An Organic Meal Kit Head-to-Head Comparison!
Cooking dinner daily, planning meals, and making the necessary trips to the grocery store can be challenging in our hectic lives. This is especially true when you consider considerations like eating organic, healthy meals and keeping variety in your diet. That’s where meal kits, which cater to busy people and their families, can make a huge difference!
The meal kit delivery industry has expanded rapidly in the last few years, with new and old companies—like Home Chef, Hello Fresh, Blue Apron, and Sunbasket—all valid options. With so many services out there, it can be quite a challenge to work out which company is the best for your needs.
The Meal Kit Review team can help with our comprehensive comparisons of different meal kit delivery services, all based on our first-hand experience with each brand. This comparison of SunBasket and Green Chef will help you decide between these two organic meal kits, using our most recent experience ordering and trying out boxes from both brands in 2024.
Short on Time? Our Winner is Green Chef. Here is why….
Both Green Chef and Sun Basket offer impressive organic and health-focused meal kit services with chef-designed meals. From our experience, Green Chef is our winner! Here is why:
- High-quality organic ingredients in every box
- Delicious recipes that have never disappointed us
- Easy prep meals with easy-to-follow recipe cards
- Organized meal plans for special diets (gluten-free, gut-healthy, Paleo, Keto, Vegan, etc.)
Our Full Green Chef Vs. SunBasket Comparison
What is Sun Basket?
Sun Basket is a weekly meal kit delivery service that focuses on organic and healthy eating. Customers can choose from traditional meal kits and pre-prepared fresh and ready options, including add-ons for breakfast, snacks, and more.
This service has many unique recipes that are often “new-age” and may not fit all tastes. Sun Basket offers a variety of options to suit specific diets, making it a good choice for people with specific dietary needs or who want to follow a particular plan.
What is Green Chef?
Green Chef is a USDA-certified organic meal kit delivery service that delivers weekly. They offer a wide variety of easy-to-cook meal kit recipes and add-ons for healthy and organic fast lunch options, breakfast, and snacks.
Flavor-wise, Green Chef tends to focus on more traditional and well-suited recipes for a wide variety of preferences. That said, they do cater to many special diets, including vegan, Keto, and Paleo lifestyles.
Pros and Cons
Sun Basket Pros and Cons | Green Chef Pros and Cons |
Sun Basket Pros
| Green Chef Pros
|
Sun Basket Cons
| Green Chef Cons
|
The Meal Plans
Green Chef Meal Plans
All Green Chef meal plans are offered for two, four, or six people (large family plan), with your choice of three or four meals per week. In addition to the traditional meal kit recipes, you can select from a variety of add-ons, ranging from daily vitamins to delicious breakfast items, snacks, and even iced coffee.
When signing up for Green Chef, you can choose from several different lifestyle preferences to get a weekly menu to suit a variety of diets. For each diet plan, 10 New Weekly Recipes are offered. The Green Chef diet support includes:
- Mediterranean Diet
- Gut & Brain Health
- Calorie Smart
- Plant-Based
- Protein Packed
- Keto Diet
- Gluten-Free
Sun Basket Meal Plans
The Sun Basket subscription offers two basic plans to choose from: a two-person plan or a four-person plan, with anywhere from 2 to 5 meals per week. They offer both traditional meal kits, where you cook the food yourself, and a selection of microwave-ready meals to reduce the prep. You can also choose to add a variety of healthy breakfast or snack items.
With Sun Basket, you can choose a specific dietary plan. They offer meals to suit Paleo, gluten-free, vegan, Mediterranean, carb-conscious, vegetarian, diabetes-friendly, and more.
You can also tailor your weekly selections to avoid certain foods, including allergens like soy or shellfish.
The Meals Style
Green Chef and Sunbasket are meal kit delivery services that focus on healthy organic foods. Both companies offer dishes filled with fresh organic ingredients, making them some of the most nourishing meal kit options. These two services not only provide the best organic meal kit options but also believe that ease of preparation is essential to their customers.
Sun Basket promises that most of its meals will take only 15-30 minutes to prepare using easy-to-follow recipes. Its weekly menu also offers some “Fresh & Ready” prepared meals that are microwave-ready, as well as super speedy meal kits that take 15 minutes or less to cook.
Sun Basket offers over 30 dishes per week, plus lots of great add-on options for lunch, breakfast, additional proteins, and healthy pantry items. Their weekly meals are suitable for many dietary requirements. The recipes tend to be health-food-focused and can be more on the New Age side of things, which may not suit every palette.
Most Green Chef meals take 30 minutes or less to prepare, and they have a selection of quick 10-minute lunch recipes each week. Their add-ons section includes many quick, pre-made healthy meals, such as organic soups and sandwiches, snacks, and breakfasts.
