Vegan Ready-Meal Review: I Tasted Sunday Supper Every Day For A Week And I’m Sold

Our resident vegan food reviewer tastes frozen vegan ready-meal brand Sunday Supper and shares her honest feedback.

I felt I was letting down my Italian heritage when I went from vegetarian to vegan. As a vegetarian, I could still eat all of my mom’s amazing home-cooked Italian dishes like lasagna, cannelloni, and ravioli. As a vegan, not so much. My mom was a trooper and, though she never changed her own eating habits, she learned how to make the world’s best vegan meatballs. When I bit into the TiNDLE Meat Balls made by Los Angeles award-winning Chef Celestino Drago at Sunday Supper’s five-course “Una Festa Italiana” Plant-Based Pride Celebration earlier this month, I got the same melt-in-your-mouth texture and nostalgia hit really hard.

It was a perfect way to kick off the evening hosted by Sunday Supper in partnership with TiNDLE, Vertage and Gaingels at Los Angeles Drago Centro to showcase two new additions to their range.

The first course (and my favorite) was the Vertage Mozzarella In Carrozza and it reminded me of a Brazilian pastel de queijo. Next came an heirloom tomato salad with arugula, veggies, hearts of palm and Vertage Mozzarella. For the third course, we were served Sunday Supper Ravioli With Ricotta, Saffron, Thyme, Butter & Zucchini, a chef recreation of the brand’s raviolis without tomato sauce, followed by Sunday Supper’s Manicotti Al Forno. The manicotti was a highlight – particularly the creamy and nutty ricotta. The fourth course was TiNDLE Petto Di Pollo Con Crosta Al Tartufo, which consisted of the plant-based chicken patty served with a decadent truffle cream sauce. At this point, I could have used a doggie bag, but I managed to save a bit of room for the last course, a no-bake Sicilian Cheese Cake made with tangy Vertage Cream Cheese.

It’s no secret I’m a huge fan of both TiNDLE and Vertage. The latter’s mozzarella is featured in Chef Tal Ronen’s pizzas at his LA Crossroads restaurant and it’s actually one of the cheeses used in Sunday Supper’s ready meal lasagnas. What these three plant-based brands have in common, aside from being mouth-wateringly delicious in their own right, is that they were all chef-inspired, created by chefs, for chefs.

Sunday Supper FTW

I can’t believe this was my first time trying Sunday Supper. As a longtime vegan with Italian heritage, this vegan Italian ready-to-eat brand has got my name written all over it. I can’t think of another brand of 100% plant-based handcrafted frozen Italian meals that are family-style and made with fresh herbs, farm-grown veggies, and authentic San Marzano tomatoes. Long story short – any Italian nonna would approve.

The startup was co-founded in 2021 by Richard Klein and Florian Radke. A veteran in the plant-based space, Radke also co-founded vegan pet food brand Wild Earth and vegan cinnamon bun chain Cinnaholic. Sunday Supper outshines the competition when it comes to gourmet frozen foods and it already has the support of industry heavy-hitters like Daniella Monet and Wild Earth’s Ryan Bethencourt. The brand is backed by Gaingels, one of the largest and most active LGBTQIA+ private investment syndicates supporting diversity and inclusion within the venture capital ecosystem. 

The company launched with two flagship frozen lasagnas – the Italian Sausage and the Three Cheeses- and has expanded its range to include a Mushroom Ravioli, a Cheese Ravioli, and a Baked Manicotti.

The last two were showcased at the tasting event I attended. Sunday Supper collaborated with Chef Celestino Drago, dubbed “one of the best-known Italian restaurateurs in Southern California” by both Bon Appétit and the LA Times, to veganize much-loved Italian dishes without sacrificing one iota of flavor. The evening was a delicious feast and everyone who attended seemed to rave about the food.

The question still remained: how would Sunday Supper’s food hold up without a fancy chef to prepare it? A 5-course menu prepared by a celebrated Italian chef at his own restaurant is one thing, but the real question is: how do the dishes taste when the average person prepares them at home?

Luckily for you, I did the hard work of reviewing Sunday Supper’s entire frozen meal range and here’s what I thought.

Sunday Supper’s Italian Sausage Lasagna

Preparation: if you’ve ever made lasagna, you know it takes hours of preparation. You have to make the sauces, cook the pasta, put it all together, and then finally bake. Sunday Supper does all the heavy lifting for you. All you have to do is open the box, pop the lasagna in the oven, and 90 minutes later, voila! No need to defrost it because it cooks straight from frozen. Keep in mind, it does take 90-95 minutes to fully cook so make sure you get it going about an hour and a half before you want to serve it.

