I’ve Been Using Sunbasket for Four Months — Here’s What I Think About It

Last year, I worked with a financial adviser to figure out how to raise my credit score. A big part of that included looking at — and changing — how I was spending money on food. My adviser suggested trying a meal kit delivery service to help me avoid impulse buys at the grocery store, waste less food, and get more excited about cooking at home (versus getting expensive takeout). I ultimately picked Sunbasket because I liked the meal choices and that it was more sustainable than other companies. I fell for it very hard and very quickly. After many months as a loyal subscriber, I recently stopped using it. Here’s my honest review and what you need to know.

Sunbasket is a meal delivery kit of three dinner recipes, with ingredients and instructions, that arrives direct to your door every week (or less often, if you want). You can choose to get enough food for two people or four people, with options for gluten-free, vegetarian, paleo, and more.

Sign up for Sunbasket here.

Sounds like any other meal kit, right? But it’s actually so much more: In addition to dinners, Sunbasket also has breakfast, lunch, and snack options as well as a variety of groceries like proteins (wild fish, shrimp, scallops, beef, chicken, tofu), organic chocolates, fresh pasta, and more.

Price-wise, it really made sense for me: $11.99 a serving for a classic menu or $10.99 a serving for the family plan. I chose the classic menu, as it was just for me and my partner — and we figured that 12 bucks was definitely cheaper than ordering take out. (The extras like groceries, breakfasts, and beyond costs extra, of course.)

A huge selling point for me was the environmentally friendly packing material everything was delivered in, which was recyclable or compostable. Note: Sunbasket ships to 48 states, bypassing Alaska, Hawaii, and certain zip codes in Montana, New Mexico, and North Dakota. 

Sunbasket will substitute fresh produce or protein when something’s not available or in season. They’ll also reimburse you or credit your account if an item in your box isn’t up to quality standards. One thing that’s nice is the option to have oven-ready meals, which you just have to stick in the oven before they’re ready. One could argue these are not as fresh as ones you prepare yourself, but they work well on a busy week (and taste just as good).

I genuinely found Sunbasket’s meals easy to make and almost always delicious. I also learned a lot about cooking while I used it because the recipes were different than simple things I’d normally make myself. The app was arguably the best part of Sunbasket because it was easy to select meals, choose snacks and groceries, follow recipes, rate recipes, ask questions, and so on. But how it really changed things for me was when it came to savings, in terms of food, time, and money. I wasn’t ordering in, I wasn’t buying groceries that went to waste, and I wasn’t trying to squeeze a grocery shop into a too-busy day.

Sunbasket was great for the four months I had it, but I didn’t find it useful as a forever plan. The meals got repetitive after a while. Everything felt a bit formulaic, especially as the proteins were all relatively the same each week. My partner and I were eager to try mixing it up.

We also found ourselves so intrigued by the other groceries and snacks that we wanted to try, which led to some weeks of overspending. Once we realized we’d been overspending but under-enjoying, we decided it was time to put things on pause.

We absolutely loved Sunbasket for the first few months we used it. It saved us time and money and got me excited to cook different things. After a few months, we weren’t feel as excited about it and stopping using it has pushed me to cook more creatively. But there are still lasting impacts: Knowing how much money I saved with my Sunbasket subscription has made me think more about what I spend my money on when I go to the grocery store. Bottom line: If you’re interested in trying it, it’s definitely worth it.

Have you tried Sunbasket? What’d you think?