An Unpaid Review of Blue Apron
Raise your hand if you’ve read about 50 blog posts about Blue Apron. Yep, me too.
How Does Blue Apron Work?
If you’ve somehow avoided the onslaught of paid reviews, the gist is that Blue Apron is a meal planning and delivery service. Every week you get a box with all the ingredients and instructions to make 2-3 dinners.
I liked the concept, but I was hung up on two main things – the cost (which runs about $9-10 per person, per meal) and whether or not my children would actually eat the meals. And, frankly, after seeing some of the things people got in their boxes, I wondered if I would actually eat them.
Fortunately, my neighbor is a Blue Apron subscriber (she loves it!) and when I asked her about it, she offered to give me a free week trial, which is apparently something you can do after you’ve been a subscriber for a while.
It took me all of five seconds to accept. I set up my account, put in our preferences, and voila – my box was scheduled to arrive later that week.
Blue Apron Cost
I got the plan where you get 3 meals, each of which serves 2 people. The regular cost for this would have been $59.99.
I generally spend about $75 a week on groceries, so $60 for three dinners is an enormous chunk out of my grocery bill.
My first box came on Saturday and when Ella, Star and I were making a library run that afternoon (Bart stayed home with a late-napping Ani), I saw the box on the doorstep and felt an enormous sense of relief that I wouldn’t have to figure out dinner. I could just pick one of the three meals out of the box and make it. Score.
We got home from the library, and Bart entertained the girls while I started pulling things out of the box.
Since I love food and cooking, it was kind of like Christmas to open it all up and see all the beautifully packaged ingredients (although I would have liked it if things were divided up by meal, instead of all being mixed together).
Blue Apron Recipes
The meals for our week were:
- Rice Flake-Crusted Hake with Sautéed Daikon Radish & Yuzu-Soy Sauce
- Flat Iron Steaks with Ramps, Fingerling Potatoes & Shaved Asparagus Salad
- Turkey Kibbeh with Cucumber Salad & Mint-Yogurt Sauce
I decided to go with the fish since I didn’t want it sitting in the fridge for several days, and I got to work.
Each recipe has a beautiful full-page, full-color card with the final dish on the front with which ingredients you need, and then on the back there are step-by-step instructions with photos of how to make the meal.
Immediately I felt annoyed that I still had to wash all the produce – it’s one of my least favorite tasks, and I would WAY rather meal plan than wash food.
I also could not get the rice flakes to stick to the fish – they mostly just fell off the fish and burned on the bottom of the pan (the recipe warned that some would fall off, but the vast majority of mine did. I think they were just too big – if I were to make this recipe again, I’d definitely run the flakes through the food processor to make them a little smaller).
And it definitely wasn’t a time-saver. It took me about 35 minutes to make dinner and then there were plenty of dishes afterward to cook.
Ella quite liked the fish, but had zero interest in the vegetables, and Ani wouldn’t eat it at all. For the first time in my parenting life, I let her have cereal for dinner instead of eating what I’d made. Bart gave it a 6 out of 10. I thought it was fine – nothing I’d want to make again, but I was happy to eat it.
The next two meals were better.
The steak was the best steak I’ve ever made at home (this is probably because I almost never make steak because I feel like it never turns out that well, which is probably because I buy really cheap steak) and the girls ate it without complaint. My only trouble was peeling the asparagus stalks. I don’t know if I have a totally weird peeler or what, but after five minutes of peeling that resulted in only about 2 Tablespoons of asparagus peels, I just skipped the rest of it and threw it all in to sauté.
I was dubious about the turkey, but they turned out to be surprisingly delicious – the bits of dried apricot gave it a nice little sweet taste that I loved. The cucumber salad was only medium for me, mainly because I don’t particularly like cucumber, but it was better the next day when I had the leftovers.
Is Blue Apron Worth It?
So what did I think about Blue Apron overall?
I liked trying new recipes and using new ingredients, and it’s really fun to have dinner just show up on your doorstep.
I feel like tons of the reviews I’ve read about it talks about how generous the serving sizes are. I totally disagreed. I feel like we eat fairly modestly (I’ve had several readers tell me that they double almost every recipe I post on my blog because they eat so much more than we do, apparently) and the girls eat fairly little for dinner always (they eat a huge breakfast, medium lunch, and light dinner) and we only had a teeny bit of leftovers one night (the turkey). The fish dish, especially felt very small.
You’re legitimately getting one meal for two people – I wouldn’t count on it stretching through children or ending up with leftovers.
