Blue Apron – A Pictorial

If you’ve never heard of Blue Apron, they are a fresh, uncooked, meal delivery service. Each week, they send you 3 meals, with all the ingredients you need to cook the meal and recipe cards with instructions. The only items you need to have on hand are olive oil, salt, and pepper.

We’ve fallen in love with it. I’m a decent home cook, and if you’ve visited my blog at all, you’ve probably seen some of the recipes I’ve posted. But I love variety. And as good as I consider my own recipes, I get bored with them sometimes, and crave something different.

Blue Apron is not the only meal service we use. We also use Plated. I like Plated a bit more than Blue Apron because the recipes tend to be more adventurous and there’s more choice, but Plated is also more expensive than BA. We go back and forth depending on which meals appeal to us more that week.

Speaking of adventure, these recipes generally are not kid friendly, and if you are even a bit picky the meals might not appeal to you. Also, you have to love to cook. You will be doing a lot of cooking and prep work.

But I do love to cook, and I love the variety Blue Apron and Plated gives us. I’ve tried many ingredients and dishes I never would have otherwise, and many of them have become staples for us now. These meal services have expanded my food knowledge, and my cooking skills, and my palate too.

Blue Apron sends 6 meals, 2 servings each of 3 different recipes. You can skip any week you want, and order more servings per meal as well. They generally have one chicken, one pork or beef, and one fish, along with 3 vegetarian meals to choose from each week.

Additionally, there’s no waste. They send you exactly the ingredients you need, in the exact amounts you need. There’s no buying a spice or herb, using 1 teaspoon of it, and the rest sits in the pantry unused—forever.

They are quite healthy too, and run around 600-700 calories per serving. I feel good eating this stuff.

Our meals arrive on Tuesday, but you can choose other days of the week if they are more convenient for you.

Our meals have arrived!

Each meal comes with a recipe card, with a brief description of the meal, and detailed instructions on the back on how to prepare the meal.

The 3 dishes we’ll be eating this week.

The boxes are packed with two or three large ice packs, and I’ve never had food arrive warm.

Veggies are always placed on top. Ice packs and meat/fish on the bottom.

Most everything is sent raw, and unprocessed, with some exceptions like the steam buns here.

That’s a lot of stuff! And I have to cook it all.

 

A closer look at the produce.

 

I’m making the cod dish tonight. I’m ready to prep!