Green Chef offers an extensive menu with nearly 50 options to choose from each week. The menu features meals for different lifestyles, including paleo, vegan/vegetarian, gluten-free, keto, and balanced-living diets. The culinary style of the meals is diverse and ranges from Italian, Mediterranean, Mexican, Asian-style, and more.
Is It Tasty? Our Experience
At the Meal Kit Review, we have many years of experience with Green Chef and SunBasket meal kit services. To ensure our reviews are accurate and current, we tested out both companies again in 2024 for two weeks each.
Overall, we were satisfied with both meal kit services, but we liked the Green Chef meal better and thought it was more likely to be a crowd-pleaser. The boxes for Sun Basket and Green Chef were easy to sort, and the recipe cards were colorful and easy to follow.
The quality of the produce and ingredients looked good, and we couldn’t wait to make our meals. Here’s what we thought of the recipes themselves.
Best Meal We Enjoyed From SunBasket
Orange Glazed Pork And Bok-Choy Slaw Over Cauliflower Rice
This was the second dish we cooked from our Sun Basket Paleo Box. We cooked it three days after the box arrived, and the ingredients were still fresh!
We enjoyed the flavor combinations of this dish. It featured a sweet glaze that worked well with the pork, and the bok choy slaw added a lovely freshness. Overall, it was delicious, though the flavors might be a bit extreme for some tastes.
Best Meal We Enjoyed From Green Chef
Sausage & Mashed Acorn Squash
The dish is gluten-free and part of Green Chef’s weekly Keto menu. Like many prior deliveries, we were impressed by the quality of the USDA-approved ingredients offered in the Green Chef meal kit box. Everything looked super fresh, and the Italian pork sausages were very impressive!
We loved the mashed acorn squash mixed with cream cheese and fresh chives and the sauteed collard greens with red bell peppers, red onions, and butter. The sausages were also excellent, making a 100% excellent comforting dish with great wintery flavors.
Other Popular Meals To Try
SunBasket Meals
- Moroccan-spiced Chicken Skewers with Chickpea and Tomato Salad
- Mediterranean Flatbreads with Beet Salad and Skordalia Lima Bean Dip
- Hawaiian Garlic Shrimp with Coconut Rice
- Steak and Vegetable Stir-fry with Cashew-plum Sauce
- Fresh & Ready Yuba Japchae Bowl with Glass Noodles, Mushrooms, and Pickled Carrots
- Salmon with Roasted New Potatoes and Charred Broccoli
Green Chef Meals
- Chicken Tacos with Bacon & Corn Salsa
- Roasted Chickpea & Baby Broccoli Bowls
- Harissa Salmon with Apricot Pan Sauce
- Mushroom & Cheddar Melts
- Honey-Tamari Sesame Beef Bowls
- Creamy Paprika Shrimp
The Ingredient Quality
Both Sun Basket and Green Chef offer meal kits that use high-quality organic ingredients. In our experience, both boxes arrived with delicious-looking, high-quality ingredients that made us excited to cook our meals.
Sun Basket promises to use only organic and sustainably sourced ingredients. The company prioritizes suppliers who use environmentally friendly food production methods. This includes fishermen who use low-impact fishing methods, ranchers who raise their animals ethically, and growers who are pioneers in sustainable crop rotation and water efficiency.
Conversely, Green Chef is a USDA-certified organic meal kit delivery company that uses only organic, non-GMO, and sustainably sourced ingredients. The company works with a trusted network of ranchers, farmers, fishermen, and artisans. In addition to their sustainable practices, many Green Chef-quality ingredients arrive peeled and prepped for the cooking process to keep things simple for customers.
Diet Support
When choosing a meal delivery service, ensuring your plan will support your dietary needs and goals is essential. Green Chef and Sun Basket meal kits cater to various diet plans and lifestyles, but the lists aren’t identical.
Sun Basket offers plans and recipes for:
- Gluten-Free Friendly
- Dairy-Free
- Soy-Free
- Paleo
- Mediterranean Diet
- Vegan
- Lean & Clean
- Protein Plus
- Vegetarian
- No Added Sugar
- Pescatarian
- Low Calorie
- Keto-Friendly
- Carb-Conscious
Green Chef also offers a large number of diet plans and menu items for specific diets, including:
- Mediterranean
- Gut & Brain Health
- Calorie Smart
- Plant-Based (Vegetarian)
- Protein Packed
- Keto
- Gluten-Free
- Low Added Sugar
- Sodium Smart
In addition to these recipes and plans, Green Chef offers a unique nutrition coaching service. Customers can schedule a free 20-minute phone call with a registered dietitian to discuss their needs and get recommendations.
What Is Our Dietitian Take on It?
Our dietician, Katie Drakeford, MA, RD, CSP, LD, CLC., had this to say:
“Green Chef and Sun Basket are both solid meal kit companies. I like that they both have several diets to choose from, all approved by Registered Dietitians.
