Over all, with time and labor-intensive recipes, a very dirty kitchen and a high calorie dinner at the end of the day multiple days in a row, I felt exhausted by Blue Apron and was only really impressed by 1 out of the 3 dishes. The end product was decent and was again worth about 3 portions instead of 2. The estimated cooking time of 25-35 minutes was way underestimated. Making the cod recipe was a similar experience to the first, with a lot of dirty pans and utensils and a lot going on at once. Probably one of the best pizzas I’ve made at home and it had me re-thinking this whole Blue Apron thing. The pizza was a little less labor-intensive and turned out gorgeous as well as delicious. I turned it into 3 portions instead of 2, but I didn’t even finish mine. The dish turned out horrible and it wasn’t worth the 670 calories per serving. It was not a relaxing or enjoyable experience like I had with HelloFresh. A lot of the steps started overlapping each other and I burned the carrots while the almonds were toasting and the farro (an ancient grain) was boiling. For the first recipe I made (the Heirloom Carrot & Farro Salad), I needed 3 separate pans, a chefs knife, a cutting board, a peeler, a spatula, a spoon and a baking pan. Sounds easy right? The problem is that each step is broken down into another 5-10 steps within. I hadn’t ever heard of watermelon radishes or labneh cheese so I was super excited to try out these new recipes.Įach recipe is broken down into 6 steps with photos. The recipes I received definitely seemed more “gourmet.” While HelloFresh was simple and straightforward, the Blue Apron recipes were more exciting and adventurous. My delivery included Cod & Potato Brandade with Watermelon Radish Salads & Garlic Toast, White Pizza with Baked Eggs & Arugula-Brussels Sprout Salad and an Heirloom Carrot & Toasted Farro Salad with Labneh Cheese & Pickled Dates. My order was delayed by one day “because of snow.” I live in Florida, so that gave me a clue as to how far the food was traveling. The good part about that is that it cut way down on the packaging compared to HelloFresh.

Instead of organizing the ingredients by recipe, Blue Apron lumps everything together. They are the same price, about $59 a week for 3 vegetarian or pescatarian meals for 2, but that’s really where the similarities ended.

After trying HelloFresh (read my review here), I decided to give Blue Apron a go.

Price of blue apron meals