Thank you to Blue Apron for sponsoring this post!
Hi friends! As you guys know, I first tried Blue Apron last November for a blog review. Matt and I loved it so much that we purchased a bunch of boxes in the following months on our own dime! Clearly we’re big fans, so I was really excited when they reached out recently about continuing our partnership. 🙂 Check the end of the post for a discount code, if you’re interested in trying them out, too!
As a reminder, Blue Apron is a nationwide company that sends a box of fresh, pre-portioned ingredients and accompanying recipes to your door every week. No grocery shopping, no meal planning, no searching for recipes – all you have to do is make it!
There are two plan options – the 2-person plan and the family plan. The 2-person plan, which is what we have always gotten, sends you a weekly delivery with the ingredients to make 3 meals. Each meal serves two people and you pay $9.99 per person per meal. You can choose from six recipes each week. The family plan was made for feeding a family of four – you’ll get either one or two deliveries per week (up to you), each delivery consisting of two meals to be served family style. The cost is $8.74 per person per meal. With both options, shipping is always free.
The recipe ingredients are delivered in a refrigerated box, so the food will stay fresh even if you aren’t home when it arrives. Ours was delivered in the afternoon and neither of us got home until 10 p.m. – it was all still cold and fresh!
So, what do Matt and I love most about Blue Apron? First and foremost, that we don’t have to spend time picking out a recipe, going to the store, potentially wasting unused portions of ingredients, etc. It’s so convenient and really takes the stress out of the whole “what should we make tonight?” situation. And second, we really love how creative the recipes are! We find ourselves cooking a lot of the same things over and over, so Blue Apron is an awesome way to make us mix it up.
Blue Apron has a huge selection of recipes and adds new dishes to their menus every week, so it’s definitely not the same stuff over and over. All the meals we’ve tried from them have been really different! We also love the unique ingredients that their chefs utilize. For example, so far Blue Apron has introduced us to furikake, to mulligatawny soup, and now, to pea tips!
I love their introductory letters that elaborate on the recipes and ingredients, too. You can tell how passionate they are about their food! This week we learned from the intro letter that pea tips, or fava leaves, are the mild edible leaves of the same plant that produces fava beans. Theirs are distributed by a company called Interrupcion, which provides support for small, organic family-run farms. The organic pea tips we received were apparently from BonPack Organic, a small sustainable family farm. Love it!
Last week we received the ingredients to whip up three new delicious meals. The first one we tried was the Spiced Turkey Meatball Pitas.
We both loved these – simple and flavorful! We especially enjoyed the Greek yogurt cucumber sauce. Perfect combo! The lemony side salad was great, too.
Next up was Pan-Seared Steaks with Green Peppercorn Sauce and Roasted Fingerling Potatoes. I’d forgotten how awesome peppercorns are – yum!
We had some asparagus on hand to use up so we threw that into the mix, too. Loved the purple potatoes!
Mmmmm. Who needs a steakhouse?! 🙂
Our last meal was a Lemon & Black Pepper Shrimp with Fresh Linguine di Cavolo. Loved that the pasta was freshly made – and that it contained kale! How cool! Fresh pasta is SO much tastier than store bought.
We really loved all the bright lemon zest flavor in the pasta dish. This was actually my pre-race meal the night before the Cherry Blossom 10 Miler – clearly it fueled me up well! 🙂
I hope you guys will consider giving Blue Apron a shot! It’s such a fun way to mix up your cooking while learning new techniques and tips that you can utilize later, too. It’s available nationwide, shipping to over 80% of the country (click here for a full map of delivery zones). There’s no commitment, and you can skip or cancel the service at any time! To sweeten the deal, the first 100 readers to sign up using this link will get two free meals on their first Blue Apron order. I’ll be sharing a few more reviews this year as part of my ongoing partnership with them, but plan to continue to buy deliveries in between on our dime as well.
Happy cooking, friends! And if you’re looking for some recipe inspiration, check out the Blue Apron website – they have a TON of awesome recipes on there. I want to try the Matzoh-Crusted Chicken with Orange, Fennel, and Golden Beet Salad (sounds amazing, right?) and the Lentil-Crusted Salmon with Spinach-Yogurt Dahl and Apricot Chutney. Apparently I’m really into crusted protein lately! 🙂
