Blue Apron: when you want someone else to figure out dinner

by Alison Green on January 29, 2018

And now a word from a sponsor…

I once read that most people have about eight recipes that they cook over and over, cycling through them and rarely adding anything new to the regular rotation. And those same eight recipes get pretty boring after a while … which is one of the many reasons I love Blue Apron.

Blue Apron is a delivery service that delivers farm-fresh ingredients for delicious, chef-designed recipes directly to your door. They’ll seriously up your cooking game and get you cooking things you probably wouldn’t have thought to cook on your own.

Everything arrives pre-measured and ready to go, so that you don’t need to figure out what to cook, shop for ingredients, or a bunch of time-consuming prep work; you just get to do the actual cooking and eating. And everything can be prepared in 40 minutes or less.

You can order a two-person plan or a family plan, and you can choose from eight recipes each week (up from six previously). You can set up your profile with whatever dietary preferences or restrictions you have, so that you don’t get meals you don’t like or can’t eat. Everything all gets delivered in a refrigerated box so ingredients stay fresh even if you’re not home when it arrives. Meals start at $8.99 per serving, and you can skip or cancel at any time.

This month, I cooked Roasted Sweet Potato Quesadillas with Pickled Peppers and Avocado Salad, Vegetable Fried Rice with Togarashi Peanuts, and Goat Cheese and Kale Quiches with Butter Lettuce and Chive Salad. The quesadillas in particular were awesome; I made them extra spicy and I was craving them the whole next day. And somehow I’d never made my own fried rice before, and now that I know how to do it, I’m going to keep doing it. That’s one of the great parts about using Blue Apron – you get dinner right now, but you expand your cooking knowledge longer-term.

I know people sometimes worry about the packaging in subscription meal services. You can recycle everything that comes in your Blue Apron box, including the baggies, liners, ice packs, and the box itself. If you don’t have curbside recycling, you can return your packaging to them for free and they’ll take care of it for you.

If you have a New Year’s resolution to eat healthier or cook more at home this year – or if you just want to cook delicious dinners without having to figure out what to make – you should try Blue Apron. And if you’re one of the first 50 readers to sign up through this link, you’ll get $30 off your first order, which is a pretty great deal.

Disclosure: This post is sponsored by Blue Apron. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

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  1. I heard it both ways*

    I do blue apron too and I love it. I hate cooking… but it’s not so bad when everything is already set and you just have to chop and then add it to the pan/pot.

    1. miss_chevious*

      I’m the same! I hate cooking, but it’s tolerable when I don’t have to plan or shop. I honestly don’t know how I fed myself before I got Blue Apron.

  2. SansaStark*

    I recently started doing Blue Apron, too. I love cooking, but I was just starting to feel so uninspired, nothing ever sounded good, etc. I’ve really liked almost all of the things that I’ve made and even the just-ok ones were still good, just not something I’d make again. I was a little concerned that it would be an extra expense, but I don’t think I’m spending more than I was going to the grocery store. Also, I love having a MUCH quicker trip to the grocery store now. I did this as an experiment and now I’m hooked.

  3. ANon*

    I used to love Blue Apron. I was an avid user for close to two years. But I found that recently their delivery service (to NYC) has plummeted. Packages would arrive 10+ hours late, or never show up at all. (This was particularly worrisome for any meat/fish in the package.) Ingredients would also be missing from the packages. I found that whenever I ordered a Blue Apron delivery, I ended up needing to contact their customer service to report an issue. And, after a year of subscription, their recipes became redundant and repetitive.

    Because of this, I ended my subscription. Such a shame because I credit them with teaching me how to cook, and giving me a wide array of recipes that I knew were both easy to make and cheap to recreate.

    1. someone*

      I’m in Boston, and struggling with this also. They were steady for a long time, but lately boxes are delayed or lost. They will cheerfully and promptly refund me the price of a package that’s late, and I appreciate that, but that doesn’t put dinner on the table. Recently, a box was delayed for days after a snowstorm, but when we finally got it the chicken was missing anyway. Also, they’ve come under pretty heavy criticism for their labor practices recently. I’m still using them, but only as an occasional thing.

