This past week we tried another meal service, Blue Apron. If you aren’t familiar with these types of subscriptions, they provide a meal for you and all you need to do it cook it. Easy peasy! We decided for fun we’d take advantage of all of the new member trials for a few of these companies to see what we’d like best and potentially continue with.
Here is how our week went. Blue Apron delivers on Thursdays, everything comes in a big box and you toss it in your fridge. Everything labeled and you just have to grab what you need. When we get our box, we plan to eat on it Friday – Sunday since you want it as fresh as possible. This order was heavy on the green onions and corn. Corn was in every dish, so we were kind of corned out by the end of the 3 days. Here is how it turned out.
1) Chili Dusted Chicken with Zucchini Rice and a Tomato & Corn Sauté. – I liked the concept of this. We didn’t so much love the zucchini in the rice, it seemed to just be mushy. As non tomato lovers, we really enjoyed the sauté. I wish there was a little bit more Mexican Crèma which hubs insisted was just sour cream. Boy did he get an explanation from me! Overall, we liked this dish. It would be easy to recreate at home. The one thing we didn’t love was the cilantro – it came soggy again. I’m not sure if it has to do with the shipping and staying super cold as we had the same problem with our Hello Fresh cilantro too. I contacted Blue Apron via twitter like I did previously with Hello Fresh and they did not respond. Not really happy with that level of customer service compared to HF. When I canceled I shared the same concerns and was not contacted either.
2) Mushroom Gnocchi in Brown Butter Sauce – I liked this dish. I’ve never had gnocchi as a meal before, so that was different. We opted to have it for lunch. Before our shipment arrived we were notified the mushrooms it was supposed to come with were not available and that other mushrooms would be added in place. Sure, no problem. This was fairly easy to assemble. It may have been a “Jen Error” as I didn’t read the recipe before I started, but step 6 told me to boil water, so I had to wait longer for the gnocchi to cook, I thought you’d just toss it in the pan! Oops. Still good. Hubs didn’t think it would have been filling at a meal though – he ended up snacking all afternoon.
3) Pork with Fresh Ramen with Eggplant and Micro Greens – This was the meal that sold me on signing up for Blue Apron. I had never had fresh ramen before, so it was something that sounded yummy and different. Let’s say this one was a disaster. First off, all of the ingredients like the sauces, demi-glaze and other smaller items only included half of the ingredients that were on the recipe. I needed 2 tablespoons and was only provided 1. The pork was easy to prepare. The eggplant they provided was a so big we didn’t even use it all – just no room to put it! The ramen ended up really mushy and weird tasting so I was turned off by it and didn’t eat it. The broth didn’t have the flavors I was looking for (probably because it was missing half the amounts!) Overall, nice idea, poor execution.
So overall if I had to compare this to Hello Fresh I liked that HF packaged their meals in a box. Everything on one contained place. I felt like I had everything all over my fridge with Blue Apron. The meals seemed a little more complicated and a lot more chopping. I don’t mind that, but for the outcome, I wasn’t overly impressed. If someone told me I had to pick between Blue Apron and Hello Fresh, I’d likely go back to Hello Fresh.
Have you tried Blue Apron or any other types of services like this? What did you think?
We tried Blue Apron, too, and didn't cook two of the meals. I didn't know you could choose, but even now that I know, I have skipped every week that I can because I can't find three meals that I want to try! I just signed up for Plated….it's $12 per plate, but you get to choose just two meals, if you want, so I have two weeks worth coming! I can't wait to try it. I haven't tried Hello Fresh, but it looks too healthy for us! Haha!!! My husband's a chef (which is why I have to use these services because I cannot cook anything on my own), so I eat healthy all day then indulge in whatever he cooks that involves cheese and butter. 🙂
I'm so glad you are reviewing these! I'm always intrigued by these meal delivery companies but I just don't know if I could justify the cost to BTR!