Taste: 10 – I broiled it for the last 10 minutes of cooking, per the instructions on the box, and the top layer of mozzarella was bubbly and completely melted. All the cheese in between the layers of pasta oozed out when I cut into it. I would have liked a little more Italian sausage and a little less marinara sauce, but it was still delicious and my entire kitchen smelled of lasagna yumminess. Think lasagna from plants for anyone who loves lasagna (yes, I’m shamelessly plagiarizing the Impossible Foods slogan). If you feed it to non-vegans, I guarantee they’ll never know it’s not the real deal.

Ease of Preparation: 10

Overall: 10 out of 10

Retail Price: $26.99 

Sunday Supper’s Three Cheeses Lasagna

Preparation: It also cooks from frozen and it takes the same amount of time to fully cook as the one above, but it’s worth every minute!

Taste: 10 – the blend of parmesan, mozzarella, and ricotta makes this lasagna way cheesier and richer than, but just as tasty as the Italian Sausage version. It’s more versatile because it has no “meat” and can be served as a companion dish to other plant-based entrees like meatballs, sausages, or even seafood.

Ease of Preparation: 10

Overall: 10 out of 10

Retail Price: $26.99 

Sunday Supper’s Cheese Ravioli 

Preparation: The ravioli cooks from frozen exactly as you would cook any regular ravioli. You add it to boiling water and cook it for about 5 minutes. The sauce comes separately and needs to be defrosted before being heated on a stovetop. Technically, it’s not ready-to-eat, nor it is ‘heat and serve’, but I didn’t mind the prep and it’s probably why it tastes so good.

Taste: 10 – this is by far the best vegan ravioli I have prepared at home; it knocked Kite Hill’s down to number two on my list. 

Ease of Preparation: 8

Overall: 9 out of 10

Retail Price: $18.99 

Sunday Supper’s Mushroom Ravioli 

Preparation: same as the Cheese Ravioli

Taste: 9 – you definitely get a rich umami-packed flavor from the mix of shitake, nameko, oyster, porcini and portobello mushrooms. I’m not a big fan of mushroom dishes so I enjoyed this one a little less but fungi lovers will rejoice.

Ease of Preparation: 8

Overall: 8.5 out of 10

Retail Price: $18.99 

Sunday Supper’s Baked Manicotti 

Preparation: Have you ever tried to stuff pasta tubes? Exactly. It’s hard work. Thanks to Sunday, all you do to prepare their Manicotti is open the box, pop it in the oven, and 55 minutes later, it’s ready to serve. 

Taste: 9 – I grew up eating Cannelloni; Manicotti is the Italian-American version of it. Both involve cooked pasta tubes that are stuffed and covered in sauce in pretty much the same way. There’s nothing else in the market like Sunday Supper’s Manicotti. In fact, I don’t know of any restaurants that serve a vegan Manicotti or Cannelloni – not even Pura Vita, my favorite LA vegan Italian spot. Sorry Chef Drago, but I liked the Baked Manicotti I made at home better. The sauce was creamy but light, and it really allowed the taste of the spinach ricotta stuffing to shine. It does have a black pepper kick to it, which makes it not as kid-friendly as the other meals, and it’s the only reason I’m not giving it a 10.

Ease of Preparation: 10

Overall: 9.5 out of 10

Retail Price: $24.99 

Overall, the suggested 4 servings for each meal seemed off. Depending on how much you eat and whether or not you’re serving it with other dishes, a Sunday Supper meal will likely feed 2 to 3 people, rather than 4. There are also 5 Manicottis in the Baked Manicotti, so you may have to resort to rock paper scissors to decide who gets the last one!

Bonus Points: I really like the innovative cool packaging and my entire kitchen smelled of yummy Italian food when I made one of the Sunday Supper meals. I think the lasagnas and ravioli will be a hit with most little ones, making them a meal the entire family can enjoy.

Sunday Supper is definitely going to be a staple in my freezer from now on. According to co-founder Florian Radke, the frozen food market is having a moment, as consumers choose the products as a healthier and more nutritious alternative to highly processed foods. Radke cites industry data suggesting the sector is worth $55 billion in the US alone, and of that, frozen Italian food accounts for $22 billion. “Sunday Supper is here and ready to disrupt this major category,” he says. I think he’s onto something. Here’s hoping they add a Baked Ziti or a Tortellini into their lineup. 

Sunday Supper is available at Fresh Markets, Erewhon Markets, and Plum Markets. In addition, online retailer GTFO It’s Vegan stocks the Italian Sausage Lasagna. The company says it is on track to expand to 2,500 additional retail outlets by the end of 2024.