Blue Apron was the first brand to bring food to American homes. With pre-split ingredients, close-knit recipes, and a wide variety to choose from on a weekly basis, Blue Apron has continued to be a great player in meal equipment, despite inspiring dozens of similar competitors.
Nowadays, Blue Apron is a science kit for cooking meals. They have also started offering hot meals for days when you need to have a quick dinner and skip cleaning. You can also add Blue Apron wine combinations, pantry items and kitchen utensils to your meal kit delivery.
Essential information
Pre-prepared and prepared meals by you
Welfare plan meals
Step-by-step photo recipe cards
It can customize proteins
Vegetarian options
You select the delivery date
It is delivered throughout the continental United States
Easy to skip and cancel
Diverse menu
30-minute meal options
Of course, we are talking about food. So we put Blue Apron meal week to the test. We received three meals and rated the experience of picking up the box, how easy it is to make recipes and, most importantly, how they taste.
If you’re looking for a new meal service option, here’s what you need to know about Blue Apron.
Blue Apron Review: Fees and Delivery
Blue Apron publishes menus for three different plans four weeks in advance, so you can build your boxes in advance and let them fit in weekly. You can select your delivery date each week and easily skip a box if you are out of town.
You can choose between two, three or four meals a week. Each meal serves two or four people. The largest subscription, for four meals serving four, costs $ 7.99 per server plus $ 9.99 shipping for a total of $ 137.83. The smaller two meal options cost $ 11.99 per server plus shipping for a total of $ 57.95.
Blue Apron Review: Using the Meal Service
Your box arrives packed with ice packs to keep protein and produce cold. The dried and chilled ingredients for each meal are packaged in individual plastic bags. Products and proteins are packaged individually. Generally, there is a lot of plastic in each box, up to small plastic containers of miso paste and mayonnaise. According to the company’s website, more than 85% of packaging is recyclable, even though plastic bags and films are not recyclable at home.
Each meal comes with a specific recipe card. On the front is a beautiful photo of the last meal. On the back, there are step-by-step instructions with the corresponding photos in the bullet lists.
Recipe cards do not contain nutrition information, so you will need to find your meal on the Blue Apron website. They calculate how long each meal should last and we found it to be fairly accurate (although most of the range is 10 minutes wide).
Blue Apron Review: Flavor and Nutrition
We received three meals in our box with two servings. The first was a vegetarian roasted cauliflower and lemon paste recipe. The recipe card lasted between 25 and 35 minutes. It took less than half an hour to prepare (as long as your oven heats up quickly). And the finished product was a success. The pasta was tasty and bright, with a creamy lemon sauce and butter. It was overflowing with crushed garlic, which added a tremendous amount of scroll (we wanted more). And it was certainly filling, but the dish was heavy pasta and we’d rather have a bigger cauliflower; what we received was quite small.
In terms of nutrition, one portion contained 88 g of carbohydrates, 19 g of protein and 19 g of fat (including 10 g of saturated fat).
Next, we tried the miso butter and cod pancake shellfish recipe with Ponzu Mayo, asparagus and potatoes. This took about 35 minutes, approximately 30 to 40 minutes. Fish was the protagonist of this dish. It was covered with a sweet, salty crust of panko made with brown sugar and miso. The crispy potatoes also had a nice touch of starch to round out the meal. And the asparagus was fine, just roasted, no special flavor, but nice to add a little green to the dish. It was a filling meal that came together almost entirely in the oven (although you needed two sheets in the oven). It was also well-balanced in terms of nutrition, with 55 g of carbohydrates, 32 g of protein and 28 g of fat per serving.
Finally, we tried miso mushrooms and brown rice with spicy mayonnaise and fried eggs. This is a meal approved by Weight Watchers. The recipe card knows how much the meal is worth. In terms of nutrition, one portion contained a total of 65 g of carbohydrates, 20 g of protein and 30 g of fat.
As the rice dishes had several toppings, this meal involved a bit more in the preparation. We had to prepare the rice, then sauté the mushrooms separately from the greens, and finally fry the eggs. When the containers came together, however, they were satisfying and tasty. Most of the flavor came from gochujang mayonnaise sauce, which added a nice warmth.
Blue Apron Review: Customer Reviews
Blue Apron customers appreciate that the service makes mealtimes easier, especially on busy nights.
As a satisfied customer says, “I’m a real estate agent and I work 24/7 every day of the week. Blue Apron helps here and there between home meals. The quality of the food varies, but overall I’m very impressed. ”
Negative opinions refer to the lack of opportunities for vegans. One customer wrote: “A lot of food is rich for me. It would be great to have a few opportunities. The feet taste good but the milk is too much ”. Another criticizes the fact that vegetarian options are low in protein instead of pizzas, pasta and sandwiches. “I suggest pumpkins and peppers, more quinoa, beans, fries and savory pancakes,” they say.
Need to use Blue Apron?
If you’re looking for a meal kit that makes dinner easier but still makes your cooking skills more flexible and even stronger, Blue Apron is a great choice. The colorful recipe cards walk you through the intricate preparation in a close-up way, and you’ll impress yourself and your dinner guests with the result. The food kit may not be the best choice if you are plant-based or tend to avoid dairy, however.
If this product is not for you
Marley Spoon is another meal kit that makes dinner even easier on the table, with clear six-step recipes and plenty of options that come together in 20 minutes. The recipes are fairly simple to master for novice chefs but taste gourmet.
Or, if you’re on a plant-based diet or want more vegetarian options, you can’t beat the quality of Purple Carrot.