      1. AMPG*

        It’s interesting that you can get them to issue a refund when there’s a problem. One of my pet peeves with them when we had them a couple of years ago was that their response to any issue was to credit me for the next delivery, instead of issuing a refund. Because I only got a delivery every 3-4 weeks, it meant that I had to wait a month to be “made whole,” so to speak.

        I did really like them when we had them and was thinking about maybe trying again, but this doesn’t sound promising.

      2. AMPG*

        Oh, wait – I’m thinking of Hello Fresh. We ended up not continuing with Blue Apron because I found the recipes to be too time-consuming.

    2. miss_chevious*

      Some friends of mine in Cleveland starting having similar delivery issues. I had a couple of boxes with problems over the course of a month, but they’ve righted the ship since then and my stuff is fresh and complete again. I wonder if in certain areas supply chain is an issue.

  4. NW Mossy*

    I ultimately ended up switching to another service that offered more of what I specifically was looking for, but I will say that Blue Apron was always excellent about responding to issues. With these services, spills due to damaged packaging (especially for the proteins) are common, and they would generally offer credits back for anything damaged in transit. They also did the same on the few occasions where an ingredient was missing from the box.

  5. LAI*

    Just wanted to add that I discovered blue apron from this site and I love it. It’s too expensive for me to do every week, but I do it once a month or so when I know I’m going to have an especially busy week. Pretty much every meal we’ve gotten from them has been delicious.

  6. High Score!*

    I did blue apron for awhile. I loved it, but my meat and potatoes spouse and picky child grumbled every night with comments like, “this scores a 2 out of 10”. Ugh. And meals take about 45 minutes to make.

    1. Interviewer*

      Same. My kids are steadfast in their intense dislike of Blue Apron, from the moment the box arrives on the porch. I tried getting them to help me unpack the ingredients, review the recipe cards, even prep & cook – nothing works. Sometimes they would reluctantly announce it was “okay” while they were eating it – about 50% of the time. I’ve considered marking all of those meals with a gold star, and flipping back through the recipe cards when they complain about the next Blue Apron meal – “See?! You like a bunch of these!” Still, it’s a hard fought campaign from the moment they figure out what I’m cooking that night, down to finishing the last bites. 45+ minutes of cooking, plus another 30 of being frustrated that they won’t eat their dinner. I used to get a box every week, but now I’m ordering one box every two months or so, whenever I find two meals that I think they’ll like. Their pushback is largely due to ingredients they don’t recognize. It’s a great way for parents to show kids the wide world of food, my husband & I love the meals, and I’m sold on the concept. But instead of enjoying my home-cooked meal with my family, I spend my evening gritting my teeth and saying JUST TRY THE DANG KALE.

  7. Victoria Nonprofit (USA)*

    Love Blue Apron!

    I’ve switched to a similar service that better suits my needs, but I used Blue Apron for 18 months and absolutely loved it. The quality of the meat and produce was high, customer service was super responsive, and I loved the meals they sent me.

    Two heads up I’ll give to anyone considering it (one a positive, and one a negative):

    Positive: The serving sizes are BIG, especially on vegetarian items. The 2-person pasta meals result in at least three large servings (and my husband and I are both big eaters).

    Negative: The recipes take MUCH longer than they claim to. Like, 45-60 minutes, even for recipes listed as being shorter. They seem to think that things like dicing an onion happen instantaneously. (I’m an experienced cook, and the recipes routinely took me 15 or more minutes longer than they said they would).

    1. NewBoss2016*

      I had the same issue with the recipes taking forever. It would say 30 minutes, and an hour later I’m still “thinly” slicing radishes. I think I’ll try it one more time after I move and have more prep space.