I also felt like they weren’t quite complete meals. Bart really likes to have at least two side dishes, and most of these had just one, so I felt like I needed to supplement (plus, as I mentioned, the meals just aren’t that big).
The main bonus, I think, is not having to meal plan, but I don’t mind meal planning, plus, even with Blue Apron, you’d still have to come up with 3-4 dinners for the rest of the week. And you can just look on Blue Apron and get the recipes for the week without paying, if it’s the meal planning you really really hate.
(Although a lot of the Blue Apron recipes have specialty ingredients that might be difficult or expensive to track down on your own. I suspect that they might do this because it makes it seem like you’re getting a better value – it’s harder to justify paying $10 a person to make your own spaghetti – and because it’s more difficult and expensive to track down those items on your own. I would have had no idea where to purchase yuku juice for the fish recipe).
Lots of people have compared it to restaurant quality meals and I’d agree with that – the food was definitely high quality – but I don’t want to eat restaurant meals three times a week. I feel like I have a good variety of meals in our dinner plan, but they’re a little simpler and less heavy/fancy feeling than some of these were.
You also can’t avoid grocery shopping by doing Blue Apron, unless you only eat dinner 2-3 times a week and never eat anything else. So . . .that doesn’t help me all that much.
Plus, there is a fair amount of waste, since everything is individually (beautifully) packaged and you have the big box and the multiple ice packs. Most of it you can recycle, but recycling still isn’t nearly as good as not having had the packaging in the first place.
And – the final nail in the Blue Apron coffin for me – the cost is just more than I could justify. I can make meals that we like more, provide leftovers for lunch, and that use less dishes for a lot less than $20 a meal.
Frankly, I’d rather spend my $60 a week and go out for dinner 2-3 times. Last weekend, we went to a Greek place in Chapel Hill and got two large plates that fed all of us for $20. It was fresh and delicious, I didn’t have to cook any of it, and there were no dishes to deal with afterward.
Or, for $60 I could buy quite a bit of high-quality semi-prepared food at a place like Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s where I could get more food on the table with less hands-on time.
How to Cancel Blue Apron
It was fun to try out and I was a little sad to cancel my account at the end of the week, but I wouldn’t pay for it myself. (Bart, on the other hand, was fairly relieved it was over – he was just not that thrilled with any of the meals and was ready to go back to our regular eating).
They don’t make it super simple to cancel Blue Apron – you have to send them an email at cancellations@blueapron.com, and then they send you an email with directions for how to cancel. A cancel button would be a lot simpler.
I could see it being a fun gift for a housewarming or graduation present for someone who likes to cook, or a cool at-home-date idea. I also can imagine possibly using it if I lived somewhere that groceries cost considerably more than they do in Durham, North Carolina.
That said, if anyone has free meal trials for Hello Fresh or Plated, I’d happily try those ones out too. You know, as a service to others.
And if you’ve tried it out (or are a subscriber to Blue Apron or any of the other similar services), I’d love to hear what you think and why you are or aren’t a fan!
P.S. I wrote this post about an option that I think is way more realistic time and price-wise for families like mine, if you want to check it out here.
As a young couple with no kids that enjoys cooking we really enjoy blue apron. I've been getting tired of the same old recipes and lacking in time to be creative I decided to give it a try. I hate meal planning, so having dropped at the door was great. However, I can see that once I have kids it may get pricey and may not work as well though.
I've been using Blue Apron for several months now, and I really like it. We get the family plan, two meals a week for 4 people.
Pros: I can choose which two meals I want from the four meals they offer each week. I can easily skip weeks. If I don't see two meals that look interesting to try or just look delicious, I skip. I don't enjoy planning and have a tendency to fall back on meals I have the ingredients for and that I make a lot. The only thing I have needed to provide for their meals is olive oil, everything I need is right there. I have learned a few different cooking methods. I've eaten things I never made previously (oven roasted parsnips are now a favorite of my family). I think, overall, Blue Apron is an excellent value. It's $70 for 8 total meals. That cost includes the packing, the shipping, and their overhead costs. It's actually quite a reasonable cost per person. Everything is recyclable, and you can even send the ice packs and clean packaging materials back to them, on their dime. And, their app works really well.
Cons: They only have 4 delivery days, W-Sat. I tried Weds, but the box can arrive any time until 8pm, so it was stressful wondering if the box would get there. I was typically getting a 4:30 delivery. The issue then becomes, is the main meal thawed enough to use. I cook M-Th, and one meal over the weekend, so I wanted to be able to use it when I got it. I just switched to Sat delivery. I was concerned things would be too thawed and I couldn't put in the freezer. So far, it hasn't been the case, and I like knowing I have Mon and Tues meals all set. I don't think their prep and cook times are reliable, so I've learned to add time in. And it's annoying that they don't give the measurements of their spice blends. I'm sure they feel its proprietary, and they will provide the info if you contact them, but it's annoying.
