CookUnity Review

CookUnity offers a bundle of chef-curated meals to bring a restaurant experience to consumers' doors and promises to do so sustainably. Get weekly meals conveniently delivered right to your home based on your subscription plan and selections, and forget the cutting board because your meals arrive ready to heat when you're ready to eat. This experience is brought to you by CEO and co-founder Mateo Marietti, who started CookUnity in 2015 with head chef Lucia Cisilotto. The company has an ongoing partnership with and makes donations to the Food Bank of New York City to address and improve the food insecurity of households across the five boroughs.

CookUnity prides itself on its mission to deliver a high standard of delicious and chef-created diverse meals suited to meet practically every dietary need and culinary desire. Meals offered are thoughtfully created though non-customizable, but the icons at the top of the meal selection page help you cater to your individualized needs to decide if you want low sodium, vegan, keto, paleo, or gluten-free, to name a few options. We set out to determine if this intriguing meal service can deliver on its promise. 

Pricing: Order More Meals for a Cheaper-Per-Meal Experience

There are five meal plan options to choose from, ranging from a minimum of four meals per week to a maximum of 16 meals per week. Like most other meal-kit plans, the lowest plan is more expensive per meal than the plans that offer more meals. The lowest plan offers four meals for $12.69 per meal and the highest plan includes 16 meals for $10.39 per meal. CookUnity offers free delivery and you can save 40% on your first week. The price breakdown per meal plan is as follows:

• 4 meals a week: $12.69 per meal
• 6 meals a week: $11.39 per meal
• 8 meals a week: $10.89 per meal
• 12 meals a week: $10.49 per meal
• 16 meals a week: $10.39 per meal

How It Works: Meals That Cater to Your Lifestyle

CookUnity has developed an easy-to-use system to order quality chef-designed meals based on your desires and preferences. Once you choose among the five subscription meal plans of either four, six, eight, 12, or 16 meals per week, you can set your delivery day offered based on your location. Next, CookUnity surveys your preferences by inquiring about your top wellness goals including filters such as muscle gain, weight loss, overall wellness, lighter meals, and just eating delicious food. 

Protein sources available include meat, poultry, pork, and seafood, and there are also vegetarian and vegan options. The fun begins now that you have an assortment of weekly chef-composed meals to choose from that align with your personal goals and dietary preferences. Additional filters can sort out meals that are fewer than 600 calories, low-carb, gluten-free, dairy-free, low-sodium, and dairy-free. The final steps include setting up an account and checking out.

CookUnity is exclusively ready-to-eat, single-serve meals that only require a few simple heating instructions before consuming. The company is committed to a high-quality standard of food by cultivating fresh and seasonal ingredients that are ideally locally sourced and organic in order to create healthy and delicious meals.

Choosing Meals: Various Choices and Heating Options

CookUnity has provided full transparency with each meal selected by adding labels like high protein, low-carb, and gluten-free, in addition to a list of all ingredients, detailed nutritional information, and heating instructions. Meals can be ready to serve in under 5 minutes or longer if oven directions are provided. 

Simply pick the number of meals that match your meal plan. Deliveries can be altered at any point by rescheduling, adding, or pausing orders. Note that while you cannot alter the meals as they are designed, there are many meals to choose from weekly, and you can filter the meals to your dietary preferences.

What We Made

We put five CookUnity meals to the test to see if the service lives up to its full potential. For our order, we chose:

• Wild mushroom bibimbap
• Roasted salmon over sauteed spinach
• Hanger steak with corn on the cob
• Catfish with collard greens
• Mascarpone and ricotta lasagna

Packaging: Environmentally Friendly With a Reusable Cooling Bag

The packaging is straightforward, since these are pre-cooked meals that arrive in recyclable containers made out of molded fiber pulp. All containers have a sleeve and a plastic film for a total of three packaging materials. The meals are kept cool inside an insulated reusable bag, which we did not see in other meal kits that we tested, and are designed to sustain two full days of shipment through the use of insulation and the ice pack. Overall, the packaging was very minimal and almost all materials were recyclable.

A total of 24 packaging pieces were used in our shipment, and 22 of those pieces were eligible for recycling either curbside or at a special facility. Only two pieces needed to be thrown in the trash and sent to the landfill.

Customer Support: Easy Access and Transparent Information

The meals are in laminated containers with information about the chef behind the recipe, in addition to nutrition facts, cooking instructions, and a QR code to directly link you to the meal information. The website provides similarly detailed information as well when you're selecting your meals.

Customer support options include email, chatbox on the website, or text message. We emailed customer support to inquire about the nutrition team that is available for advice or guidance. The response was the same day and stated that someone would be in touch to address our inquiries. We also reached out via chat box, which offers immediate assistance through email. We asked about any guidelines that are used to make dietary recommendations for meals; they mentioned that they have meal plans such as keto and offered to put us in contact with their nutritionist. Overall, customer support was very helpful and attentive.

Nutrition: Detailed Information

CookUnity allows you to tailor your meals based on dietary preferences. Every meal listed on the website includes a full slate of nutritional information, including the amount of calories, fat, saturated fat, carbohydrates, sugars, protein, fiber, and sodium. The portion size in grams is also listed. Next to that is a full list of ingredients in the dish, along with a pie chart that shows the amount of each macronutrient in the meal.

Allergen information about each meal is also provided, but keep in mind that CookUnity contends that cross-contamination may occur.

The Cooking Process: No Cooking Skills Required

The meals arrive with a card containing chef-recommended or fast heating instructions. We tested both heating options and determined they were accurate and meals were ready to enjoy within the suggested timeframe. 

Simply remove the sleeve from the meal tray to microwave and peel back the corner of the plastic film to vent. To use the oven, take off the plastic film layer and heat at 350 degrees. There is not much fuss here and no level of cooking experience is needed to reheat these meals.

Flavor, Freshness, and Quality: Choose the Lower Calorie Options

The products came freshly prepared with no missing meals or damage upon unboxing. The healthier foods and lower-calorie meals tasted the best out of all the options. This included the wild mushroom bibimbap, roasted salmon, hanger steak, and catfish dishes. However, the flavor on the mascarpone and ricotta lasagna was subpar. It seemed bland, requiring more depth in the flavor beyond the dairy and cheesy taste. The bibimbap flavors, on the other hand, were on point, along with the vegetable and fermented aroma we were familiar with. We were worried about the steak because it was rare in the middle, but after heating it and adding the chimichurri sauce, it was delectable. 

CookUnity is Good For

These meals are for everyone who is looking for a quick meal and delicious meal, and you can make your eating experience even more enjoyable by cooking your meals in the oven. CookUnity offers meals that fit into several diets as well. In addition, CookUnity's efforts to fight hunger may also be a reason for you to order from them.

Methodology

We ordered, cooked, and evaluated meals from 40 different meal delivery services to rate each one’s offerings, nutrition profiles, prices, sustainability, and, of course, flavors. We contacted the customer service teams at each of the companies, collected data, and rigorously reviewed each one.

Our Verywell Fit writers are all registered dietitians who relied on their research and its resulting data to inform their reviews.