    2. Ask a Manager* Post author

      One thing I do that makes them take less time is that I ignore their instructions to prep everything at the start. I prep as I go — so while something is simmering, I wash and cut up the vegetables or whatever. I wouldn’t recommend that to an inexperienced cook, but I think if you’ve cooked enough to be able to see where you’ll have waiting time in the recipe (and to be able to prep stuff pretty quickly), it’s a good time-saver.

      1. Agile Phalanges*

        What worked really well for me a few times was to call my 16-year-old son from work but after he was done with school and ask him to choose a recipe and do the prep work. Then all I had to do was throw the stuff in a pan at the right times. :-) Voila–it only took 15-30 minutes, just like the recipe card said! ;-)

      2. Lady Blerd*

        I use a Canadian version of Blue Apron and I do this as well. And if I can get away with tossing two-three items in my mini food processor, I happily do that as well.

      3. Topcat*

        I use a similar service (they don’t have Blue Apron where I live) and I love it, but the cooking time estimations are insane. Eg: “cook the onions for 5 minutes until caramelised”.

        I’m sure they do this to try to fit all the meals in a 30-min prep/cook time, but the reality is that many of them take far longer. It’s okay once you know, because you can plan for that and prepare stuff in advance.

        But for new cooks it must be bewildering!

    3. SJW*

      same issue with the time — once in a while we’d get several steps in and realize that the cabbage was supposed to have been marinating in the vinegar already (or some variation of that) Loved BA but follow a low carb diet now and I couldn’t make that work with BA.

    4. AMPG*

      I agree – I tried both Blue Apron and Hello Fresh thanks to coupon codes from friends, and we kept Hello Fresh partly because their cooking time estimates were much more realistic.

    5. Mints*

      I use Gobble for the vastly faster cooking times. I like to describe it as half-cooking, like raw beef and microwaved potatoes, or stir fry where everything is pre made, you just have to time the frying together

  8. Dcer*

    I work full-time but found going out or ordering in every night was just too pricey. I love Blue Apron. It actually saves me money – 1. because I’m not going out as often and 2. because I’m not making daily trips to the grocery store – while hungry – and buying lots of extra things I don’t need.

    There is pretty much zero food waste – aside from the over abundance of garlic they send you, but I just keep that in a mason jar and use it in other foods.

    Best of all – my husband who has very, very limited cooking skills can normally handle one of the recipes a week, making it easier to share dinner duties without his part involving summoning food on his smartphone.

    1. Victoria Nonprofit (USA)*

      Lol at the garlic. It’s true! They send a full head of garlic anytime garlic is called for in a recipe.

    2. Agile Phalanges*

      Heh. The funny thing about the garlic is, I only even bust into the garlic they send when it calls for it to be sliced or something other than minced or smashed, because I buy the tubes of smashed garlic in the produce section, and just squeeze out a dollop of that when the recipe calls for it. So I keep the intact heads of garlic, and every few months, make a huge batch of roasted garlic to enjoy. Mmmm!

  9. stitchinthyme*

    I really miss Let’s Dish. They were a similar concept to Blue Apron, but they had physical stores, and typically you’d sign up for a session at a specific time. They had all the ingredients all prepared at different meal stations, with a recipe on each, and you’d measure out and package up the ingredients yourself, stick on labels, take them home, and freeze them. Then when you were ready to cook, you’d thaw them out and follow the cooking directions on the label; meals were usually ready in a half-hour to an hour. It was great for my husband and me because we are both really picky eaters, so we could easily leave out ingredients we didn’t like and substitute ones we did. But a couple years ago they switched over to a mail-order model similar to Blue Apron, but I guess they still couldn’t compete and they folded last year.

    Anyway, I’ve never used one of the mail order services because although I assume I could probably still modify recipes to suit our tastes, it would mean we’d be tossing perfectly good food items that we just don’t like, and I have a problem paying for food that we know full well we will be throwing out. (At least at Let’s Dish, whatever we didn’t take would still be used.)

