Blue Apron Meal Delivery Service Review

We tried Blue Apron for the first time. The girls have told us that their mom has ordered from them several times, and they all really like it. So with an offer for $30 off our first box, we decided to give it a try.
Brandi told us that the Blue Apron food is kept cold with ice packs, and they just throw them away after they arrive. Yikes!! I asked her to keep them for us! We can always use ice packs! Two weeks after that, on their next visit, their mom came out of the house with a Blue Apron box LOADED with ice packs – it was quite heavy. So now we have 25+ ice packs, either (about) 9x12 inches or 4x4 inches. (They are reusable heavy duty plastic bags filled with a fluid.)   
Bridget said that there is a sheet of instructions with pictures and that the recipe is very easy to follow. She has made the meals and she said that even though it takes her a long time, she really enjoys cooking. Our box was waiting outside of the fence on a Friday when we got home from work. The bottom of the cardboard was slightly damp (rainy), but otherwise the box felt cool to the touch. Upon opening it, we saw that the entire box is lined with a shiny-backed bubble wrap.

Lift the flaps and all of the food is individually wrapped and labeled clearly. 

 The meat, which is the heaviest item, is directly on top of the ice packs and under a double thickness of cardboard. The inside of the box was nice and cool. 

ONE egg.  Isn't this so stinking cute???

I took out all of the food items … but now what? What was I making? Well, after I removed the ice packs and added them to our freezer, I started to remove the bubble wrap liner to break down the box. OH! The recipe cards were slid between the box and the liner! Clever, that way they can’t get wet.

Our first meal’s recipes were for Chicken Schnitzel with Potato Salad and Apple-Cabbage slaw. The second recipe is a Pork and Asparagus Ramen Bowl with Pickled Cucumber.
I made the chicken schnitzel first. The 4 chicken cutlets were about the size of my hand, and all 4 were identical in size and thickness (they were halved breasts). Following the recipe card, it took about 30 minutes start to finish. I was working on all 3 meal items at a time – the potatoes had to boil and cool, the dressing needed to be prepared, and the apple-cabbage slaw needed time to marinate in vinegar before it was time to make the chicken. The liquid seasonings and dry spices are packaged separately, and wrapped in a paper bag labeled “chicken schnitzel knick knacks."

knick knacks!

All other items were wrapped and clearly labeled. I like that they gave us just half a head of napa cabbage and enough chives to garnish with, and there was absolutely no wasted ingredients. They added the perfect amount of flour and panko breadcrumbs for crusting the chicken. The only things I had to add were pepper, salt, and olive oil.

Result: YUM. Deeeelicious. The chicken schnitzel was outstanding and really crispy. The warm potato salad was tangy and mustardy, but the slaw was … okay. They included rice vinegar that was shared between the slaw and the potato salad – there was enough for the potato salad, but after tasting the slaw, we needed more vinegar so I added a couple of glugs (1/2 cup) of apple cider vinegar. NOW we’re talking! That gave the slaw the bite and tang it needed. Perfect! As we “plated” our meals, we put 2 servings directly into plastic containers to carry for lunch the next day. There was just the right amount of food that divided nicely into 4 portions. We rate the meal a solid 10/10. 

Chicken Schnitzel, potato salad, apple/cabbage slaw

The following week we received another box that contained Chicken Parmesan with Garlic Bread Sticks and Knackwurst with Baked Beans and Carrot-Cabbage Slaw. Here's what we got:

Box 2, chicken parm and knackwurst

When Ben and Bridget joined us for dinner on a Saturday, we made the Chicken Parmesan. Normally, that is a pretty complex dish – making the red sauce from scratch, making the breaded fried chicken cutlets, assembling the casserole with sauce>chicken>cheese>sauce>cheese and then baking it. This dish put a cool spin on the concept and it was ready in 30 minutes, start to finish and Bridget was a great help in getting it done. Chicken tenders were browned, then a diced onion and a can of tomato sauce were added to the pan and it simmered while the breadsticks were being prepped (a section of pizza dough that we cut and stretched into long strips). The chicken mixture in the skillet was added to a 9” x 13” dish and topped with fresh mozzarella, basil and parmesan cheese and baked at the same time as the breadsticks did. It came out perfectly! We had 4 just-right sized servings and we all enjoyed the flavors. I’ll remember to make chicken parm this way again since it was so fast and we didn’t have a ton of leftover sauce that we had to put in containers and freeze for later use. I forgot to get a picture of our plates, but take our word for it, this meal is another 10/10.

Next Bill and I made the Pork and Asparagus Ramen Bowl with Pickled Cucumber.

knick knacks for ramen bowl!

Prepping the veggies for the ramen -- note the ice packs

The ramen bowl was just okay – it was very bland. The recipe calls for reconstituting dried mushrooms in hot water, which also acts as the broth for the soup. I would have preferred to use chicken or beef stock for this step, because the resulting broth had zero flavor. Bill added hot sauce and soy sauce to his ramen bowl, but I just added the soy sauce. We really like garlic, so I doubled the amount they called for, but the soup was just pretty tasteless. I’m not sure why they chose the pickled cucumbers to go on the side of the soup (odd choice) but they were okay.

cukes in vinegar

Again, there wasn’t enough vinegar so I added more to the cucumbers. As you can see in the below photo, this makes a LOT of ramen ... I couldn't even eat half of my bowl.  This one rates a 6/10.

For tonight and tomorrow!

We also had the Knackwurst with Baked Beans and Carrot-Cabbage Slaw. I don’t know why, but this meal just didn’t work for us. The carrot-cabbage slaw was dressed with a little stone-ground mustard, a tiny bit of rice vinegar and way too much celery seed (it was very overpowering.) I added mayonnaise and more vinegar to the slaw.

baked beans knick knacks

The baked beans started with a can of pinto beans, which simmered for a while with onion, tomato paste, vinegar and brown sugar – yet even though they were canned, the beans were on the hard side, just too al-dente. I expect baked beans to be quite soft and these weren’t in the least. The biggest disappointment was the knackwurst. All I did was to split it lengthwise and sear the outside. Normally, I love knackwurst, but this was “organic”, “grass-fed”, “non-GMO”, “happy cow,” etc. The natural casing was good, but it was actually kind of hard to cut. When we make these meals, we put half in plastic boxes to take to work. Well, when I tried to cut the knackwurst with my plastic knife at my desk, it didn’t turn out well. I ended up just cutting a hunk of the sausage off and biting into it. Bill didn’t really care for it either – he said he put lots of Dijon mustard on it at his desk. I’d say this was a 6/10 with the slaw being the only part that we really liked.

Lessons learned! With the meal plans, dinner can be a little easier especially after working a 10 hour day with 2 hours of commute time. It’s convenient: all of the ingredients are included, you don't have to come up with a plan, and the cooking part of it is pretty easy. It’s just a matter of following the step-by-step instructions on the recipe card. There’s also the chance that you just won’t like what you receive.

There you have it, our first two boxes with Blue Apron. As of the time I am writing this, I have already cancelled Blue Apron’s service. Twice. I have been locked out of my account numerous times and I have had to have my password reset over and over. I HAVE NOT been charged for the first two boxes. Today, Saturday June 24, I can add this note – we received a third box yesterday afternoon. I still have not been charged, but I will be trying to figure out what is going on.  Look for the meals from box #3 to be reviewed in an upcoming post.