Blue Apron is a subscription meal delivery service. Every week, they send seasonal recipes created by their culinary team and the pre-measured ingredients you need to make them at home.
Check out all of our reviews of Meal Delivery Services to see every meal kit subscription box option!
Blue Apron really cares about sustainability, high-quality produce, responsibly raised meats, the success of smaller farmers, and reducing food waste—which is all important to consider when choosing a meal kit subscription to go with.
Blue Apron ingredients come packaged inside a big silver bag that's a lot like bubble wrap. Along with the plastic-wrapped ice packs in the box, the bubble wrap bag keeps the ingredients cool while they travel.
In addition to their standard 2-Person subscription plan, which features three weekly seasonally-inspired meals for two, Blue Apron also offers a Family Plan that features kid-friendly recipes and family-style meals for four.
This is a review of the 2-person, 2-meal subscription plan ($9.99 per serving, or $47.95 per week). I normally cook for myself, but having meal kits delivered to my home has given me a way to lure friends over to help and enjoy the recipes with me. It's so much more fun with a buddy if you can spare one. No buddies? You'll have some leftovers then, so this doubles your value!
My Subscription Addiction pays for this subscription. (Check out the review process post to learn more about how we review boxes.)
The Subscription Box: Blue Apron
The Cost: You can choose from a 2 person plan or a family plan.
For the 2 person plan, it's $47.95 ($9.99 per serving + $7.99 shipping) for 2 meals per week or $59.94 ($9.99 per serving + FREE shipping) for the 3 meals per week.
Family plans start at $69.92 ($8.74 per serving + FREE shipping) for the 2 meals per week, $104.88 ($8.74 per serving + FREE shipping) for 3 meals per week, or $139.84 ($8.74 per serving + FREE shipping) for 4 meals per week.
The Products: Fresh ingredients and recipes to make healthy meals at home.
Ships to: U.S.
Check out all of our Blue Apron Reviews and find other meal boxes in the Meal Subscription Box Directory!
Keep Track of Your Subscriptions: Add this box to your subscription list or wishlist!
Blue Apron is celebrating their fifth birthday, and to celebrate they're bringing back customer favorites for the whole month of October. Happy Birthday, Blue Apron!
As always, Blue Apron ingredients come all together in the box, but each one is labeled so you know which recipe it goes to (or you can look at the recipe itself when dealing with unpackaged produce). Each recipe has a paper bag labeled and filled with smaller items so they don't get lost!
Basil Pesto Spaghettini with Corn & Tomatoes
Calories per Serving (as prepared): 630
Total Time According to Blue Apron: 25-35 minutes
Actual Time: 30 minutes
Looking back, I feel kind of silly choosing a really easy pasta recipe this week since I could have defintely made this on my own without a recipe card. Pasta is something I always keep in hand, and the pesto they included was already made so this recipe wasn't going to wow anyone. It looked good though, so I ordered it anyway!
You'll find easy steps (with checklist boxes) on the other side of your card, accompanied by photos.
Prep work was really easy with this one. I just quartered the cherry tomatoes and grated the parmesan.
I then husked the corn and cut off the kernels from the cob, and chopped the olives and garlic.
While the pasta that I started continued to boil, I added the corn and garlic to a pan.
Then came the cherry tomatoes.
After those softened, I added the cooked spaghettini to the pan as well with the cooking water I had reserved (1/2 cup).
Once I turned off the heat, I added the chopped olives and the pesto sauce. The pesto wasn't super heavy, so it's kind of hard to see it's green-ness. I love pesto, so I could have certainly done with a lot more.
Once thoroughly mixed, I plopped a hefty portionin a bowl and added parmesan cheese to the top!
This was probably one of the simplest dinners I've ever made from a meal kit, which is obvious seeing as though it's just pasta with some fresh veggies tossed in. There was way more than two servings coming from this one, and it was filling, but again, I could have used more pesto.
Here we have the next recipe with more ingredients than the last. I had never had barramundi before this, so I thought I'd give a new fish a try.
Seared Barramundi & Sushi Rice with Avocado Tempura & Roasted Broccoli
Calories per Serving (as prepared): 670
Total Time According to Blue Apron: 30-40 minutes
Actual Time: 45 minutes
This happens to be one of the Master Chef recipes that Blue Apron rolled out with their partnership that was inspired by a challenge-winning dish from the Sept 13th episode.
I've never made tempura before, so I was a little intimidated byt tihs recipe, but luckily my trusty roomie, Tony helped me out!
PREP TIME!!
After the chopping, we added the garlic, white part of scallions, and the rice with water and some salt to cook for about 15 minutes.
What a soothing hot bath.
Next, the broccoli was roasted after tossing with olive oil, salt, and pepper for about 13 minutes in the oven. After they came out, we drizzled half of the sesame oil over them and a bit more salt + pepper to taste. I LOVE sesame oil! It brings such a great flavor to anything.
The next step was slicing the avocado (yummmm) for the tempura!
We stirred the tempura mix with water to make the batter, then coated each slice of avocado. Since the avocado we got was a little small, it was a bit hard to handle but we got it properly coated after some slipping around.
They went into a hot pan of olive oil to fry until brown and crispy.
They then were transferred to a plate and lightly salted.
Next, we salted and peppered both sides of the barramundi and added the fillets to a hot pan with olive oil, skin side down for four minutes.
Then they were flipped to cook for another three minutes.
The last thing to make was the ponzu sauce which had the remaining sesame oil added, lime juice, and we ended up using about 1/3 of the spicy sambal oelek.
Even though I wasn't sure the tempura would be easy, this was overall a pretty painless to make this recipe. The avocado may have been able to stand some more time in the pan, but everything came together nicely and I was impressed with how many different things were included in this meal. The sauce went over the fish and some lime wedges were used as garnish. The rice was sticky and the scallions brought just enough subtle flavor to it.
Verdict: My Blue Apron recipes this time were both pretty good, although I probably won't bother again with a pasta-only dish. It just seems like a waste when it's so easy and cheap to make on my own. I'm glad I got to make tempura for the first time, and it wasn't as hard as I thought it'd be.
To Wrap Up:
Can you still get this box if you sign up today? Since Blue Apron menus change weekly and you must choose them ahead of time, you won't be able to order these dishes unless they are offered again in the future.
Coupon – Get three free meals on your first order! No code needed, just use this link
Value Breakdown: At $47.95 ($9.99 per serving + $7.99 shipping) for this box, you're paying $11.99 per meal.
What did you think of my meals from Blue Apron this week?
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