    1. Agile Phalanges*

      Blue Apron does have a “beta” program (though it seems the only requirement was to have already been a customer for a period of time) that allows you to choose from ANY of the meals, and not be limited to certain selections having to go together (or certain ones being greyed out once you selected one). So between being able to choose from among all the options (yes, occasionally even the meat-based meals even though I’m vegetarian–my son eats meat, or I can freeze the meat and substitute something of my choice if the meal otherwise appeals to me), and being able to sub things in occasionally, it works for me. For example, if something calls for bell peppers and they seem integral to the dish, I’ll skip it. But if it calls for mushrooms, I haven’t met a dish yet where I haven’t been able to either just leave them out if they’re a minor accent, or sub something else in, often tofu or another meat substitute. Yes, it’s a waste to just toss mushrooms in the trash, but I try to keep the waste to a minimum, and I figure it’s mitigated by not having to buy larger containers of the more obscure ingredients or order at a restaurant and leave half the food behind…

      1. Victoria Nonprofit (USA)*

        This is why I switched from Blue Apron. There wasn’t enough choice (only 6 options when I left, and although I’d heard rumors of people who got more flexibility I never was able to choose any 3 meals). If they could resolve this (offer more options) I’d come flying back.

    2. Amy S*

      There is a similar place called Dream Dinners. It’s not everywhere but they do have them all over the country. I used to work at the one in Beaverton, OR and I have to say the food was pretty good. I loved it too that you could substitute or adjust the recipe for your tastes because you were putting together the meals yourself. Our store offered gluten free subs and some dairy free subs as well. Sadly, I moved out of state and the one near me now either closed or moved.

  10. Muriel Heslop*

    I have two small children with fairly pedestrian palates and Blue Apron just isn’t a fit for us right now (though I liked it.) There is a recipe section on their website and I’ve made a few things from there that my husband and I have really loved. I recommend checking it out if you’re interested in trying some new things.

    1. Shiara*

      Seconding the recommendation to look at the recipe section. The service isn’t the right fit for us either, but I support my local CSA and have found blue apron’s online cookbook really helpful for brainstorming ways to use some of the veggies after the nth week of them. And they’re also nice for ideas for sides and plating in general that I don’t typically bother to think about on my own.

      A couple of my friends do use the subscription service and love it.

  11. Agile Phalanges*

    I love Blue Apron, and as a vegetarian, find their variety of ethnic dishes much more exciting than most of the other services. However, I JUST fired off an e-mail to them because my delivery that was supposed to come Friday was delayed. Every delivery since I moved, and many of the deliveries in my old town, were similarly delayed, because they use OnTrac. At first, they promised me the wouldn’t use OnTrac for my deliveries, but of course they couldn’t actually follow through on that, so they continued being delayed (or entirely missing, like this week). So. I may have to discontinue using them, and either find my own recipes and buy my own groceries, or switch to a different service. :-/ Boo.

  12. strawberries and raspberries*

    My boyfriend and I used Blue Apron for a while, but I feel like it got very repetitive and stopped being cost-effective. In December we signed up for PlateJoy, which is basically a meal plan service but you buy your own ingredients (with the help of a pantry inventory/custom shopping list), and it’s really micro-tailored to the specific diet of everyone in the household, as well as to minimize food waste. We’ve actually been enjoying it a lot- we’re saving a ton of money on groceries and both of our clothes are fitting a lot better. Blue Apron is a great primer to learn cooking technique and how to do a mis en place for more efficient cooking; PlateJoy is like the next phase of that.

    1. Elise*

      Oh, I’ll have to look into that. We did Blue Apron for a short time and weren’t the right people for it. I already cook and prefer big batch cooking that I can eat throughout the week or freeze and reheat when needed. I spent way more time preparing Blue Apron that I would on anything I personally cook and didn’t feel that the food was that much better. My money is best spent on online grocery shopping (and my food never goes to waste).

      I do think it’s a good service for couples or single people without kids who have more time to make a leisurely dinner and would otherwise go out to eat if they didn’t get Blue Apron. Or if you have magical kids who have no evening activities, can wait for dinner until 7 and aren’t picky. :)

    2. LJL*

      Thanks! My husband has a lot of dietary restrictions and oddities, so I was just wondering about that issue. i’ll check PlateJoy.