Sun Basket offers a little more variety in the types of diets it caters to, including soy-free, dairy-free, and diabetes-friendly, which you won’t find at Green Chef.
However, I think Green Chef offers more variety within the diets it caters to. For example, vegans and vegetarians have a lot more choices each week with Green Chef than they do at Sun Basket.”
Optional Add-ons
Both Green Chef and Sun Basket offer a range of add-on options to your box to keep healthy eating throughout the week.
Sun Basket’s add-on options include healthy snacks, beverages like smoothies and coffee, additional proteins, breakfast, and fast lunch options. These add-ons have the same high-quality, organic, and sustainable ingredients, making Sun Basket a healthy meal kit option.
Add-Ons to Try From SunBasket
- Beverages – Guava Rose Prebiotic Sparkling Beverage
- Breakfast – Cultivated Blueberry and Vermont Maple Oatmeal Cup
- Lunch- Portobello & Spinach Empanadas, 2-pack
- Lunch – Deli Chicken Bacon Ranch Wrap
- Fresh Proteins – Sustainably Sourced and Wild-Caught Jumbo Lump Crab Cakes
Green Chef’s add-on menu is a more recent addition to its offerings. Interestingly, it offers vitamins and supplements as well as more traditional meal kit add-ons like breakfast, coffee, snacks, and quick lunches.
Add-Ons to Try from Green Chef
- Beverages – La Columbe Oatmilk Vanilla Latte
- Breakfast – Mylk Labs Almond Oatmeal & Blueberry Oatmeal
- Lunch – Omsom Coconut Lemongrass Curry Noodles
- Lunch – Honey Mustard Chicken & Cheddar Wraps
- Snack – Honey Mama’s Chocolate Cake Truffle Treats
Pricing
Cost is, of course, a big factor in choosing which meal kit service is right for you, so here’s everything you need to know about the cost of Sun Basket and Green Chef in May 2024.
The Delivery Box – Is It Eco-Friendly?
Sun Basket and Green Chef strive to reduce carbon emissions and environmental impact. Delivery boxes, ice packs, insulation, and other packaging materials are great for protecting your meal kit ingredients, but they’re not quite good for the earth. But rest assured, meal kit services have actually been shown to be good for the planet! A study by the University of Michigan shows that grocery shopping generates 33% more greenhouse gases than meal delivery kits—even with all that packaging.
Moreover, Green Chef and Sunbasket, the leading healthy-eating meal kit companies, constantly innovate to deliver the best eco-friendly packaging. Both companies emphasize using recyclable and sustainable materials in their shipping boxes whenever possible.
Green Chef makes nearly all of its packaging from recyclable, compostable, and reusable materials—unless it is impossible for food safety reasons. Each weekly meal delivery is packed in an insulated box, and the ingredients for each recipe are packaged together in a labeled paper bag for easy storage. All the paper bags, jars, and plastic clamshells are recyclable.
With Sun Basket, delivery also comes packed in a recyclable cardboard box, with each recipe ingredient separately placed in a paper bag. These paper-product Sun Basket packaging materials are innovative and are almost 100% recyclable.
Curious About How To Best Dispose of your Box?
Sun Basket and Green Chef each offer dedicated website pages advising customers on reusing, composting, recycling, or disposing of the different packing materials. You can review the Sun Basket recycling guide here or the Green Chef guide here.
Also, know that recycling and composting facilities can vary, depending on your location. To find your best local recycling options, visit earth911.org or www.plasticfilmrecycling.org.
Supporting Materials
Even though both services include printed recipe cards in each delivery box, we found the Green Chef cards more comprehensive and easy to follow.
First, Sun Basket’s recipe cards are smaller than Green Chef’s. They are printed on 6-by-4-inch folded cards, whereas Green Chef uses a larger A4 double-sided colored card. The smaller Sun Basket recipe card has fewer photos, only showing a picture of the final dish and no photos of the cooking steps. With their larger cards, Green Chef includes helpful images of each cooking step that really help walk you through the recipe.
In addition to the printed cards in each box, both services offer full recipes and extra information, such as calorie counts and other nutritional values, on their websites and apps.
As for diet support, Green Chef offers unique nutrition support, with the option to chat with a registered dietitian for free!
Subscribing and Managing Your Account
Green Chef and Sun Basket are both subscription-based meal delivery services with no contract obligations. This means you can skip a box or cancel your subscription at any time. Both companies offer a well-organized and easy-to-use website and app to manage your subscription online.
The websites for both Green Chef and Sun Basket are easy to navigate. There is a clear area where you can register for the plan and select your meal plan. Once you’ve created an account with either service, you can use their website or app to choose your desired dishes each week, change your payment method, and cancel your subscription.
However, we felt that the overall usability and navigation of the Green Chef website and app are a bit better than the Sun Basket website.
