Are Sunbasket’s Healthy Meal Kits Worth the Cost in 2026? CNET Editors Put Them to the Test

If you’re looking for a healthy meal kit service, Sunbasket is likely to be one of the first options to appear in your search. The company markets itself as offering health-conscious meal kits made with clean ingredients and USDA-certified organic produce, responsibly raised meats and sustainably sourced seafood. Between its kits and premade meals, it supports various diets, including vegan (earning it a spot on our list of the best vegan meal delivery services), gluten-free, dairy-free, soy-free, diabetes-friendly, paleo and plans focused on meals with fewer than 600 calories.

Sunbasket has also added another element to its business model since launching 10 years ago, now offering individual grocery items such as fresh meat, seafood, plant-based proteins, cheese, breakfast items, snacks, and bread — all of which can be added to your box each week.

Sunbasket does slide in at a higher price than other meal kit delivery services, such as Home Chef, Blue Apron and EveryPlate, with its meal kits starting at $11 per serving and $11 shipping (unless you have a first-time customer or holiday discount). This raises the question: Are these healthy meal kits worth the extra cost? To find out, I tried a week’s worth of Sunbasket meal kits, then asked my fellow CNET editor Anna Gragert — a vegetarian wellness editor who often eats plant-based meals — to give the service a try and see whether it could actually help you stick to your 2026 New Year’s resolution to eat healthier.

How Sunbasket works

The first step is selecting your dietary preferences (such as gluten-free, vegetarian or Mediterranean), along with how many meals you want each week and how many servings you’d like per meal. You can choose between three, four or five meals per week, each with recipes serving either two or four people.

Next, you’ll place your order and select your meals and marketplace items. Each week, you select meals for the following week’s delivery. Your box arrives at your doorstep in insulated packaging on the day of your choosing, and you’re ready to go. Sunbasket ships to nearly every US ZIP code, excluding Alaska, Hawaii and Montana.

Sunbasket pricing

Meal kits start at $11 per serving, while premade meals start at $10 per serving. Shipping is $11 per box. This makes Sunbasket one of the more expensive meal kit services, but that’s not surprising, considering you’re getting meal kits with organic produce and higher-quality meat and fish.

What are Sunbasket meals like?

Healthy, to be certain. Sunbasket offers around 14 to 18 meal kit recipes each week, and nearly all are healthy, with the exception of one or two. You won’t find much greasy comfort food, as you would with some other meal kit companies, such as EveryPlate or Home Chef. Sunbasket also claims to use at least 98% USDA-certified organic produce in its kits, all of which I personally found to be crisp and fresh upon arrival. Plus, all the nutritional information you could possibly want is readily available both at the time of selection and when your meals arrive. 

In terms of style, Sunbasket meals are creative and unique. While some meal kit services play it safe with familiar food and flavors, Sunbasket takes chances and delivers interesting and often healthy spins on global cuisine. The quality of the ingredients was very high, and Sunbasket’s meats and produce were among the freshest of any meal kit service I’ve tested. Portions were also just right, in my opinion. I often had a bit of food left over, but never so much that I’d worry about it going to waste. 

Fully prepared meals for ‘those nights’

In addition to traditional meal kits, Sunbasket offers a variety of oven-ready — aka Fresh & Ready — meals that come fully prepared and only need to be heated, with no prep, assembly or cooking involved. For example, the week I chose meals, there were five Fresh & Ready meals: three pasta dishes, chicken tikka masala with rice and a Mexican-style quinoa bowl.

How easy are Sunbasket meal kits to prepare?

Sunbasket meal kits vary, but most are simple to prepare. Like many other meal kit services, it offers some more involved recipes alongside quicker options — some taking as little as 20 minutes — which it categorizes as “Prepared & Ready” or “Fresh & Ready.” You won’t find as many complicated recipes as you might with a service like Marley Spoon or Blue Apron, though, and extensive cooking experience isn’t required. 

Is Sunbasket good for vegans and vegetarians?

