Have you heard of all these cook-at-home delivery boxes? Companies like Blue Apron, Hello Fresh, and Sun Basket will ship an insulated box to your door with the all ingredients needed to make three home cooked meals for your family, along with step-by-step instructions. I tried one out this week…here’s my take on the experience.

I chose Sun Basket, mainly because it offers organic ingredients, lower carbohydrate options, and is local (San Francisco based). I also love that you can return all the packing materials so Sun Basket can reuse and recycle for you. I choose three dinners for two people. The cost is normally around $68, but since it was my first week, I took advantage of their “3 meals free” promotion and paid around $34.

Sun Basket has paleo, vegetarian, gluten-free and pescetarian options each week. I had seven dinner options to choose from. I selected Pork loin with caramelized onions and honey-glazed root vegetables, Moroccan salmon in chraime with mint couscous, and low-carbohydrate steak with roast broccolini and tomatoes.

Here’s everything laid out for the first meal:

I felt very spoiled to have the ingredients measured out for me. I washed, peeled, and chopped everything myself, but it felt easier since things were portioned out for me already. I also think for someone with limited cooking experience, that the recipes would be a simple and straightforward way to practice cooking skills.
The only problem was that in a few of the meals, I felt like there wasn’t enough non-starchy vegetables, so I did add my own. In the two pictures below, you can see how I added a romaine and tomato salad to the pork loin meal. Even so, the meal was incredibly delicious, totally worth a few additions!

The next meal was the wild salmon, Moroccan style. I wish the grain had been whole grain (maybe bulgur) instead of couscous, but the meal was also delicious. Again, I felt like there wasn’t quite enough vegetables, so I added some leftover steamed broccoli from my fridge.

The last meal was low-carbohydrate with plenty of vegetables. The roasted vegetables were tossed with a walnut pesto and there was a fresh herb sauce for the steak too.

The best part of the experience was cooking with ingredients I’ve never used before. I had to look up Sumac after the salmon meal, I’d never even heard of it! The recipe cards come with calorie information, and they have meal plans for different eating goals. I enjoyed it and look forward to using Sun Basket again in the future, even if I do have to tweak the vegetable portions!

Lindsay Pasdera, MS RDN