    4. DrWombat*

      Any ideas re how well that would work for someone with multiple food allergies? I’m celiac but I have other food allergies on top of it, and sometimes finding a recipe or adapting it to fit what I can eat is a lot of trial and error. This sounds tempting.

  13. Anonymous Poster*

    My wife and I like this at certain times of the year when we’re busy. Normally we aren’t big into these services, but some times of the year we’re just swamped and unable to get out and do grocery shopping. It can be a huge lifesaver.

  14. jenniferthebillionth*

    I used Blue Apron a couple of times. I loved the recipes, but I found a similar service that fits my palate and my wallet better. And, like some of the above commenters, I wasn’t getting boxes on time. So I switched.

    I do love that with both Blue Apron and my current service I can put most of the packaging in my local recycling. I donate the reusable insulation and chill packs to a local food pantry, who are happy to use them for their fresh food needs. Win-win!

  15. NewBoss2016*

    I tried Blue Apron twice (I think it was because of an add on here actually). The recipes are really good. Yeah, I could technically go out and buy all the stuff and end up with a cheaper price per serving, but it is convenient and easy to follow. The only reason I stopped my subscription was because it took me sooooo long to make a meal. The fastest I ever got done was around an hour, and some of them took me closer to 2 hours. I can normally cook pretty quickly, but I think it was trying to prepare so many things per meal that required prep work. If everything came pre-chopped, the process would be a lot quicker. I will probably try it again once I move and have more counter space.

  16. HR Recruiter*

    Everyone always has yummy looking meals! We tried it for a few months and every week the options were blah! I want these options!

  17. Else*

    I like Blue Apron – sometimes I can get things from them that are not available where I live, and I learned a lot. I’ve been sort of drifting off of it lately because I miss choosing things from a cookbook, but I’m keeping it and just picking one or two boxes every six weeks.

  18. Adlib*

    I love Blue Apron! For anyone that hasn’t gotten a box in a while, you can now pick from up to 8 different recipes. They do make a lot of dishes to wash, but with a dishwasher, it’s worth it! My friends love it since I can send them free boxes.

    I’ve always loved cooking, but I hated meal planning. I also hate shopping and love my delivery/pickup grocery options. Blue Apron just ensures I always have something in the house to cook even if I haven’t been to the store for the week. I love that I can always go back to our favorites and make them again!

    Almost all the packaging is recyclable, and there’s no waste! If I ever do have issues, their customer service is really great.

  19. DataQueen*

    I live and die by Blue Apron… on nights i don’t have it, i can’t even remember how to grocery shop for myself!! We have started recreating the recipes on our own though, at least the ones with easy to find ingredients, and it is cheaper, but for the ethnic stuff, it’s much more cost effective to do blue apron. I love the vegetarian options because i’d never think to make those things myself, and especially love the interesting fish dishes that i would never ever make otherwise.

    I want to try the other services, especially sicne they all have promotional start prices, but i can’t bear to pause blue apron because i’m looking forward to the next months’s recipes!

    1. miss_chevious*

      That’s one of the things I love about Blue Apron — I’m never going to enjoy cooking, and I’m certainly not creative enough in the kitchen to seek out some of the ethnic/vegetarian recipes on my own. Blue Apron has really broadened my palate.

  20. WellRed*

    I am going to be that person and nitpick one thing because I have a roommate who orders so much off Amazon and the amount of packaging she recycles is stunning. Soft plastic, like baggies, is often not recyclable. It’s not in my community. That said, the sweet potato quesadillas sound amazing!

    1. Victoria Nonprofit (USA)*

      Yeah. If avoiding (non-food) waste is your priority, Blue Apron and its competitors aren’t a good option for you. They work hard to limit the impact, but it’s still much much more than cooking from scratch, in bulk, with local ingredients, etc.

