An Honest Review of Blue Apron

I had planned on sharing a different post today but am switching things up a bit! I recently tried Blue Apron for the first time, and as part of my subscription, I had three free boxes I could share with friends. I decided to offer them up to my Instagram friends .

I had probably 30 of you DM me within the first 5-10 minutes of posting the IG story asking for the free box. First of all, you ladies really ARE my tribe…. y’all love free stuff as much as I do and I love it! Second, I was bummed I couldn’t share more with you because everyone was so excited to try it.

About Blue Apron

Blue Apron is a meal kit delivery service. You get all the ingredients you need to prepare meals in convenient, pre-portioned containers with super easy step by step instructions for preparation delivered straight to your door.

You can choose between a two or four-person box and you can choose between receiving two or three meals per week. Each week there are several meal options to choose from based upon your preferences (vegetarian, no beef, no pork, etc.).

The pricing is currently $9.99 per serving with free delivery.

My Completely Honest Review

I love a subscription service, and have tried a ton of them! I’ve never really done the meal kit services, though, and want to try several different ones and compare them in a post here on the blog.

I really like convenience, and I really hate grocery shopping. Kevin & I always do grocery pickup at Kroger or Walmart anyway so having the exact ingredients I need for nice dinners delivered to my door is a dream!

Stepping outside of my comfort zone and trying new meals is REALLY fun, and I definitely have learned a few tricks I’ll use in the future.

THE PROS

Ingredient Quality: I was absolutely blown away by the quality of the produce and meat. Everything was fresh and nothing was brown or past its prime. The meat also appeared to be higher quality than some you find at your regular grocery stores.

Trying new things: I often get stuck in a cooking rut, making the same few meals over and over. I really enjoy cooking and learning new recipes but don’t always take the time to research options, buy the new ingredients and test the recipes. Blue Apron takes away all the guesswork and makes it super easy to pick and choose which recipes you want to try.

They also include a lot of ingredients I’ve never used (or even heard of) in recipes, so it’s really fun to try things that are completely new to me.

Ease of Use: The website is super easy to use, allowing you to pick your preferences on your profile and then allowing you to select the exact meals you want to receive each week. It’s also

Convenience: You literally get everything you need to make three high quality and tasty meals on your doorstep. Can’t beat that!

The Yummy Factor: Everything we have tried so far has been delicious! My personal favorites have been a steak dish and Chrissy Teigen’s lettuce wraps.

New Techniques: I’m a pretty experienced cook, but for anyone who doesn’t know how to cook, it’s an awesome way to learn. They tell you exactly what steps to take and help you with timing when to do what. It’s SO nice to have everything finish cooking at the right times and have foolproof instructions on how to make it happen.

THE CONS

Damaged During Delivery: I was sooo excited for our second delivery to come this week and was bummed to find a crushed box on our front doorstep. I had hoped everything was OK given that the meals are packed pretty well with multiple ice packs, but unfortunately with the crazy hot temperatures both ice packs had completely melted. I was concerned about food safety, so I contacted Blue Apron customer support. They immediately refunded me since we couldn’t be sure that the food was safe to eat, no questions asked.

I literally went out and bought all of the ingredients to make Chrissy Teigen’s fajitas that were in the box anyway so that we could try them – spoiler alert… THEY WERE DELICIOUS!

Waste:

Although most of the packaging is recyclable, I can’t help but to feel a little bit guilty about all of the small plastic baggies, bottles, boxes, ice packs, etc. that are used for a delivery.

No Leftovers:

As much as I enjoy cooking, I REALLY don’t want to do it every night. With Blue Apron, I love that the ingredients are portioned in the exact amounts you need for the number of servings, but I really don’t want to have to cook a new meal every night…. we’re big leftovers people and we don’t have them with these meals. I guess we could purchase the four person subscription, but at $9.99/serving, I don’t think we would likely do that.

Will I keep going?

The answer is definitely yes. I won’t do weekly deliveries, but it’s SUCH a fun experience and the benefits by far outweigh the concerns for me. We maintain a pretty low grocery budget (soooo frugal), but I can see us doing a delivery once or twice per month to keep things interesting.

I can also tell you for sure that a couple of the recipes we’ve tried so far will be going into regular rotation so that alone is worth it!