Our wellness editor Anna Gragert, who has been a vegetarian for 20 years, tried three plant-based meals from Sunbasket. However, she accidentally ordered one prepared meal, as there were only two vegan meal kits available the week she placed her order. Overall, the recipes were tasty, with a variety of vegetables and grains. However, if you’re looking to get more than one or two vegan or vegetarian meal kits per week, another service with more options — like Purple Carrot or EveryPlate — may be a better fit.

Is Sunbasket healthy?

Our wellness editor found that Sunbasket delivered on its promise of providing healthy meals. Anna also loved that the recipes’ nutrition facts were printed on the back of each recipe card. When reviewing the nutrition facts for the two meal kits and one prepared meal she tried — all of which were vegan — she found that none exceeded 50% of the daily value for sodium, saturated fat or sugar, and all were relatively low in calories. They also provided a good amount of protein and fiber. That said, it’s important to consider nutrition facts in the context of your specific dietary needs. If you’re curious, Anna recommends reviewing them carefully when choosing your recipes.

The recipes I cooked and how they went

Balinese chicken with cucumber-cabbage salad: Simple as it was, this was one of the best meals I’ve made since I started testing meal kits and it’s a perfect encapsulation of Sunbasket’s food. It only took 20 minutes but the nuanced heat of the turmeric-spiced chicken and cool crunchy salad with fresh mint felt like something I might order at a fancy al fresco lunch spot.

Pappardelle with wilted spinach, sweet peas and ricotta: This would have been difficult to mess up — and thankfully, I didn’t. A light, healthy pasta dish you could eat during any season and one I would absolutely have again. 

Low-country shrimp and grits: The shrimp was fresh, the cheesy grits were simple to make and this hearty recipe was packed with flavor. This was one of Sunbasket’s heavier meals, but it didn’t send me into a full food coma.

General Tso’s tofu with broccoli and brown rice: This was a tasty meal with a recipe that made the tofu, which can be difficult to prepare, easy to cook and make crispy, thanks to the addition of rice flour. Spice was also easy to adjust to taste, which our wellness editor Anna appreciated. It offered 30 grams of protein and 39% of the daily value of fiber, which was great to see.

Prepared yuba japchae bowl with glass noodles, mushrooms and pickled carrots: This was a delicious prepared meal that offered a variety of veggies. Our wellness editor doesn’t often eat yuba noodles, so this was a fun dish to try for that reason. All it took was 4 to 5 minutes in the microwave. She also appreciated that it wasn’t overly salted, with only 30% of the daily value of sodium.

Southwestern quinoa-black bean tostadas with cabbage slaw and guacamole: Our wellness editor Anna loved the variety in this dish but found it difficult to eat because the ingredients kept falling off the tostadas. Instead, she wishes the recipe was for tacos or wraps to make it easier to eat. This dish offered an impressive 23 grams of fiber (82% of the daily value) and 22 grams of protein.

Nana Joes gluten-free breakfast brownies: Along with her two meal kits and one prepared meal, Anna received these vegan, gluten-free and paleo brownies to try. She found them to be a tasty, healthy snack made with organic ingredients and a rich chocolate flavor.

Sunbasket support materials 

There’s nothing extraordinarily good or bad about Sunbasket’s recipe cards. I found them clear and concise with some helpful footnotes for beginners, including a brief explanation of what a roux is, for example. The Sunbasket app is useful, clear and mostly intuitive. You can place or change your weekly recipe selections through it, look up nutritional information for certain dishes and locate all past and present recipes.

Our wellness editor also liked that Sunbasket included a produce origin label on its box and a note when it had to substitute with non-organic ingredients.

Who Sunbasket meal kits are good for

If you’re looking for healthy meal kits that are anything but boring, yet still easy to prepare, Sunbasket is one of the best options. The culinary team offers creative takes on classic dishes, usinglean meats and fresh, organic produce. Plus, Sunbasket’s weekly menus also include many meals that cater to popular diets, including low-carb, paleo, gluten-free and Mediterranean.