Blue Apron offers a meal plan service that delivers fresh ingredients to your doorstep with original recipes, meant to make cooking at home more convenient. After hearing a lot about Blue Apron, I decided to try it out for myself. I signed up for 3 meals, each with enough to serve two people, and anxiously awaited the arrival of my box! Below, I lay out the positive and negatives I encountered while using Blue Apron and spending a night in, instead of out, for once.
Pros
There a couple aspects of Blue Apron that make it really great, including:
- Food right to your doorstep – Blue Apron is all about convenience and part of that comes from the fact that a refrigerated box is delivered right to your door every week with the number of meals you select packed neatly inside. The refrigerated box can be scheduled for delivery during a time that is most convenient for you, so it can be waiting for you once you get home from a busy day at work. Delivery is also free – added bonus!
- Locally sourced food – All of the food that Blue Apron sends comes from local farmers, importers, or family-run purveyors. This means that everything is in season and you get a chance to cook with items that you might not see in your local supermarket.
- Step-by-step guides – Each meal provided comes with a recipe and a step-by-step guide with pictures. Each step is clearly explained to make cooking that much easier.
- Pre-portioned ingredients – Everything that arrives in your box is measured out to the exact amount needed for the recipe. This means no leftovers or wasted food!
- Option to skip weeks – Blue Apron's meals come pre-scheduled but always with the option to skip. If you are browsing the meals for an upcoming week and don't find anything appealing, just skip it in your account.
- Good for individuals and families – Blue Apron offers meal plans for both individuals (feeds 2 people) as well as families (feeds 4 people). For busy moms on the go, I can see how Blue Apron could be extremely beneficial.
Cons
While Blue Apron does some things very well, there are others that leave a little to be desired.
- Missing ingredients – One major thing that went wrong with my Blue Apron experience was that they forgot to give me an ingredient. This was not just a small ingredient, like a spice blend or a radish, no this was the chicken breast meant for the chicken mole quesadillas. Without the chicken, I would have just had sauce in a tortilla and some cheese. Luckily, I had some chicken breast of my own in the freezer, but the whole point of the service is convenience. If I have to run out and get ingredients that are forgotten, I might as well grab all of the other ingredients myself as well.
- Scheduling – As I metioned in the Pros, Blue Apron automatically enrolls you for the same delivery day each week. While this can be convenient for folks looking to cook with the service each week, it is not always easy to skip a week in time. Skipping has to be done at least 6 days in advance of your delivery or you are automatically charged. Not a fan of that.
- Limited options – I have used other meal plan services that had a lot more options than what Blue Apron has to offer. Each week, they make six recipes available on the menu for individuals, and four on the menu for families. However, I do not always like enough of the meals to fill my 3 meal-a-week plan. When that happens, they pick for you. However, if I do not like a recipe enough to pick it and they send it anyway, that could lead to more wasted food. They do, however, offer options for vegetarians, pescetarians, and those who do not eat red meat or pork.
- Recipes not impressive – While I have had friends rave about the recipes they made with Blue Apron, I myself was not impressed with anything that they sent us. I was excited when I saw I was receiving crispy fish tacos and chicken mole quesadillas but didn't end up really liking either one. I have made my own fish tacos before that were much better than the recipe provided.
- Time consuming – Blue Apron's website states that most meals take a maximum of 35 minutes. However, too much of that time seemed to be taken up with prep work. Many of the ingredients needed to be chopped up, and if you are not an expert chef, chopping well can take some time. Luckily for me, I had my boyfriend to help me cut the time in half, but if you are cooking alone I can imagine that the prep work might take up too much time to be truly convenient.
- Packaging – While it is nice to have all of the ingredients pre-portioned and each in its own individual box or bag, it seems like an excessive use of plastic. If they had a way of minimizing just how many bags they sent, it would not only help my conscience but the environment.
- Cost – While I got the chance to try this service for free, I don't think I would pay the $59.94 price each week. I feel like I could save more money grocery shopping on my own for meals I know I would like. (Family plan pricing is $139.84 for four meals per week, and $69.92 for two meals per week).
Final Verdict
While I enjoyed the process of making meals at home that I normally wouldn't have made on my own, I would not continue my service with Blue Apron. The recipes were not as tasty as they looked or sounded, and the fact that they left out a main ingredient left me thinking that I would try another meal plan service before revisiting Blue Apron. To read about a meal plan service I do recommend, check out my post on Plated.
Try it for yourself!
