Sun Basket – An Honest Review

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This Saturday I’m spilling the beans and talking all about myself and Typically Jane over at Whimsical September!

Sun Basket is something I’ve been wanting to try out for ages. Tom and I both love to cook, but life gets busy. And sometimes, our best intentions of creating healthy meals, turns into, what’s in the freezer that we can throw in the microwave? That isn’t how I picture my life, eating (usually unhealthy) microwaved meals, feeling pressed for time, not having the ingredients to make healthy meals on hand, and wasting money on fatty takeout when we simply can’t handle one more frozen meal.

If you’re just as excited to try out Sun Basket as we were, you can jump right in with $35 off your first Sun Basket! And, for everyone else, let’s take a deeper look into an honest review of Sun Basket.

The Good:

It’s Fresh

Life gets so busy! Have I mentioned that before? Tom and I both have hectic work schedules. Sometimes, I have time to meal plan, grocery shop, and prep for a whole week! More often than not, I’m working, running around all day long, with the intention of making a plan for dinner, grocery shopping, and cooking. But, the morning becomes afternoon then turns into the evening in a blink of an eye. Before I know it, it’s 6:00pm, and we have no plans for dinner. Hello frozen whatever, again, and hello “mystery” 5 lbs that creeped up seemingly overnight. I love that Sun Basket allows us to eat fresh, healthy weeknight meals without the time spent planning and shopping.

Organic

I’m a west coast girl through and through. I lived on a winery growing up, I have hippie parents who always bought organic, my sister has her own poultry farm. Organic, non-gmo produce is important to me. Humanely raised, antibiotic and hormone free meat is important to me. I’m the person who buys expensive eggs because I want to know the chickens were treated well. To me, this is a huge selling point.

Lifestyle Options

This, is without a doubt, the biggest selling point that brought me to Sun Basket. Some boxes don’t account for any different eating lifestyles, some are better and have a couple options, Sun Basket has tons of options. They have paleo, gluten-free, Lean & Clean (for people focusing on weightloss), dairy-free, soy-free, low calorie, vegetarian, vegan, AND breakfast options. Wow. That covers pretty much everyone except Breatharians, but, they aren’t eating anything anyways.

The Packaging

My box was delivered to the office, to a bunch of ooos and aaaahs. Of course, co-workers wanted me to open it up right away to show them what was inside. One even stated, “Oh wow, that’s packaged way better than my **name of competitors box has been eliminated to reduce backlash 😉** box!” The entirely recyclable and compostable box and insulation is a genius way to keep everything cool and fresh. In fact, after I brought my box home, before I could unload everything in the fridge, I got an emergency call that brought me back out, so I left the box, sitting on the table for a couple hours. When I came back, everything was still cold.

Good Bye Comfort Zone

Tom and I both love to cook. He grew up in a restaurant family, and boy let me tell you, the man can cook. Swoon! Even loving to cook though, often times we find ourselves making the same things over and over again. I love that Sun Basket got us to really try new things. Especially sauces. Something I almost never do when I’m cooking on my own is make my own sauce. It seems daunting and difficult when I can just go buy a bottle of over salted, over seasoned sauce from the store. Okay, I see the error in my thinking already. Every dish we got, included making our own sauce. Turns out, it’s super easy, and the results were so fresh, bright, and delicious. Way better than anything bottled, and I love knowing everything that was in them.

The Bad:

It’s Fresh

I know what you’re thinking, “Wait, what?! You just had that on the list of good things and fresh is good!” And, I hear you. Of course fresh is good. But, there are some downsides to fresh. It goes bad. While almost everything was perfect, at the peak of ripeness, we had a tomato that had to be thrown away. It was a little too ripe, and starting to go bad. However, when I go to the store, and have to get a package of 6 tomatoes, I always have more waste than just one.

 

No Leftovers

Or really, very few leftovers. Often times we will cook a big meal for dinner so we have leftovers for lunch the next day. This isn’t really going to work with Sun Basket. The meals are portioned out so that you’re not overeating, which is a huge plus to me. But, this also means that there aren’t any leftovers. For a lot of people this might not matter at all. Sun Basket also delivers 3 meals per week, so you do have 4 other nights for eating out, or cooking different meals that will give you lunch extras. The plus side of this, is we often waste food cooking lunches with dinner. Sometimes we have a lunch meeting come up, or they get forgotten, so meals go uneaten.

 

The Bottom Line:

The Price

This is a point worth bringing up in an honest Sun Basket review. When you minimize waste, and calculate how much time you spend at the store shopping (because time is money!) I think Sun Basket is very well priced for the quality of food you receive. However, I do think we could cook for ourselves for less per meal. It wouldn’t necessarily be gourmet meals like Sun Basket.

Will I Order Again?

Absolutely! For my lifestyle, it’s absolutely worth it. We are so busy, but still want healthy, home cooked meals. This doesn’t break the bank, and allows us to save time on grocery shopping and some prepping. Not to mention taking the stress out of planning meals.

Have you used a meal delivery service like Sun Basket? What were your thoughts? And, if you want to give Sun Basket a try, get $35 off a 2 person basket or 50% off a family basket! Still on the fence? Check out what’s on the menu this week!