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.
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! In addition to their standard 2-person subscription plan, Blue Apron also offers a Family Plan that features kid-friendly recipes and family-style meals for four. You can now switch between 2 and 4 person meals easily with each delivery!
My Subscription Addiction paid for this box. (Check out the review process post to learn more about how we review boxes.)
About Blue Apron
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 $71.92 ($8.99 per serving + FREE shipping) for the 2 meals per week, $95.88 ($7.99 per serving + FREE shipping) for 3 meals per week, or $119.84 ($7.49 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. only
Blue Apron September 2018 Review
They recently redesigned their box to have a more traditional four flaps instead of a lid with two smaller flaps like before. The recipes are right on top and the first things you see as you open it up.
Blue Apron ingredients come packaged in a big silver cooler 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.
Now that it's still warmer outside, they've reconfigured how they pack their boxes. That's something I can appreciate!
A lot of the ingredients from Blue Apron come in bags, labeled, but you have to check out the recipe cards to know which meal they go to. Smaller items like butter or sauces come in a *recently updated plastic* "knick knack" bag so they don't get lost in the shuffle, and those are labeled with the meals name as well. I'm actually pretty stoked that they switched to plastic from brown paper because there was often leakage that got all over everything. The plastic bags are the same as the larger ingredients come in and recyclable as well.
If you get recipes with meat, you'll always find it at the very bottom of the box, up against more ice packs to keep them extra chilly.
Are you ready to see the recipes? Let's dig in!
Piccata-Style Chicken with Roasted Broccoli & Garlic Mashed Potatoes
Calories per Serving (as prepared): 730 calories
Total Time According to Blue Apron: 30 minutes
Actual Time: 40 minutes
The front of the recipe card has a nice plated photo, an overview of all the ingredients, and even suggests a wine pairing. There's also a short description of the dish, the number of servings, and total cook time.
The back of the card has step-by-step instructions with photos so that you get the timing right for every part of the meal.
After prepping the ingredients, I coated the broccoli with olive oil, salt, and pepper and laid them out in a single layer on a baking sheet covered in foil. They went into the oven for 16 minutes, as directed.
I turned my attention to the chicken breasts which I seasoned with salt and pepper and added to a pan with hot oil. They cooked for 6 minutes, then 5 on the other side until everything was nice n brown.
Once fully cooked, I added the capers, vinegar, almonds, half the broth, half of the ghee, and seasoned with salt + pepper.
I had started a pot of boiling water in the very beginning and added the red potatoes I had cubed which were now ready to be strained.
Next, they were mashed up with the rest of the broth and ghee and seasoned with salt + pepper. I love leaving the skins on mashed potatoes!
The broccoli was ready to come out of the oven and looked just crispy enough.
Here, everything comes together in a beautiful marriage on the plate. Plenty of capers + almonds atop the chicken.
The chicken was unbelievably moist and juicy. Full of flavor! The broccoli was cooked to perfection. The mashed potatoes were maybe a touch on the dry side, but I may have botched halving the ghee + broth properly. Quite a delicious and well-rounded meal, indeed.
Bob's Burgers Cheeseburgers with Caramelized Shallot aka “The Absentee Shallot Burger”
Calories per Serving (as prepared): 900 calories
Total Time According to Blue Apron: 40 minutes
Actual Time: 40 minutes
This is sadly the final Bob's Burger recipe!
This one did have a lot going on in the directions so I was rushing around the kitchen the whole time, cooking alone.
First, the diced tomatoes went into a bowl with salt, pepper, olive oil, and half of the vinegar to marinate.
Next, I prepared the sauce for the potatoes. Honey + Mustard = honey mustard!
For this step, I got to break up my seldom used mandolin slicer! It called for half-inch rounds so I decided to get them as exact as possible. They were then tossed with olive oil, salt, and pepper before going onto the baking sheet and into the oven for 19 minutes.
The diced shallot went into a pan of oil to saute for a couple of minutes until softened and browned.
I then added the ground beef to the shallot in a bowl to mix together with salt + pepper. I used my hands to do so, as well as to form two half-inch thick patties.
By this time, the potatoes came out of the oven, only to be covered in cheese and returned for 3 more minutes.
Here's what they looked like when they came back out!
The patties went into the pan with what I now know to be a little too much olive oil. Whoops! A lil greazy. They cooked for about five minutes per side.
As the patties cooked, I quickly whipped up the goat cheese spread by combining the goat cheese, remaining vinegar, a drizzle of olive oil, and a bunch of the garlic I had smashed and minced earlier, plus salt + pepper.
The last step was to simply toast the buns in the same pan used to cook the burgers.
For plating, I had to spread the goat cheese spread on the bottom bun, add the burger, then top with the marinated tomatoes. The potatoes got a drizzle of honey mustard.
Although I went a little too wild with the olive oil to make this meal a bit greasy, it tastes really fantastic. I would never think to combine a lot of these flavors but it worked well. I totally did not even mind the shallots in the patty.
Verdict: I picked two Blue Apron meals this week that satisfied a lot of my cravings. Even though the burger + side ended up being 900 calories, I don't pay a lot of attention to the nutrition guide so I was okay with it. The chicken piccata style meal was classic and hit all the marks for me as well.
To Wrap Up:
Can you still get this box if you sign up today? Recipes change every week, so these are gone for now, but popular ones always come back in the future. Sign up today to choose for a whole new crop of meals.
COUPON – New customers, save $50 off your first two boxes! No code needed, just use this link
Value Breakdown: At $47.95 ($9.99 per serving + $7.99 shipping), you're paying $11.99 per serving.
Check out all of our Blue Apron Reviews and find other meal boxes in the Meal Subscription Box Directory!
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What do you think of the Blue Apron recipes I got this week?
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