Available in most US cities
Have you tried Blue Apron yet? Share your experience in the comments below!
16 Comments on Blue Apron Meals a Bust
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With regard to your babbler…
Missing ingredients — not from our experience.
Scheduling– Love their flexibility.
Limited options–never a repeated meal for a year, with optional substitutions, at will–What were you saying?
The recipes beat our own creativity when we don’t have time to shop for an entire day though you might consider us being not creative.
Packaging makes delivered food fresh and better than local supermarkets–get over the plastic unless it has PCB’s
Cost–a fifth of our food budget and covers half each month, exciting to experience each week, and we love it,
Matt Wainwright
President
Banshee Networks, Inc.
I am glad that you enjoy the service! I did have a major ingredient missing which was unfortunate but did happen; I don’t like the automatic shipments in terms of scheduling although I acknowledge that others using the plan regularly would find that feature really great; I wasn’t a huge fan of their recipes compared to other meal service plans I have tried; I can’t ‘get over the plastic’ and think they could think of other ways to package some of the smaller items – reusable plastic containers, for example? And for me the cost was a bit much for what I experienced as a mediocre food week.
I also have had missing ingredients, or wrong ingredients — for instance, today’s meals was supposed to have English peas to be shelled; instead, I got snow peas, totally different. I agree, the meals are not very impressive or interesting. I also tried Hello Fresh, which I loved. They box up the ingredients of each meal very conveniently, rather than throwing them haphazardly into a box like Blue Apron. If I could justify the expense, I would go back to Hello Fresh in a heartbeat.
you must live in another world. cost is a fifth of your food budget? you normally spend $50/meal? i also had missing ingredients and so has my son. i’ve only had 2 shipments, 1 with missing ingredients. hard to believe you have went a whole year without repeating a meal. i don’t mean to pick at your comments, they are just surprising and seem unrealistic. glad you enjoy them.
We have had nothing but positive experiences with Blue Apron and wonder where the author comes from.
I tried the meal service while I was living in Chicago.
We find Blue Apron to be a positive experience in our lives.
Was in love with blue apron, but I have had four separate menu weeks missing like you said major ingredients. I even wrote them every single time. This time they didn’t even respond. I actually don’t want to quit, but at the same time I’m not paying money to something that’s not delivering what they say. I want to know why nobody has looked at either the QA system or whoever’s packing their boxes? Like every warehouse I’ve ever worked at they had an accountability system that meant everything in that box was there. I don’t know how I’ve had four separate weeks missing major ingredients.
way too much prep time. one recipe for cod sandwich they included a whole garlic and expected you to peel it, mince it and crush it to attempt making a paste. just send me some garlic paste and save me 20 minutes and end up with the desired result. missing ingredients happened with one of my 2 shipments. i’m a single person, would work out better for a couple. $10 per meal is more than what i would pay for these recipes in a restaurant.
I agree with you on the prep time; I think there are better meal plans out there. Was a bit overrated to me.
i’m surprised at the high reviews i’ve seen elsewhere. just got into my second shipment and again a key ingredient was missing. a couple of the meals, out of 6, were quite good but not enough for 2 people. i’ve learned from them and they are worth a try but you have to cancel a week in advance. quality ingredients, i’ll leave that as a positive as well.
Just tried Blue apron and received my first meal this week – First meal Major ingredient missing.. From all the reviews I am reading with the same issue – it sounds like the company makes its money by skipping ingredients. – I think I just spilled blue aprons money making secret.. Cancelled membership….
Missing ingredient is an on-going problem with Blue Apron. Every other shipment has at least 2-3 things missing which makes it impossible to cook a meal. We’ve had the service for last 4 months and on the verge of cancelling.
For the price, I felt that was pretty unforgivable. Thanks so much for sharing your experience!
I just tried Blue Apron for the first time and I ended up having a missing chicken as well. I just emailed customer service a few hours ago, so we’ll see how they handle it. The food was excellent quality. It is a little pricey at roughly $20 per meal for 2 people, but I’d probably continue using it. In the past I’ve used The Fresh 20 which provides menus for the week but you have to do the shopping for the ingredients. The upside is that there is much more food and I would have leftovers for lunches the next day or two. With Blue Apron you get about enough for the meal and that’s it. The downside of course is that you have to do all the shopping!
Have you tried the Martha Stewart meal kit Martha and Marley Spoon?
Thank you for sharing your experience! I have not tried the Martha Stewart or Marley Spoon… would you recommend them?