My Blue Apron experience was poor. Missed deliveries, late deliveries (1 was 5 days late) rotten produce, wrong ingredients, wrong recipe cards…the list goes on and on. Although customer service was always prompt to refund for the errors, I was not impressed with the company's inability to correct the problems. Cancellation was easy. We're now about to receive our first Hello Fresh box, and hoping the experience will be better.
I'm a single woman, 30, with a busy work schedule (often traveling.) Between eating out and groceries I spend much more than $60 a week. I'm not at all a cook, previously cooking very basic stuff (grill or bake meat + rice or potatoes + veggie) and my breakfast and lunch is even more simple lol
I've been doing blue apron for 6 weeks now and I absolutely adore it. I am shocked how much I like the food even when I'm pretty sure I won't. I've only had a few meals that weren't really good (to me.) Because it's just me, I tend to get 2 sometimes 3 meals out of it. So it's actually replaced most of my dinners and lunches. I still will eat out but normally just once or twice over the weekend now.
I'm eating meals that are more fresh, well rounded and saving money by not eating out as often.
I haven't tried other services but I've really had a blast learning to cook with blue apron and enjoying new foods and food combinations.
I'm researching reviews on Blue Apron because I am tempted to try and found a trend among the mix reviews. Blue Apron may not be a good fit for families that want to "stretch" their dollars on these meals. These meals are portion controlled @ 500-800 calories per meal so for families with hardy and growing appetites aren't going to find this option worth the service. You can make a meal for less than $10/meal on certain menu items but there are other meals that are more costly, like steak or cod. Also please factor that you are paying for delivery and packaging services. Hence the average price of $10/meal is actually on par since you are also paying for convenience. These meal services were never meant to replace your normal meal planning and cooking routines at home because the service is only 2-3 meals per week, it is a supplement and provides variety and convenience when you are in a bind. A general food service like this will also not be able to accommodate ppl with certain nutritional health needs or likes/dislikes.
I live in Southern California and have a family of 5 (kids 7, 9, and 10). My weekly groceries averages $200-$300/mo; I will caveat that I buy 80-90% organic on the items that we eat most like dairy, cheese, chicken, eggs, dirty dozen veggie/fruits). Eating out for us in this region is $60 (fast food type or take out) to $100+ (restaurants). Hence $10/meal is actually not a bad investment a few times a week for my family given the convenience factor. I hate meal planning and need new ideas to mix things up (we love Trader Joe's but some of these convenience food aren't totally healthy either). Both my husband and I work full time and I can see us using these meal services a couple of times a week when the kids have long activities days and Friday nights, when we do family movie nights at home.
I love to cook but just don't have time to spend an hour cooking 🙂
I have had this service for about a month now. We (wife and I) have had the opportunity to try several new dishes that we may have not tried otherwise. This is a pro. As far as cons, the amount of packaging (although the website does give great advice about how to return the ice packs with a free return shipping label and most everything else is recyclable), the pricing ($10 a plate) and the (in my opinion) massive prep time and complexity of the cooking process are more cons than pros for me. I have actually had both anxiety and anger while reading the instructions because they are so involved. There is also way too much "salting and peppering" in there. The instructions seem to have phrases copied and pasted in there and do not always flow very logically. It will say add the product to the pan, salt and pepper, remove from the pan, salt and pepper, then once everything's assembled salt and pepper. Come on! Someone in editing needs to look these over from start to finish. We have had eggs arrive cracked, meat sliced open with juices at the bottom of the box, and leafy produce that was not fresh. Now these thing wouldn't normally bother me too much but when you have to supplement these ten dollar per person meals it ends up not being worth it!
I am on my second Blue Apron box and I have now cooked 4 of their meals. I really liked all of the meals in the 1st box and I like the 4th meal (in the 2nd box) but a little less. So far I like Blue Apron because I am single and I order the 3-meal for 2 people plan and I actually get 3 meals out of each 2-person meal (and I am not thin!). So, for $60 I get 9 meals which I eat as lunches and dinners. Eventually, that may get repetitious but for now it is not. In the past I have bought and thrown away a lot of vegetables so I tend to not buy them at all since I was letting rot a fair amount of money. With the Blue Apron Service, I am eating a lot more vegetables than normal for me. I have eaten a lot of cabbage, kale, collard greens (my 1st time) these last 4 meals and enjoying them. So for me, not having to plan a menu, shop or do anything but follow easy recipes (to me they are easy) is a wonderful and healthy convenience. I also live in the Philadelphia area and I can't buy healthy food, not even at the grocery store (Giant, Wegmans) for $10 a serving. If I do hit the wonderful Wegman's buffet, I am buying every unhealthy but wonderful dish in the buffet – Chinese, Indian, Fried Chicken etc. because warmed vegetables in a buffet taste like crap. Also Trader Joe's has well known reputation for selling inferior "fresh" vegetables so I really don't know how the other reviewers feed their families of 3 – 5 at Trader Joes for less than $10 a serving as healthily as they claim with food that tastes good.
