CookUnity Ready Meal Supply Assessment (2025): Chef-Centric Meals

It should not be stunning if a plate of rooster lababdar tastes scrumptious. The dish is amongst my favourite North Indian gravies, a barely edgier cousin of butter rooster that is a bit spicier and tangier however simply as creamy.

What was stunning was that this explicit rooster had arrived within the mail. Particularly, it got here in a microwaveable tray from CookUnity meal supply service that regarded a bit like a white-label TV dinner—packed up earlier that morning in Seattle, then pushed all the way down to me in Portland, Oregon.

The world of ready meal supply is erupting in recognition as of late, and just about each main meal equipment service is getting in on the sport. I’ve nonetheless discovered to mood my expectations when testing ready-to-eat meals. It isn’t straightforward to make pre-assembled meals style good, even when they have been good once they began. The issue is moisture. And the issue is the microwave. In lots of circumstances, the outcomes have been OK to subpar.

{Photograph}: Matthew Korfhage

However thus far, CookUnity seems to be a giant exception. CookUnity is a considerably new mannequin of ready meal supply service, one thing like a cross between a meal service and Doordash. Relatively than make recipes in a top-down company kitchen, CookUnity is regional. The service enlists native and nationwide cooks, and guarantees to carry restaurant-quality meals to the house—ready based on recipes from sometimes fairly huge names. (Whats up, Jose Garces.)

My rooster lababdar specifically was a stunning success. The saffron-tinged basmati rice maintained its moisture. My bits of thigh have been plump and nonetheless juicy. The sauce was calmly tangy, a bit fiery, with most of its sweetness coming from the pure sugars of tomato and puree. Fairly frankly, it tasted so much higher than the rooster dishes I may get from the (admittedly not nice) Punjabi restaurant down the road from my home. And but prep was only a matter of popping my tray within the toaster oven for 12 minutes, or within the microwave for 3.

Not each dish from CookUnity was nearly as good because the lababdar from Seattle chef Gaurav Raj. Extra on that later. However in its ambition, its pool of culinary expertise, and its range of dishes—Haitian! Indonesian! Filipino!—CookUnity is the most effective ready-to-eat meal supply service I’ve but examined or tasted.

Here is the rundown, and the vital caveats.

How CookUnity Works

Courtesy of CookUnity

So first, the dangerous information: CookUnity is not accessible in all places. The meal service is run out of eight regional commissary hubs round america and Canada: Seattle, LA, Austin, Chicago, New York, Atlanta, Miami, and Toronto. This leaves out West Virginia, and a superb swath of the Plains states.