As you may have seen on my Instagram, we were gifted three meals from Sun Basket, a meal prep subscription service. (There are a bunch of them out there – read Chris’ blog about his experience with six of them.) Well, here’s my turn.
Sun Basket Meal Prep Service
When the team asked if I’d like to consider Sun Basket, I jumped at the chance! (Previously we were gifted two meals from Blue Apron by a friend.)
The menu changes every week, and you don’t have to subscribe to each week if you don’t want to. (Hey that sounds familiar….) There is a variety of entrees you can choose from: paleo, vegetarian, gluten-free, soy-free, fun-free. (Just kidding.)
I picked out three entrees:
- pork loin with braised kale (because I’ve never made pork loin in my life),
- salmon with tomato chutney and cardamon rice and
- sweet potato fritters
The food was shipped in a box with reusable ice packs. You could send the whole thing back to be recycled and reused. We chose to keep the box and ice packs. The ice packs are in the freezer so that I can transport and donate breastmilk easily in my cooler.
The first meal I prepped was the pork loin. This was my most successful entree. All of the ingredients are individually packed in plastic containers that you can reuse. It took about 45 minutes from start to finish. We are pros at cooking kale but we’d never added orange zest and a bit of juice to it. This made our kale awesome!!
We may have burned all the pecans in the toaster oven. Despite that, the entree was quite tasty. I kept the card so I could replicate it again whenever I felt like pork again.
Next up, salmon with tomato chutney and cardamon rice. Once again, user error occurred. (Are you noticing a theme here?) I was making the rice in a pot – and burned it. What kind of Asian am I? (The kind that cooks rice in a rice cooker.) I’ll turn in my Asian ID card at the end of this post. You really have to watch the pot on this. The rice burns easily.
Salmon with Tomato-Chutney Cardamon Rice
In the end, it turned out great! I don’t care about the saffron rice being burnt a little. I am Chinese, and my family would yell at me if I threw out perfectly good burnt rice. So I plated it and ate it. The salmon was nicely cooked through and the chutney was delicious. I’d never cooked with shallots either.
Keep an eye on the rice.
Lastly, I tried to cut corners and ultimately ruined the third meal: sweet potato fritters. You know I have a fear of cutting my fingers and hands off. I also have a fear of slicing my fingers off with a grater. So I had the genius idea of using my mini food processor to chop up the sweet potatoes. Worst.idea.ever.
Don’t be an idiot like me.
I couldn’t get the water out of the sweet potatoes. This is why you grate them. You can get them sliced up super thin and the water can be wringed out easily. They were still too wet when I fried them up in the pan. They broke apart when I tried to plate them.
I tried to save them by stuffing them into mini muffin pan and baking them. It took foreverrrrrrr because they were too wet. I think I spent an hour on this plus the 45 minutes prior.
Don’t be an idiot like me, part 2
BUT.
The brussels sprouts and apple salad came out super. I would never have thought to eat thinly sliced raw brussels sprouts if it weren’t for Sun Basket.
Looks just like the picture! Yes!!
Buy It or #BYEFELICIA?
Thanks to the team over at Sun Basket for indulging me and my family with three complimentary entrees.
Here are my takeaways:
- Don’t try to shortcut anything. Follow directions and your meal will turn out just like the photo card.
- I learned how to cook meals that I wouldn’t have bothered looking up on the internet.
- These meals took between 35-55 minutes from start to finish. (It took longer for me because I tried to cut corners.) You must carve out enough time to get started if you want to eat at 6pm. (I eat with Toddler Spawn – we are senior citizens.)
- Buy it if you are interested in trying new recipes without having to go to the grocery store. Ie. If you’re easily frazzled, Sun Basket makes it easy for you to get dinner up and running (in less than an hour).
- Don’t buy it if you’re strapped for cash. Meals are about $11.49 per meal. You will have to decide if your budget allows for something like this once in a while or regularly.
BUT WAIT! If you sign up as a new customer, you’ll get $30 OFF your first order. UM. That’s a no brainer. Try it for yourself and decide if you want to continue!
Will you do it? Will you consider signing up and trying a service like Sun Basket out?
Post contains affiliate links. The above is my honest opinion and review of Sun Basket – I was sent three meals to prep for this consideration.
