Blue Apron

Blue Apron has been really good. We haven't had any missing ingredients. I have a subscription for 3 meals for 2 people a week and the portions are usually just right. If it doesn't work for you, you can always add extra chicken or potato like we had to when we had someone over for dinner.

Blue Apron always has delivered us high quality ingredients with a clear and detailed step by step color recipe page. Most of the recipes I have never made before so it is a treat to true something new, especially if you enjoy cooking like I do but never have the time to research recipes and make sure you have all the ingredients on hand. Most of the meals do have green vegetables so for families with kids (ours are all grown up) you may want to make sure they are not picky eaters.

I first tried Blue Apron last month with a  Groupon I purchased for 3 x 2-person meals. I am on week 4 and I am always excited to get our next delivery and have enjoyed the meals I have cooked from their recipes and ingredients.

I do have a few small issues though. I bought the Groupon for the week of meals and I didn't realize that I would need to signup for a subscription at Blue Apron before I could get the meals. Customer service told me I could cancel as long as I did it before being billed for the next weeks meals. So I thought that was okay but still it required an extra step for me. I understand their logic behind it to retain customers but if you are trying to get people to try the service it would be good if they allowed you just to order one week's worth of meals with out the subscription. I almost didn't try it for this very reason.

The packaging Blue Apron works well and keeps the meals cool even if left out for a number of hours which happened to me when I was away. I wish the packaging wasn't as wasteful in terms of the cold packs, insulation, plastic bottles, and plastic wrap but everything for the most part is recyclable.

Where Blue Apron really stands out though is the recipes and ingredients. The meats and vegetables sent are of high quality and fresh and the recipes are very tasty.  I was getting bored with my own cooking as I found it difficult to find recipes I like. In the 4 weeks I have been using Blue Apron I haven't had a meal yet that I didn't really enjoy.

I used a Groupon and signed up when Blue Apron had a $30 deal. The meals I received where awesome but the shipping by FedEx is a bit of a pain. FedEx only comes around my neighborhood at a specific time which means I would have to rush home from work to be on time to  get the delivery. In a few cases I was minutes from missing the delivery which is not good as I don't want the box sitting ins some warehouse over night just because I wasn't home for the delivery.

Other than that the food has been fresh and I always have gotten the ingredients I needed for the meals (I have read other reviews of some people missing ingredients). I really enjoy most of the recipes but would like to see a few more options every week to add a bit of variety.

I find these meal kit services a little expensive. I don't mind paying for the meals as they are good but it is only me and my husband. If I had kids I would think twice about spending so much.