If my Ina Garten prayer candle could talk, it would tell you that we are living in a new era of chef idolatry and kitchen-culture curiosity, stoked by countless cooking shows, private-chef TikTok, and the runaway success of The Bear.. That’s why I was surprised to only recently learn about CookUnity, a meal subscription service that has been around for about a decade, the dishes of which are developed by actual chefs — think, Esther Choi (Chopped, Iron Chef), John DeLucie (The Waverly Inn, Empire Diner), and dozens more industry talents. Each chef even has a bio page so you can read about their career.
Unlike other meal subscription services, CookUnity’s meals aren’t made in some opaque partnership with chefs. In the words of its site, every pink sauce penne dish and al pastor pork fajita bowl is “handmade by real, independent chefs who design their own menus and execute their own dishes. No factory teams.” That also means everything is made in small batch quantities from the chefs and their own hand-selected teams.
As a meal subscription kit dabbler, I tried out CookUnity’s plan for a week to see if it could really live up to providing a restaurant-like experience at home.
What is CookUnity — and how does it work?
Simply put: CookUnity delivers already-made, chef-developed (and prepared meals) to your door. You can choose between a plan of four, six, eight, 12, or 16 meals a week, and the types of meals offered can be sorted through a gamut of filters (protein goals, low sodium options, vegan meals, and several other dietary specifications). If you space out and forget to select your weekly meals, CookUnity will also propose a selection for you that is delivered during a window of time that works best for you.
The menus also change depending on where you live. If you’re on the East Coast, for example, you can order up fettuccine with porcini mushroom sauce; if you’re a West Coaster, you can dine on this roasted chicken salad with greens, farro, and beets. Overall there’s a robust, global-cuisine-minded smorgasbord of options. As for my batch of meals, I selected: John DeLucie’s penne with spicy pink sauce, Anthony Nichols’ cheesy beef picadillo, Chris Ratel’s lemon grilled chicken grain bowl, and the chana masala by Lena Elkousy.
The cost of CookUnity depends on what you’re looking for, but my four-meal plan was under $70, and came down to about $14 a serving — an amount that decreases as your meal plan becomes more substantial; a six-meal plan comes down to about $12 a serving, and a 16-meal plan comes out to roughly $11 a serving. You can also cancel or pause your subscription without penalty, as long as it’s before the following delivery cut off time.
It feels important to note that CookUnity uses local ingredients for its meals, and when you consider the costs of cooking labor and time, those subscription prices don’t feel out-of-pocket — although it’s certainly more expensive for me to eat a penne pink sauce pasta from CookUnity than it would be if I made it myself. Then again, a major part of what you’re paying for with meal delivery services is convenience. I can absolutely smooth-brain my day, and think a panicked, Oh, man, what am I going to eat for dinner? With meal delivery, there’s the immediate relief of having dinner ready in the fridge.
As far as convenience meals go, I would give CookUnity a B+ overall, with the beef picadillo coming in first place thanks to its more bold and complex flavors, and the chana masala coming in last, as the portion size wasn’t very hearty and the meal wasn’t as flavorful as I hoped. The pink penne was solid, and very generous on the sauce, which I appreciated, and the grilled chicken grain bowl surprised me by being perhaps the most filling and flavorful of the dishes; the lemon and herbs really popped, and the farro wasn’t at all lumpy as I feared it would be.
Again, this is partially thanks to the fact that the meals aren’t frozen, but prepared days before delivery and clearly marked with an “eat by” date; not that there’s anything wrong with frozen meals, but I appreciate that I could just whip many of these meals out of the fridge for immediate consumption, or else put them in the oven for about 10 minutes (or under five minutes in the microwave).
I’m also a fan of the compostable packaging, which includes a photo of each meal’s chef on the front. (Chef Chris Ratel, has anyone ever told you that your CookUnity snapshot looks like the ex-husband of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills’ Kyle Richards?).
So, is CookUnity worth it?
CookUnity is a step above most other meal-delivery services, but it becomes even better if you’re able to integrate additional ingredients from your pantry to enhance the seasoning for some dishes. If you already love to cook, this makes it like a time-saving version of a home Chopped episode; I added some more fresh lime, cilantro, and a side of avocado to my picadillo, for example, and ate some leftover roasted chicken thighs with the site’s chana masala, which helped elevate the less-exciting meals from more of a side to a main.
As a whole, I was impressed by the freshness, variety of cuisine options, and solid portion size, the latter of which is one of my biggest gripes with a lot of pre-made meals (find me in the streets, Amy’s enchiladas). I could totally see myself ordering another round of CookUnity during a particularly stressful and busy week. The peace of mind that comes with having a bunch of varied, ready-to-eat meals on hand is the gastronomical equivalent of finding a Super Mario Bros. Super Star in my fridge, and for that, I’m grateful.
Learn more about CookUnity here.