I have never used Blue Apron but I do use Green Chef and I am quite happy. The cost of the meals depends on the type of meals you choose. We are currently receiving the vegetarian meals. My kids don’t like the vegetarian meals but they are very picky eaters. I love them. I pay about $80.00 per week for 6 meals. I receive my meals on Friday which I love because I know I will have a nice meal on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I have four kids so my weeks are full with soccer practice, tennis clinics, violin, church and more. I plan my simple meals that my kids like Monday – Thursday. My box arrives with all of my ingredients labeled and three beautiful and easy to read recipes. Most of the meals only take about 30 minutes to make. I love it because under normal circumstances I would never make these meals. What confuses me about this post is how much you spend per week on groceries. You said you typically spend $60.00 per week. I would really love to know, HOW!?!? I buy mostly organic foods and prepare very healthy meals for my family, but honestly, my grocery bill is more like $300.00 to $350.00 per week. That doesn’t include toiletries and household cleaning products which my husband buys at Sam's Club. I could never buy the ingredients in these recipes for $80.00. I think $80.00 per week is a great deal and in fact my grocery bill has gone down since I started with Green Chef. I have been thinking about going to 8 meals per week. If you haven’t tried Green Chef, give it a try.
We are a middle aged couple with very chaotic work schedules. In seventeen years of marriage my husband only cooked about five meals…before Blue Apron. It was his idea to learn to cook and readily agreed to the BA subscription after receiving a free week that my sister sponsored for us. After a month or so we are finding it to be a good choice for us. It doesn't cost us more than we would have spent on ingredients for comparable meals and there is no waste of food. We find the portions to be plentiful and sometimes have a little bit of leftovers. All of our contents have been well packaged and nothing has been missing. We are adventurous eaters so we enjoy the variety so far and while not all of the meals have been delicious…we have also been disappointed when eating out too.
We have had the exact same experience.
I can't believe the negative reviews. The food is delicious.
We are also a middle aged couple with busy work schedules. We enjoy Blue Apron and have had the same experience as yellowhorse. It's been a great option for us.
So, after trying Blue Apron, I planned to write an unsponsored review on my blog but now I feel like I could just link here because our experience was IDENTICAL.
We got the trial for free from a friend, were horrified at the price, were hungry after the portions, and I was overly irritated bc I had to was produce!! Plus we didn't even think the final product was anything special :-/
My neighbor uses it to help after a new baby, but it doesn't REALLY help because you still have to make a (pretty time-consuming!) meal!! And you still have to go to the grocery store. You totally nailed it on the idea to just look at their meal plans if you're in a rut.
My husband and I thought that if we liked it we'd do it once a month as a little in-home date night, but we decided against it. Thanks again for the great review!
thekriegers.org
I have tired 3 boxes of Blue Apron and so far, I have not been impressed. I am a fairly good cook and have a well stocked kitchen and Blue Apron just doesnt seem to jell with my style of cooking. I have found it annoying to open up the thousands of little bags for the ingredients of each recipe like the spices, flour, etc. The cooking time seemed to exceed well over the given time in the instructions and I was still not being completely satisfied with the final product.
Making burgers or spaghetti balls from ground beef from scratch or pizza from pizza dough.. No thank you. Why would I want to do that when I can order a pizza or buy ready made pizza from Trader Joes.
Some of these recipes are definitely restaurant quality and they are more fancy than what I expected. After a long day at work and then gym and walking the dog, I just want to put together something quick and simple, not spend over an hour prepping and cooking and cleaning dishes, all for a meal for just two servings. Meh.
Glad to find this review. I was SO disappointed with Blue Apron due to the cost, and the fact that it is actually impossible for people who live in non-doorman apartment buildings to use due to their delivery methods. My wife found the meals bland. Back to meal planning!