    2. Ellen N.*

      I don’t consider you to be nitpicking at all. I cook all of our meals from scratch and mostly shop at the farmers market.

      A friend was going out of town and forgot to cancel his Blue Apron delivery, so he offered it to me. I was horrified at the amount of packaging. Two of the recipes used butter. The butter was in two separate plactic packages. I would assume that everyone who cooks has salt and pepper so why do they send plastic packages of salt and pepper? Packaging waste is much worse for the environment than food waste as food waste is biodegradable.

      1. Cacwgrl*

        I’m surprised they included butter, salt & pepper. I’ve found this service and the two others I use assume the cook has butter, oil, S&P on hand, so I’ve never gotten that in the box.

        Actually, they do send whole pepper cloves when you’re making something as poivre, but other than that, I’ve never gotten that.

  21. Eco-gal*

    Just want to point out that single-use recyclable packaging, while better than alternatives, is still inferior to reusable containers. The process of recycling uses up water and fuel, *especially* of people are shipping materials back to the company or manufacturer.

    1. Globe Trotter*

      35,000,000 tons of food waste generated in the US every year from people not knowing how to shop or not using things in a timely fashion isn’t exactly impact free. Water, agricultural emissions, carbon footprint to get to you, agrochemicals, soil degradation, soil erosion, pollution of waterways, unethical labor practices…and all that food still comes in paper and plastic packaging with its own value chain issues and environmental impacts.

  22. JessaB*

    When they say portioned do they mean the mise en place is done or that you still need to dice, chop, grind, julienne etc. I’d only want to do something like this in order to eat fresh food but my rheumatoid arthritis has made it so that I can’t safely use knives much anymore. My fine motor control is shot, and if I want a tuna salad, I go to the store and buy a container of diced onions, less than two bucks is way cheaper than cutting my finger AGAIN. Luckily my sister the nurse practitioner has that surgical glue stuff to patch me up in like five minutes. A box of food that requires me to actually manipulate the stuff before cooking would be a no go for me.

    1. Victoria Nonprofit (USA)*

      The mise en place is not done for you; you’ll get a whole carrot, a stalk of celery, and an onion (for example).

      Some of Blue Apron’s competitors offer options with more prep work done — I think I remember Home Chef did that. (The tradeoff, for me, was that the quality of the food — the recipes, but also the raw materials — wasn’t as good.)

    2. Cacwgrl*

      You may want to look at Gobble. It’s pricier, $71 per delivery, but they do most of the prep. In my last meal, it was steak with wine sauce, roasted Brussels and mashed parsnips & potatoes. All I had to cut was the packages with scissors and the steak when it was done. And another meal only had me clean and chop some kale, which you really can do by hand tearing faster, so that’s what I did.

      I’m trying to think back through my meals with them and nothing comes to mind about needing to do chopping or dicing.

  23. Just Peachy*

    I love Blue Apron! My husband and I often buy the ingredients from a Blue Apron recipe we really liked, and remake it. I also love that you can skip weeks whenever you want. Some weeks’ choices sound better than others, so we always pick and choose what weeks we want to receive a box.

    Also, I’m seconding whoever said the sweet potato quesadillas are amazing. That recipe is now one of our favorites! So easy to make and absolutely delicious! I would have never thought to put sweet potatoes in a quesadilla beforehand.

  24. Stormy*

    Those of you who use this sort of service, can you schedule what time the food comes? Is it just Fed Ex or UPS? I’m imagining a box of chicken baking on my doorstep all day in July.

    1. Kate*

      I don’t think you can schedule what time it comes, but you can usually reschedule the day, so if you know you’re going to be away on the day it’s supposed to come, you can schedule it for a day when you’ll be home. They do pack in these like gel ice packs in a thermal pouch, so if it’s sitting on your porch for a few hours until you get home from work, I think it’s generally OK.

