I have wanted to try a subscription meal plan for a while now. It’s hard to listen to a podcast and not hear an ad for one service or the other. So, when Sunbasket offered to send me a meal kit, I was more than willing to check it out.
I got three different meals, a side dish, a snack, and a dessert. The meals included top sirloin with broccoli, yellow squash, almonds, and romesco sauce, pork chops with cabbage, tomatoes, and grapes with lemon vinaigrette, and a white bean turkey chili.
The side was an orzo, chickpea, and cranberry salad while the snack was grain-free sea salt crackers. The dessert (if you want to call it that) was a quinoa chocolate crunch bar.
Sunbasket provides fresh, healthy meal kits for busy people
Main meals
Let’s start with the first meal: the steak. I’m a pretty good cook but cooking protein is not my specialty. Luckily, Sunbasket includes really good instructions so it was very simple. I cooked the steak in a bit of oil and then cooked the broccoli, squash, and almonds in the same pan.
The romesco sauce already came made which saves a ton of prep time. Altogether, this was a pretty good first meal. The romesco sauce was amazing and I’m always partial to roasted/pan-fried broccoli.
In terms of quality of ingredients, the steak could have been a little more tender, but because this is a healthy meal service, it’s not like they’re going to use a cut of meat with a ton of fat so I can’t really blame them there.
Now to the pork! I have honestly never cooked a pork chop in my life but again, with the instructions, it was really easy. I also have a meat thermometer so that helped ensure I wasn’t going to make myself sick.
Once the pork was done, I cooked the cabbage, tomatoes, and grapes. The lemon vinaigrette was already made. I just had to add a couple of tablespoons of oil and mix it up.
For this one, I wish the pork has been a little less fatty. It turned to gristle when it was cooked, but the parts that weren’t fatty were great. The lemon vinaigrette gave everything a fresh, clean flavor.
The grapes…I am not a fan. Hot grapes just aren’t my thing. But that is definitely my personal preference versus a point against Sunbasket. As it was pork and cabbage, I would’ve preferred apples instead.
Chili time! This was really good. I ate it with tortilla chips like a dip because it was that thick and OMG if you like chili, you will love this. You won’t miss the ground beef or whatever red meat you normally put in your chili. It was perfectly seasoned and to me, not spicy at all. Just flavorful.
Sides and snacks
The orzo salad was pretty good. I’m incredibly biased because my mom makes the best pasta salad ever, but this tasted good. It had the tang I like with an oil/vinegar pasta salad and the cranberries gave it just the right amount of sweetness.
The crackers were…not good. My dad and I tried them and we both said we preferred eating matzo because it had more flavor. That should tell you everything you need to know.
Dessert
The quinoa chocolate crunch bar was shockingly good. I’m always wary of trying to make desserts healthier especially when they include chocolate, but this was as good as any candy bar. You have to like dark chocolate (which I do) because it definitely has a bitter aftertaste, but the chocolate was smooth as silk and it had just enough crunch. I would eat it over a Crunch bar any day.
Overall thoughts
Overall, this was definitely worth trying and if you’re looking for a way to work healthy meals into a busy schedule, I would recommend Sunbasket. Also, when you subscribe, you actually get to pick your meals. As mine was just a trial, I didn’t. That’s definitely a plus.
I can definitely say the ingredients are pretty good quality. The produce is fresh, the meat could be a little better but not bad, and almost everything tasted good.
As for price, a 3 meal kit for 2 people is around $80 without shipping. Whether that’s affordable is up to you, but with some of the ingredients in these recipes, it might be around the same price as your grocery bill.
Have you wanted to try a meal plan subscription service? Anyone you prefer? Let us know in the comments below!