Blue Apron Subscription Box Review & Coupon – April 2016

Blue Apron is a subscription box for making great meals at home.  If you’re like me, you periodically find yourself in a serious cooking rut.  You make the same things every week, but the thought of researching a recipe and acquiring all of the ingredients is just too much work.  Blue Apron is the solution!  Each week, Blue Apron sends you a refrigerated box with all the fresh ingredients you need to make the included recipes.  You can select the 2-person plan–3 meals a week of 2 portions each–or the family plan–2 to 4 meals a week of 4 portions each.  The menus are set, but you can ask Blue Apron to avoid ingredients you don’t eat–shellfish and lamb, in my case.

We got the Family Plan for 2 meals.  I set the delivery date and it arrived right on time, securely packaged in a heavy-duty box.  All of the ingredients are wrapped in an adorable insulated blanket and cooled with ice packs.  Mine took a day to arrive and sat on my porch for 3 hours, and everything was perfectly cool inside.

The meat is at the bottom, surrounded by still-frozen gel ice packs.  I didn’t worry for one second about the temperature of the food.  It was cold to the touch when I pulled it out.  Most of the packing materials (and there are a lot) are recyclable or reusable.

The first recipe in our box was the Asparagus Fontina Quiche.  This is a great seasonal recipe for spring.  As you can see, everything is included, even a wee box of milk.  Unfortunately, the pie crust was packed on the side of the box in such a way that it could (and did) get damaged in transit.  It was still useable, but considering that the eggs were packed two to a super-secure box, I’m surprised there wasn’t a better way to pack the crust.

Other than the pie crust, all of the ingredients were super fresh and in great condition.  Blue Apron does a great job of sending you just the amount you need for the recipe, so you don’t waste anything; nor do you have to think about how much to add to the recipe.  Easy peasy.

Each recipe comes with these easy-to-follow instructions.  Even if you are new to knife skills, you will be able to do everything on this list.  This recipe understated by a fair bit the amount of prep time that would be required.  Unless you are Masaharu Morimoto or have a sous chef, it will take longer than the stated 15 minutes to chop all of the ingredients for this quiche.  My sous chef was not very helpful:

As with prior recipes, however, the prep is straightforward and the directions were clear.  Just give yourself some extra time on this one.

I might have been a little grouchy by the time I finished chopping those gorgeous spring veggies, but the smell from the oven made it worthwhile.

The quiche might have gotten a little bent coming out of the pan, but it was DELICIOUS.  Even my spring-vegetable-averse husband agreed that it was really good.  There was plenty left over to have the next night.  On to the next recipe!

I love a stew, and I love the smoky/spicy/sweet flavor of pozole.  Kale is not my favorite, but I feel like I should eat it, and buried under tomatoey goodness is a great way to have it.  Obviously, I was excited to try this recipe!

Blue Apron partners with farmers who practice sustainable agriculture and treat their animals humanely.  The ground pork in this recipe was antibiotic-free and vegetarian fed.  Like the salmon quiche, the recipe card had straightforward instructions that were easy to follow.

The avocado in the box was rock-hard, unfortunately.  No way to use that in a recipe unless you’re going to wait 4 days to let it ripen.  What to do with the lime quarters I wasn’t using on the avocado?  Sounds like a G&T is called for:

The other ingredients were in great shape.  The canned tomatoes were top-quality, and everything was fresh and well-packaged.  The stew was pretty quick to put together.

This is one gorgeous stew.  It was really tasty, spicy but not too spicy, and different enough that you feel like you could order this at your favorite Latin restaurant.  I would eat kale all the time in this format.  It made TONS, so we had leftovers galore the next day.

So, overall, we were happy with our box this month.  There were a couple of hiccups with the pie crust and the avocado, but neither appreciably affected the quality of the meals.  It was really fun, and got us out of our boring dinner routine.  Honestly, you can forget how fun cooking can be, and we were reminded of that this week.  Interesting ingredients, easy recipes, and delicious food.  What more could you want?  We can’t wait to see what we get next time!

Visit Blue Apron to subscribe or find out more! Save $20 on your first order! Use this link – no coupon code required!