Life feels so much better when we eat well. Achieving the regular occurrence of home-cooked healthy meals can feel like an uphill battle. We lack the time, know-how and inspiration to prepare delicious, balanced meals every day of the week. It can quickly become another stress on our to-do lists.
Where there is an issue, there is a solution! Meal delivery services have been launched to save you from stress. They bring us exciting recipes that even we can follow, and we’re finally getting to grips with the equipment in our kitchen. It's an ideal way to deliver good-quality food while taking off the pressure and not asking too much of ourselves.
The choice for meal delivery services is growing. Each one has something slightly different to offer and works well for different situations. We tried out Sunbasket to discover its strengths and weaknesses. Here are our thoughts on Sunbasket. Hopefully, we can help you work out if this service is suitable for you.
Overview
Sunbasket was founded in 2014 and has spent the last five years adapting to the needs of the market to earn its place. It has proved successful with its customers, most likely due to it's healthy, sustainable, and organic food offerings. The executive chef at Sunbasket, Justine Kelly, creates the recipes and sources the ingredients.
After signing up to the site, you are given a number of choices to make to set up your order. You choose your menu and your meal plan based on dietary requirements and the number of servings. Each plan also allows you to select the number of servings you’ll receive per week.
Once you choose your plan, you can select a variety of meals, even ones outside your regular plan. Sunbasket provides food for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks. The breakfast selection includes teas, juices, granola, oatmeal, yogurts, and eggs. There is also a good choice for lunch with salads, soups, and breads.
Sunbasket Menus
The Sunbasket menus have something for everyone. There is a great selection of dishes that cater to dietary requirements, including vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free and paleo. It also separates plans into quick and easy meals, lean meals or chef’s choice. The focus is on food to fit your lifestyle but without sacrificing flavor. We were intrigued by how that could work for us, so we couldn’t wait to try it out.
Finding and choosing meals from the Sunbasket menu was a relatively simple process. There are tabs for each meal type, and these are divided into smaller sections. For example, dinner has meat & poultry, seafood, and vegetarian. Each meal and product has a handy picture, cuisine type and dietary requirements listed. Pepper icons are used to show spicy dishes and the lightning icon lets you know that a meal is speedy, which means it can be prepared in 20 minutes or less.
When searching for dishes, you are shown the menu list for that week, but you can also view the previous and following weeks. The menu list has a very helpful sort function. It allows the user to find meals that take 20 minutes or less, or that are 600 calories or less. It also sorts by dietary requirement, listing vegan, paleo, diabetes-friendly, soy-free, gluten-free, and dairy-free options.
Some of our favorite meals included:
Turkey taco bowls with brown rice, black beans, and pico de gallo. This lean & clean, dairy-free, and gluten-free option was a Tex-Mex feast that took a while to prep but tasted so good. A hint of chilli and lime made all the difference. We would definitely make this again.
Lamb korma with sweet potato mash and toasted naan. We weren’t sure if this wasn’t something we could pull off. It certainly sounded out of our skill range, but we wanted to test ourselves, and Sunbasket. The korma was less complicated than we imagined; it came with the base (yogurt and tomato paste) and a wonderful spice blend. It really helped us to get the right balance of flavor!
Palermo steaks with warm fennel and tomato salad. We love steak, and it had always seemed like something to order at a restaurant rather than cook ourselves. We were so happy to discover this 20-minute recipe that gave us a tasty and healthy steak dinner.
Plans & Pricing
There are two menus to choose from: the classic for two to four people or the family menu for four. Each menu comes with the choice of 2, 3, or 4 recipes per week. The classic menu gives you access to the different meal plan options, including the different dietary requirements; you can choose from 18 recipes each week. The family menu keeps it simple with a choice of 6 kid-friendly recipes each week.
You have the option to choose a meal plan, meaning you could opt for vegetarian, or Mediterranean, or many others. You don’t have to stick to those dishes though; you can mix and match from the other plans. Like other services, Sunbasket gives you a cost per serving for your first box. If you choose the classic menu, the prices range from $12.99 for 2 recipes for, $11.99 for 3 recipes, and $10.99 for 4. The family menu prices per serving are $10.99 for 2, 3 or 4 recipes.
Shipping
Our first box from Sunbasket was delivered for free. Shipping after your first orders costs $6.99 each week. Deliveries are between 8 am and 9 pm. You can skip a week if you need to or cancel the subscription with just over 7 days' notice.
Bottom Line
Sunbasket was quick and easy, which was just what we wanted. It also gave us some really tasty and healthy meals. We felt like we had eaten well all week, and the balanced meals were a boost to our well-being. On one occasion, we missed our takeaway a little, but we picked ourselves back up and in the end, were so impressed with our results.
Pros & Cons
We found Sunbasket very convenient. There was a good range of healthy food to choose from, and the recipes were easy to follow.