My wife and I tried Blue Apron this week. The first meal (salmon and potatoes) took my wife an hour and 25 minutes to prepare, and took me a half hour after dinner to clean up the numerous dishes, pots, and utensils. The second meal (chicken and noodles) too me an hour and 5 minutes to prepare and my wife 25 minutes to clean up the numerous dishes and utensils used in preparation. We are throwing away the third meal, and not bothering to prepare it, because we just do not have time to spend over an hour preparing dinner and 20-30 minutes cleaning up the mess after dinner (and I mean just lightly rinsing and putting the stuff in the dishwasher).
I was disappointed with Blue Apron primarily because it didn't have enough food in the meals to satisfy my daughter or I. I looked at it as an adventure but found it to be a rip off.
Don't get me wrong, I love Blue Apron (it basically taught me how to cook!) but found that for me, personally, there was something missing. I started my company Takeout Kit to address the issue of 'meal kit anxiety' or stress that comes from not being able to cook your meal kits before they expire. Takeout Kits have long shelf lives (2 months) and can stay in your pantry until you're ready to cook. We're focusing on creating global dishes that are fun and exciting to cook and might typically require hard-to-find ingredients. We're also about half the price of Blue Apron (score!). Happy to send you a kit to try, Janssen – email me at rachael@takeoutkit.com
Check us out https://takeoutkit.com/
I have many read of the comments here, would like to comment. on a few:
1. $200 for food I live about 30 miles north of Tampa, FL, somewhat suburban/rural) . Its my wife and myself, we do the bulk of our shopping at Walmart, not the cheapest place in our area, but close to where we live. Anyway for the 2 of use, moderate eaters are weekly bill from Walmart is $100-200, but that includes fresh seasonal fruit, paper goods, pharmacy , some wine and beer etc. For food we guess about $50-70 per week. I all depends on what you consider "grocery shopping"
2. We also have our go to food ( I do most of the cooking) for a quick dinner, takes me about 30-40 minutes)
Even though I have never used blue apron don't plan to mainly because of price and other negative reviews. 12fbill12@gmail.com
you guys should try FeedYouFit.com their a New York based company and the food is excellent. It amazing food with very clean labels. Ive lost a decent amount of weight from their meals as well.
it's not for those with meat-and-potatoes, "Midwesterner" food sensibilities. I'm 6"3", 225 lbs and, even dividing the meals into 2 servings, it's more than enough food for me so I wonder about the eating and portion habits of those who complain about not being full, afterwards.
I love Blue Apron. There are two people in our household and it's often hard to plan meals economically because you can't buy the ingredients you need in small portions. Because we have to buy larger amounts, things go off waiting to get used up and end up getting thrown out. We don't have food waste anymore and the money is instead going into quality. If I could scale up, like I was cooking for 6 people, I think I could purchase and use more economically and could see Blue Apron not being as worth it.
The food is some of the best I've ever had. Seriously.
I have lost weight on Blue Apron. I think it's because the food is satisfying because it tastes so good.
I have had a couple of weeks where I thought there was too much pasta, soup or sandwhiches. We don't do pork or beef though. To be fair, though a sandwich for dinner may not sound like a good deal, we have had the best sandwiches of our life with Blue Apron. We just had a smoked trout tartine which we only wanted more of.
I'm cooking with ingredients I've never heard of and never would have used. I'm learning new things. I never imagined cooking something like a real Korean dishes that are better than the Korean food places in my city. I really do feel like Blue Apron is a good value because it has cut down so much on food waste and it's a total bonus that I'm learning how to cook new meals.
We also consider it good value to have amazing…like really good…top quality restaurant type meals at home 3x a week. It's added to our quality of life to sit at home and have something delicious with a bottle of wine. We know we'd pay $100 for some of these meals in our town. Not to have to go out, wait an hour and a half for a table but have something more delicious than quality meals in our town seems like value to us. What I'm saying is that everyone counts value differently. Yeah…if it's just dollars and sense, you can probably get a ultra cheap piece of meat for less than good meat delivered to your door by Blue Apron.
A couple of things…
I live in a city (Boulder Colorado) where meals out and prepared foods have a 10% tax on them. Going to grab a small salad and slice of pizza from Whole Foods can quickly add up to 10$ per person, especially given the high taxes. So $10 bucks per person for catfish with a concord grape and walnut relish (our favorite dish so far) seems totally worth it.
I've only been doing Blue Apron since August-five months.
As it is only 3 meals a week we still have to shop. We go to Costco to make up the difference. But…at Costco you have to buy in bulk so end up with little variety. We live in a small place and can't store a lot. We used to go to Costco and Whole Foods to add the interesting items. Using Costco and Blue Apron for our variety or special items can be part of the reason we see it as value.