I've tried 3 meal delivery services now, and Blue Apron is my favorite! My Blue Apron Review will answer if Blue Apron is worth the cost to you.
At this point, there's probably over 27 different meal delivery services that you can sign up for…so how are you supposed to choose from them all? After trying three, myself, I have to say that Blue Apron sits at the top of my list.
Why is that? I'll get into it throughout my Blue Apron review, but it boils down to this:
A Blue Apron delivery of meals to my doorstep makes me smile. You can skip weeks and not be charged whenever you'd like. It takes the pressure off of me to figure out the meals I'm going to feed my family, and the cooking techniques I've learned has enhanced all of the other meals I cook as well. The food is high quality, and most importantly, delicious.
Annnnndddd, I'm not the only one who thinks so!
Consumer Reports used secret shoppers to evaluate Blue Apron, and gave it a “Very Good” rating! You can read more about it here, then come back to use this blue apron coupon code for $60 Off Your First 3 Boxes with Blue Apron *20 Off each of your first 3 deliveries, cannot be combined with any other offer, valid for first time meal plan customers only*
Blue Apron Delivers Easeful Dinners – a Life Saver for Us
This is not one of the typical Blue Apron Reviews. That's because my family and I went through Hurricane Harvey here in Houston, and our meal delivery service with Blue Apron started in the aftermath.
Blue Apron was deeply helpful as we sorted through insurance claims, roof fixes, losing both our vehicles, and getting quotes from general contractors.
Aside from the fact that it helped us in a pinch, it's a meal delivery service I've loved over the last two years (moreso than two other meal delivery companies we've tried).
What Kind of Meals Does Blue Apron Have?
In general, you can expect some top-notch meals with your Blue Apron delivery. While the meals change constantly, we were pleasantly surprised with a variety of things, such as steak, chicken, pork, chorizo, etc.
Our Specific Blue Apron Recipes have included:
- Roasted Pork & Salsa Verde with Summer Squash Panzanella Salad
- A Dash of Sanity
- Seared Steaks and Roasted Potatoes (a MasterChef recipe) with Balsamic-Glazed Mushrooms
- Ancho Chile Chicken Tacos with Blistered Shishito Peppers & Cabbage Slaw
- Pre-Measured Yumminess
- Spicy Chicken Sandwiches with Napa Cabbage Slaw & Roasted Potato Wedges
- Viennese Beef Sausages with Cheesy Mashed Potatoes
- Honey-Ginger Pork Chops with Spicy Marinated Vegetables & Crispy Shallots
- Tahini Chicken with Crispy Smashed Potatos & Snap Pea-Tomato Salad
- Lemon-Dijon Chicken with Mashed Potatoes & Roasted Carrots
- Oven-Baked Meatball Pits with Tzatziki & Marinated Kale
- Chicken & Curry Mustard with Carrots & Currant Rice
The recipes come out looking like this (yes — even when I made them!):
YUM.
And since you get to keep the cardstock recipe pages with visual instructions and the amounts of each ingredient you'll need? Well, you can cook your favorites again and again.
We've cooked several of the recipes about five times each, so far. In fact, the Chicken & Curry Mustard dish, the Viennese Beef Sausages dish, and the Roasted Pork & Salsa Verde have become family favorites. Not to mention, the marinated kale, the roasted carrots, and various other side dishes we absolutely fell in love with and continue to use as side dishes with our own recipes.
You'll also be happy to know that all nutritional information for the meals is included with each recipe, so you can find out the protein/carbs/calorie count and much more.
Click HERE for —–> Get $60 off over your first 3 boxes *20 Off each of your first 3 deliveries, cannot be combined with any other offer, valid for first time meal plan customers only*
What I Loved About Our Blue Apron Experience
I’ll start with all the things I LOVED about our Blue Apron experience (Get $60 off over your first 3 boxes *20 Off each of your first 3 deliveries, cannot be combined with any other offer, valid for first time meal plan customers only*). Such as:
- I Could Strategically Use the Small Amount of Leftovers: Bonus points for having enough side-dish leftovers from two of the meals to use as side dishes for a meal I came up with myself during the week. As in, I just had to cook the meat portion, and BOOM, already had the super-yummy side dishes waiting in the fridge to plop onto our plates. Not only that, but there was enough Kale leftover each week that I was able to roast up some kale chips the next day for a one-person snack. Score!
- I Added to My Cooking Skills: I’ve been cooking food from scratch for over a decade. My husband is an awesome from-scratch cook as well. Yet, I felt very grown up making these recipes. For the first time ever, I seared meat because I was instructed to. I tasted grapes that seem to have come straight out of California’s wine valley. I used capers in a recipe. And I even created mise en place, just like on the chef shows. Let me tell you, my cooking skills have already improved just from following these directions.
- I Can Reuse these Recipes: We get to keep the recipes, and since both my husband and I love to cook from scratch, these will add nicely to our recipe box. (See above for all the recipes that have become family favorites in our household! We've cooked them over, and over again).