    2. Cacwgrl*

      When the service uses UPS, you can get in the UPS app to schedule the time or place of delivery. I live in the desert and get deliveries in the summer. The UPS guy is super cool and likes my dog, so he always drops mine in the side yard under the shade so it’s not out front in the sun in the heat all day. And those boxes still generally have the protein fairly frozen when I get home around 6. When it’s the higher triple digits, I try to take a late lunch to go put it in, but sometimes that doesn’t work out and I’ve still been ok.

  25. Jane*

    I like the idea of Blue Apron, but the reports last year about the terrible conditions in their warehouses really left a bad taste in my mouth. (Not to mention the packaging issues, covered by commenters above.) Do you know if those have improved, Alison?

  26. wem*

    I get my recipes from Taste of Home. And I have a room dedicated to my cookbooks, but I think once I find a job, I may look into Blue Apron, just to try it.

  27. Kittyfish 76*

    I tried Blue Apron once, and while I liked the food, I thought it was too time consuming. What I was hoping for was that the veggies, etc. were already chopped and measured! That is the part I dislike, the initial chopping and prepping. Otherwise, I thought the food was great.

  28. baconeggandcheeseplease*

    Completely unrelated to Blue Apron, but I’m so happy the first “you might also like” article was the one called “I had to prepare a meal and entertain 20 people for a job interview — and so did 19 other candidates.” That was wild and made Monday SO MUCH better.

  29. Elizabeth H.*

    I like the idea of getting ideas for recipes to try but I LOVE GROCERY SHOPPING so I have never wanted to do it because it would deprive me of the most fun part of the whole “store to mouth” food acquisition and intaking process. I kind of wish there were reverse Blue Apron where you could shop for food without having to cook and eat it.

    1. Kc89*

      Most people hate grocery shopping, if you’re ever looking to make some pocket change you should grocery shop for friends and family members for a small fee haha

      1. Elizabeth H.*

        That’s a good idea, ha! I don’t have the bandwith or desire to work for some organized grocery-delivery service but small scale shopping & delivery would be really fun for me.

  30. Lady Blerd*

    I’m subscibed to Canada’s answer to Blue Apron, Good Food, and I love it. I love the different recipes, getting veggies that I’d never of like daikon and, as a singleton, a three meal plan covers most of my lunches and dinners for the week. I also love they can elevate a basic meat, veggies and starch meal. I even chose a veggie meal every week to cut down my meat intake.

    I’ve learned to do a quick scan of recipes to plan out the prep and cooking to cut down time, use my mini processor when I can but I’d still add 10-15 mins to the cooking time. If I can use my own method to make something, like plain white rice, I do it my way. Anyway, I love it.

  31. RB*

    I’m skeptical that the packaging is actually being recycled, especially since China has significantly cut back on what they will accept from local recycling centers and grocery stores. This has caused the curbside rules to change.

  32. RB*

    I recently signed up for a local organic produce delivery service and I find that I’m eating a lot more veggies. It’s not a great value, however, because they load up the box with a lot of cheaper items — bananas, carrots, potatoes, onions — that would only cost about $1.00 – $1.50 per pound in stores. The box ends up costing about $4.00 per pound or more.

  33. Cyberspace Dreamer*

    Blue Apron has opened up our minds to new cooking ideas, broadened our palate and introduced us different combinations of ingredients. The wife and I have actually started buying some of the key ingredients and integrated these into our personal meals. So Blue Apron has impacted our personal shopping and cooking, which was unexpected. For example, one recipe included Yakiniku sauce which we found just delightful. Now we keep a bottle of that in our arsenal, and we also make sure we keep a nice supply of garlic on hand as well. Kale and Bok Choy are now part of our regular shopping list. Still having trouble finding sun chokes though, not going to the right stores.

    At first, we tried it weekly but that was too costly, especially since it did not completely eliminate eating out for us. So we skip weeks at a time (although I forgot last week and one order snuck through), thankfully the meals were great. Now we order when we know a certain week will be especially busy. But I appreciate the other meal plan ideas discussed. But of course YMMV.

    Happy Friday to all and to all a Happy Friday.

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