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How we use Blue Apron to try new foods

FOOD

DISCLAIMER: This is a sponsored post brought to you by Blue Apron.  The opinions are 100% my own.

My love affair with my exotic meals continue.  And when I say exotic, I mean Ramen noodles.

Ramen was our latest meal from Blue Apron.  And it was melt in a puddle delicious.  Just look at this and try not to drool.

You just licked your laptop, didn’t you?

Go ahead.  It doesn’t have any calories that way.

That deliciousness right there with the steam coming off it is a Blue Apron meal.  Blue Apron is one of those subscription services but with chef designed meals.  The box of three meals gets delivered right to your door in a refrigerated box and it has everything already measured out for two folks to enjoy a fresh meal from quality local suppliers and artisans.

Since the food needs to stay as fresh as possible, you do need to do some prep…mainly chopping and slicing.  This time around we decided to do the Chicken Tsukune Spring Ramen.  And no…I don’t know how to say that second word.  But even though I can’t pronounce it, I licked the bowl.

Also – I gotta give credit where credit is due…Jeremy helped.  I figure he needs practice in the kitchen and this way he is introduced to the ever elusive vegetable.  Love you honey 🙂  Seriously though…LJ needed nursing so Jer jumped in and helped (with the chopping…not the nursing) and I think having the recipe card right there with detailed instructions was just the encouragement he needed.

Once the chopping is done, the cooking part doesn’t take long at all.  They say that all the meals take no more than 40 minutes to be prepared.  This one took less than that.

It was actually my first time ever making chicken meatballs and the boys LOVED them.  I knew that they would like the noodles but any time I get some protein in their bellies, I take note.  I think that is one of the many reasons I like this service…it forces me to make foods that I wouldn’t normally make.  It’s like taking a cooking class in my own home…where I can take let-it-all-hang-out breastfeeding breaks and not worry about the kids ruining someone else’s dining experience.  #flyingfoodhappens

Oh and you know how I said that each meal feeds two?  Well, we have found that most times that we can easily stretch the meals to feed our whole family.  In this case, it was very easy.

Last time I posted about this some folks voiced their concerns that it wasn’t as affordable as they would like.  I get it.  When you compare this to couponing, price shopping, and meal planning, it is more expensive.  But that isn’t how we use it.  That all requires brains.  We use it as comparable to going out to eat.  For our little family, eating out averages about $27 per meal.  Combine that with a really busy schedule and very brain-dead parents and it adds up fast.  This meal service allows us to have the same no-planning-required mentality but actually saves us money because each meal is ten bucks a person with free shipping.

And I like the fact that we are exposing the kids to meals that we just don’t normally make.  It’s cuisine that is different!

If you are interested in joining us in this eating adventure, here are some more details about Blue Apron…

  • Blue Apron delivers for two, four, or six people.
  • Available nationwide, shipping to over 80% of the country (full map of delivery zones here)
  • No commitment – you can skip or cancel the service at any time!
  • Always free shipping
  • You can get a Blue Apron cookbook
  • Each menu is between 500-700 calories per person.
  • First 250 readers will get two meals free from their first Blue Apron order!

So since I said that the food is so exotic…let’s play a guessing game.  Can you name the items in the photo above?  I got two outta five.  And that is part of our next meal 🙂

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Comments

  1. Rutabaga or kohlrabi, couscous, and cilantro? The top left item looks like morning glory seeds but I’m assuming that’s wrong… 😉

    Loved this post…I may have to try it!

  2. That looks delicious! I love seeing a little enjoying it, it can be hard to feed larger families. Sometimes the kiddos are picky or have different interests when it comes to food!!

  3. I take back my original guesses…well a few. I don’t think it’s couscous anymore…looks too small. Maybe amaranth? And the seeds are probably black sesame seeds. And I think the potato looking thing is a jicama cut in half….maybe? …

  5. Boo…they don’t deliver to the sticks in East Texas. It looks delicious! Maybe I can convince some of the big city folks to deliver a meal to me.

  9. Thank you for the recommendation! I just signed up! Maybe I’ll actually eat some real food instead of lean cuisines!!!

  11. I saw your post about this last time you posted. While I’m not about to spend $10 a person on a meal (we NEVER eat out… well… holidays and birthdays don’t count), I do LOVE blue aprons recipes. I love how they provide the recipe even if you don’t buy from them. That is SUPER cool. Since Darling and I us a food share (for produce, dairy, AND meat) we don’t always know what we will get that week for crops. It’s super nice to have a slew of great recipes to pick from that use such fresh ingredients so I’m not sitting around scratching my head and wondering if my fresh green beans will be the same amount in a can (because some recipes call for canned food, which we don’t ever have). It’s also great to have a variate of foods from different places to try and keep things changing. I think its awesome you guys love Blue ribbon so much! 🙂

  12. Parsley, cous cous, rutabaga…? That’s all I’ve got for the guessing game.

    By the way, Katie: I just discovered your blog yesterday and I must say that this is great inspiration even for a poor college grad who is trying to figure out how to make her apartment cute on a budget. I love some of your DIY projects and ideas!