- Excellent Customer Service: Our box was delivered late on the second week of using this service. It was supposed to arrive by 8:00 p.m. on Tuesday evening, and we received an email at 7:27 p.m. that it would be arriving late. It arrived the next day around noon. While everything was still on ice, it had partially melted and so I was concerned. The reason why this goes in my “pros” of the service? Blue Apron’s customer rep handled this beautifully by apologizing as well as offering me a week’s worth of credit to my account to make up for it. I really appreciated that.
What Could Be Improved About the Service
This is a review, so I don’t just want to give the good, right? Here’s what I think could be improved about the service:
- The Ingredients Bag Took Up Lots of Fridge Space: The ingredients + info for all three meals each week are delivered at the same time in a large bag. It took up about ¾ of one of my fridge shelves to store (it’s possible it could've taken up less space by unpacking all the ingredients, but I didn’t bother with that). Since we only grocery shop every other week, we need all the fridge space we can get. Then again, I knew I’d have 3 meals/week taken care of, so I purchased less than I normally would at the store.
- Some of the Recipes Took a Decent Amount of Time to Cook: This meal service is one where you are truly doing the cooking (though with all the ingredients portioned out for you + the recipes chosen in advance). And some of the recipes took 45-50 minutes versus others that were just 25-35 minutes. However, I noticed that they DO have 30-minute meals you can choose to substitute into your deliveries.
- Produces More Trash: Everything is individually packaged for freshness and pre-measured amounts, so there is definitely a good bit of trash at the end. HOWEVER, they offer a way for you to recycle the bag that everything comes in.
Is Blue Apron Worth the Cost?
I get this question a lot, and since this is a money site, it's an awesome one to ask!
Blue Apron IS worth the cost, if it works for your family. What do I mean by this?
If you do any of the following, then this service can be worth the cost:
- You adjust your grocery shopping and purchase less ingredients at the grocery store because you'll need less (since you'll be getting deliveries).
- You replace some eating-out occasions with your Blue Apron night instead.
- You skip unnecessary weeks. You can actually skip any week you want (up to 5 weeks ahead), so if you're going on vacation, or if you're like us and you just want to have one week a month of Blue Apron deliveries, you can just skip the other weeks.
- You pick up some cooking experience + techniques. I can't believe how much my cooking has changed and how much more I feel like a chef (even if just a family chef) all because of the recipe cards/photos/instructions. These are techniques you can use on your other meals, as well!
Not only that, but, while you can't expect leftovers, I actually had several bits of leftovers that we could use in other meals. For example, each time they sent kale, we always had enough leftover that I could make homemade kale chips the next day. Or, if a recipe called for garlic, I'd usually have most of the bulb leftover to use in other recipes.
These don't amount to enough for a lunch or anything like that, but it's something to consider.
Can You Do Blue Apron Once a Week?
You can't actually do Blue Apron just once a week. The closest you can get to one meal a week is to choose to have 2 meals delivered per week.
HOWEVER, one of their great features is the ability to skip weeks. So, you can sign up for a membership, then only have them deliver to you (and only pay for) the weeks that you want.
I actually routinely skips week. Because I don't like to have food delivered every single week of the month — I just like having food delivered maybe one week a month. It's a better balance for us.
Is it Easy to Cancel Blue Apron?
Yes! It's very easy to do this.
Before you cancel, you might want to see if you just need to skip weeks here and there? You can sign into your account, go to your “Upcoming” page. Go to the week you'd like to skip, then click “Manage Delivery'. In the pop-up box, click “skip this delivery”. You can do this for up to the next 5 weeks.
We routinely do this, as we don't want a delivery every week (and of course, you don't pay for weeks that you don't get a delivery!).
If you actually want to cancel your account, that's easy as well. You'll need to email their Customer Experience team at [email protected], and they'll send you instructions.
Which basically boil down to you going to your “Account Settings”, then clicking “Edit”, and then clicking “Manage Status”.
Remember: You'll need to cancel before your next shipment has been processed, otherwise it's too late for them to stop the shipment and you'll be charged for it.
Bonus: Blue Apron Recipes Hack
Alright…are you ready for this?
One of the coolest things I figured out about Blue Apron Recipes are: they're available to everyone. SERIOUSLY.
You don't need an account to get access to the chef-created recipes, which is pretty awesome. However, if you want to be able to download the recipes from past weeks, then you'll need an account.
You just go to Blue Apron's Cookbook, then scroll through the recipes.
Click on the one that interests you, and you'll get the ingredients, amounts, and directions (with images) for actually creating it.
Pretty darn awesome!
With an account, you can actually download a printable PDF for any past (or current) recipe you'd like.
All in all, I was very impressed with Blue Apron. I felt that it elevated not only our dinner experience, but our entire dinner TIME experience (you know, that crazy hour right before dinner is due when you’re scrambling around with a toddler to put a meal on the table?).
What do you think, are you open to giving it a try? Click HERE for —–> Get $60 off over your first 3 boxes *20 Off each of your first 3 deliveries, cannot be combined with any other offer, valid for first time meal plan customers only*
Amanda L Grossman
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