With both companies, the meal plans are pretty flexible. Recipes on the weekly menus are available to mix vegetarian and meat dishes, paleo and gluten-free, and so on. You can also define your dietary preferences in advance to recommend recipes that suit your needs while still having the ability to choose from their full menu.
Each week, you will also be able to browse for additional meals and add-ons to add to your box with both Green Chef and Sun Basket. This makes it easy to do everything you need to do online or in the app to receive your weekly meal kit delivery.
What Do Customers Think Of It?
We want to give you the most information possible to choose between the two boxes, so we went to Reddit to find out what customers say about Sun Basket and Green Chef. Reddit is a forum site where users can talk about just about anything, and there are many forums dedicated to reviewing and recommending meal kits like these companies.
SunBasket
Sun Basket subscribers cited enjoying the unique recipes, which often introduced them to new combinations and flavors. Many also say this meal kit helps them prioritize healthy eating while still enjoying a variety of delicious meals. When it comes to cons, customers most often cited the high prices and the unusual flavors of some of the meals.
@sierra400 on Reddit has been using Sun Basket for six months and said, “All the meal kits we have had are easy to prep, usually just 1-2 pans only. Very flavorful and unique recipes.”
However, the price and recipes can be less ideal for some. As another Reddit user puts it “I also love Sunbasket but although I love their recipes I have a picky family plus they are one of the pricier meal kits.”
Green Chef
Green Chef customers overall enjoyed the flavors of the boxes, the variety of healthy options offered, and the easy-to-follow recipes. They also mentioned the ease of adding proteins and tweaking recipes for their weekly deliveries.
On Reddit, @Paddiewhacks said, “Very tasty meals. I think they are a bit easier to prepare. Some veggies come prepped already.”
Meanwhile, @talaron compared the company to the popular brand Hello Fresh and said, “I’d say that GreenChef offers a much better experience than HelloFresh. Recipes are fancier and come with more premium ingredients.”
Delivery Area
Regarding delivery area, these services are pretty evenly matched, though Green Chef does deliver to a slightly larger portion of the US.
Sun Basket ships to most zip codes in the United States, excluding Alaska, Hawaii, Montana, Nevada, and parts of New Mexico. Depending on your area, deliveries are scheduled from Sunday through Thursday.
Green Chef delivers almost everywhere in the continental US but currently cannot deliver to Alaska and Hawaii. Based on your address and day preference, their meal kits are delivered Monday through Saturday.
Customer Support
Both meal kit services offer a thorough FAQ section on their websites, which helps to answer many common questions customers may have about Green Chef or Sun Basket.
If you still have questions about Sun Basket, they offer a 24/7 digital assistant chatbot on their website, or you can connect with an agent Monday – Friday via text or phone. They also have an email form where you can submit your question and get a reply within 24 hours.
Green Chef offers phone support Monday-Friday and during select hours on Saturday and Sunday. You can also use their website’s built-in chat feature to speak with a customer service representative Monday-Sunday between 9 am-7 pm.
Benefits Of Using Meal Kit Services Like Green Chef & Sun Basket
When we think of meal kit services, many consider the convenience of having food arrive right at our doorsteps! Certainly, using a service like Green Chef or Sun Basket will reduce the time spent on meal planning and grocery shopping.
Meal kit delivery can also have other benefits, including helping you stick to a healthy diet by making it easier to choose and prepare nutritious meals each week. The variety of recipes can add new meals and delicious foods to your routine and keep things interesting.
Meal kits also reduce food waste by ensuring you only receive the ingredients you’ll use, which also helps with portion control as part of a healthy diet.
Bottom Line – Our Winner is Green Chef
Both Green Chef and Sun Basket offer impressive organic and health-focused meal kit services! The services provide the best organic ingredients and chef-designed meals that give you the ultimate healthy experience at home.
From our experience over the years, Green Chef is our winner!
We made our decision based on the high-quality ingredients and easy-to-follow recipes in every Green Chef delivery box. We also loved the organized meal plans for various special diets (gluten-free, Paleo, Keto, Vegan, and more), which make it easy to get meals to support your diet in every box.
Lastly, but maybe most importantly, the flavors of the Green Chef meals have never disappointed us over the years.
If you are ready to try Green Chef, use our coupons to get free meals for weeks!
Why Trust Us? Our Methodology & Review Process
Our mission at The Meal Kit Review is to aid you in making informed decisions about various meal kit companies without having to buy and try each kit yourself. We’ve surveyed each meal kit service on the marketplace to find the best ones for singles, couples, families, and specific lifestyles.
We ensure an honest review by purchasing and testing meal kits from popular meal kit companies and providing information on flavor, sustainability, pricing, and more. To keep our reviews and comparisons current, we continuously sample new offerings to stay up-to-date on what each company provides.
Read more about our review process and why you should trust us here.