  16. black sesame seed, parsley, quinoa and kohlrabi. I have no clue for the fifth one, the oval brown thing!

  20. i love guessing games! turnip, parsley OR cilantro, quinoa, black peppercorns, and what is that pale big thing? is it a block of some sort of cheese? or a horseshoe crab (i kid…i kid…). not sure?

  22. Black sesame seeds, cilantro, turnip, puffed quinoa and I’m stumped on the other one! I can’t tell if it’s flat or not. Love that you guys are experimenting with different food 🙂

  23. That meal just sold me!
    Bummer! Don’t deliver to Baton Rouge 🙁

    Looks yummy though! And convenient! Win win!!

  24. I agree that it’s not as cheap as meal planning, but going out to eat with kids is hard (and we’ve just got one). And expensive. It might be too much for us to order every week, but we might keep this going every few weeks- what a nice treat. With the 2 meal discount, our order is 3 dinners (2 meals + leftovers) for $39! We can go out for that much (or more with tip!). Thanks for the discount and I’m a little jealous of that meal- looks divine.

  27. My hubby does all of our cooking. This could be a fun way for me to help out with dinner and it not be mac and cheese.

  28. Boo, they don’t deliver to Madison, WI either! You had me all excited to hibernate with my new hubby making yummy food together. I do enjoy these posts though. 🙂

  29. I would put in my “guess” but we made that Blue Apron meal last night (seemed like a weird combo but delicious!)! I love how it has pushed my husband and I out of our flavor comfort zone!

  30. Do you find that the packaging is excessive at all? Or no more than standard grocery-ing?

  31. I ordered this as a gift for a family member based on your last post. My feedback is:

    1) They LOVED it!
    2) Food was great, they had fun making things they never would have and it helped them build a little confidence in the kitchen
    3) I liked the scheduling options (just wish you knew them before you the purchase until after)

    But…

    a) It is quite the run-around to cancel which seems totally unnecessary
    b) You cannot remove your credit card from their system, you have to request multiple times that they do it and hope that it was done, which I did not appreciate at all
    c) Customer service is not responsive in the least

    I would buy again as a gift but I would first go get a prepaid credit card in order to work around their issues.

  35. Katie, I am a little confused but not trying to be rude. Do you actually pay for your Blue Apron Subscription? If it is comped, would you actually pay for it otherwise? Most people’s first concern is the cost is unrealistic for most families, and you still have to do the preparation and clean up.

    I do really like the idea of a way of trying something different. We get in a rut of pretty much having the same dinners week after week. Then you know the recipe to repeat later on, too. I could totally see doing this one day a week to try a few new things! But then again, for most people just looking up a recipe and getting the supplies is not that big of a chore.

  36. We tried Blue Apron after your first post and while I loved the dishes, the variety and eating something I normally wouldn’t make, we hated the copious amounts of packaging. We try to compare it to a night out for us as well, but our dinners out don’t involve all that packaging. I get that the items need to be refrigerated and small bottles for liquid is necessary, but two stalks of rosemary in it’s own bag was ridiculous. There has got to be a better way. On a separate note, we also tried Plated and the packaging was a bit better but not amazing. At least it’s mostly recyclable.

  37. We have a sponsored post deal with them but we are planning on buying one to two boxes per month in the future when our deal is over…so to answer your question…yes, I would pay for it. It wouldn’t work for our family to do it every week but we do eat out a lot so the cost is more reasonable for us compared to that. I think for us, we get to the point at the end of the day where we think – CRAP, we don’t have anything ready to eat…or all the ingredients for xxx meal…but when we know we have the Blue Apron stuff, it’s all ready and it’s right there. And we can skip that feeling of ‘well, we HAVE to eat out now’. Both Jeremy and I like the convenience of someone else meal planning and someone else making sure we get all the ingredients because that is not our strength. Also, pretty much every time we go out to eat, we feel like it never goes well (kids crying, trying to escape the high chair, waiting on apple juice refills, etc.). If going to the grocery store isn’t a huge chore for you and you have access to items like a watermelon radish, then this might not be the thing for you. For me…grocery store visits are my version of hades.
    xo – kb

  42. I just got my first shipment from Blue Apron after reading about them on your site Katie. I’ve just made one meal but it was delicious! And even 7-year old Mary, said it was great!! Thanks for the tips and great photos!

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