
• Snapper with romesco, vegetables and almonds
• Burmese chicken and sweet potato curry
• Sirloin strip tacos with zucchini scallion salsa

Prepared Meals:

• Broccoli mac and cheese
• Chicken chow mein with broccoli, mushroom, and toasted garlic
• Beef donburi rice bowl with edamame and kimchi-lime vegetables
• Burrito bowl al pastor with plant-based Impossible Beef

Support Materials: Perfectly Adequate

Each meal kit includes a foldout recipe card with instructions, a photo of the prepared meal, a list of all ingredients, nutrition information, and the occasional tip and fun fact. The instructions are color-coded, with directions for four-serving preparation in red, and prep steps—such as chopping vegetables—in purple. There are also directions for each of the various protein options you may have selected. We found the recipes to be simple, well-written, and easy to follow. All of this material is available in the Recipe Book section of the Sunbasket app. There, you can see all Sunbasket's recipes, the recipes for your orders, and any favorites that you've saved.

The Sunbasket website also has a Tips and Techniques section drawn from the content on the Sunbasket blog. These tips are not linked specifically to your order, so you may have to do a bit of exploratory digging if you're looking for a particular tip or technique. There is some video content as well, but it's not easy to find on the site. If you're looking for video, visit Sunbasket's YouTube channel.

Packaging: Very Eco-Friendly

Compared to other meal delivery services, Sunbasket stands out from the rest with its environmentally-friendly packaging. Our order came in a recyclable box lined with paper and denim insulation. The food is kept cold with plastic ice packs, which are filled with a compostable blend of water and cotton fiber.

Inside the box, our proteins were sealed in plastic, and brown paper bags held the remaining ingredients for the kits. These ingredients are packaged in various forms of plastic, such as small screw-top jars, clamshell containers, and LDPE bags. Eggs are packaged inside individual cardboard cartons, which are sealed inside plastic bags. Thick-skinned vegetables like cucumber and radish had no extra wrapping or packaging, and the Fresh & Ready meals came in fiber trays with cardboard sleeves.

In total, our Sunbasket order included 68 pieces of packaging—45 for the meal kits and 23 for the prepared meals. Of those 68 pieces, 32 were eligible for curbside recycling and 34 were able to be recycled at a special facility. Only two items had to be sent to the landfill, which is a major win in our book.

The Cooking Process: Simple and Straightforward

On its website, Sunbasket helpfully labels each kit to indicate the level of pre-preparation of the ingredients. "Speedy" kits include pre-prepped ingredients, and they're said to be ready in 20 minutes or less. Even the standard kits without such labels are relatively simple. The most you'll have to do is chop a couple of veggies, cook a protein, and maybe prepare some grains. There are a few somewhat complex recipes that require up to an hour of work, but these are the exception rather than the rule.

The kits we tested came together quickly, often faster than Sunbasket's estimates. All the sauces and dressings arrived pre-portioned. None of the recipes had more than four or five major steps, so beginners should have no trouble with Sunbasket.

In terms of cookware, all our meals were easily prepared with only a pot, a frying pan, and a mixing bowl or two. You must supply your own oil, salt, pepper, and sugar. And as for the Fresh & Ready meals, all you have to do is heat them in the microwave or the oven to enjoy.

Flavor, Freshness, and Quality: Top Quality Ingredients, Some Muted Flavors

Sunbasket's freshness and quality were very good, and we found that the meals we ordered were mostly flavorful. However, some dishes needed some extra oomph in terms of spices and seasonings. Overall, though, our meals smelled and looked great, and we found them filling and satisfying. 

As far as sourcing, Sunbasket provides transparency about its sustainable processes and standards. The company strives to use 100% organic produce in their meals, and they work with farmers, fisherman, and ranchers on responsibly sourcing proteins. On top of that, they give back to the community by donating food to several non-profit organizations.

Nutritional Value: Balanced Organic Nutrition

Sunbasket excels in the area of nutrition. The meal kits are packed with high-quality, lean proteins, organic vegetables, and whole grains, with very reasonable calorie counts—ranging from 350 calories in the sole dish to around 880 calories for the salmon and farro bowl. Several of our meals fell into multiple dietary categories like paleo, gluten-free, Mediterranean, and carb-conscious. If nutrition is your priority, Sunbasket is definitely a good choice.

Sunbasket Is Good For

Very busy folks who want to keep it healthy, as well as those looking to conveniently jumpstart a better diet, will be well served by Sunbasket. If you have any time at all to do your own meal planning, however, you may not get much added value from a Sunbasket subscription.

Add-Ons: Most of the Bells and Whistles

Add-ons are one of Sunbasket's great strengths. The only things the service lacks are beer and wine. Otherwise, Sunbasket offers an extensive, well-curated selection of add-ons, divided into five major categories: Breakfast, Lunch, Pasta & Sauce, Proteins, and Snacks. Each of these categories contains multiple subcategories. All told, there are dozens of intriguing items, from soups and pizzas to breakfast bars and egg bites, juices, cheeses, cooked proteins, sweets, and more. As a nice bonus, Sunbasket includes one of these items as a free gift in each of your first four orders.

Customer Service: Plenty of Avenues

We reached out to customer service via text to ask a few basic questions. It took about 40 minutes to get a response. Once we were in touch with an agent, all our questions were answered within about 30 minutes. Sunbasket has several other customer service avenues, including phone, email, a chat bot, a self-service system, and "ask an expert," where you can get questions answered by other Sunbasket customers. There's also an FAQ section on the website, although it's difficult to find.

The other avenue we used was the self-service feature. When our first box arrived wet and torn, we used the self-service feature to report it. We were automatically offered a credit for the cost of the entire order. Since none of the ingredients seemed compromised, we declined, but it was good to know that this type of resolution was available.

Making Changes and Canceling: No Trouble

Making changes to your delivery, customizing your order, and canceling your Sunbasket service is straightforward. You can change and customize your order in the My Menu and Schedule tabs. My Menu is for altering the contents of your order; Schedule is for skipping deliveries or arranging shipping to a temporary address. To reduce your delivery frequency, pause, or cancel your account, go to Account Settings and click "Manage My Subscription."

Methodology

Our testers ordered from, cooked, and rated 40 different meal delivery services. We carefully scored each one based on meal selection, nutritional information, sustainability, and customer service, as well as the flavor, freshness, and quality of each meal and ingredient. Our Spruce Eats tester panel includes dietitians, chefs, and longtime food writers. The one thing they all have in common is their love and knowledge of food.