Meal kits are becoming more and more popular with how busy life is becoming. From full-time jobs, to studying, to handling the kids, there’s not a lot of time to both grocery shop as well as provide healthy and delicious meals. That’s where services like Blue Apron comes in handy.
Blue Apron is a meal delivery service with a vision that focuses on providing customers with high-quality and sustainable ingredients. Blue Apron partners with “sustainability experts to create better standards for growing food and raising animals”, which helps the environment, guarantees markets for farmers and delivers high-quality ingredients to chefs everywhere.
But trying new services can be intimidating. Thankfully, these Blue Apron reviews will help families everywhere figure out if this is the right fit. Between pricings, meal variations and taste, let’s see if Blue Apron is worth it for your family.
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How Does Blue Apron Work?
Blue Apron offers personalized kits that you can create that is perfectly tailored to your needs. From preferences to how many meals you want each week and serving sizes, there are several variations on how you can make your meal plan.
When ordering, you will receive the ingredients for the meals with the exact proportions, recipe cards with step-by-step instructions and pictures, as well as links for cooking tips and videos.
From top picks to nutritionist-approved recipes, all the way to kid-friendly and plant-based meals, there are several options that you can pick from.
You do have a choice at picking your own dishes that way you can make sure there are meals that are perfect for your tastebuds. And they do offer some amazing add-ons like cookies or Heat & Eats, which are just frozen meals.
How Much Does Blue Apron Cost?
You have the option of having 2 to 5 meals sent to you per week, with a serving size of 2 or 4. For five meals a week with 4 serving, it’ll cost about $170.79, but for only 2 meals a week at 2 servings, it’ll be $69.95. This breaks down to about $8-$10 per serving.
They also provide wine deliveries that can be included in your box for those that want a more fine-dining experience. For a monthly shipment of six 500ml bottles, it’ll be an additional $69.99 a month.
Is Blue Apron Good for Diets or Restrictions?
Another great reason why meal services have become so popular is that it helps bring balanced meals to those struggling to stick with diets or having trouble finding meals with their dietary restrictions. So, is Blue Apron good for this?
The services seem to cater more towards omnivores and vegetarians, according to Healthline. For those that have food allergies or intolerances, there aren’t many options. And there are no options for those that are gluten-free, vegan, paleo or keto, which is frustrating.
Some dietary needs that Blue Apron is suitable for is vegetarian, diabetes-friendly, low carb-conscious, 600 calories or less meals, Mediterranean diet, Weight Watchers approved and plant forward which only has small amounts of meat and fish.
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Blue Apron Meal Reviews
Of course, one of the biggest factors for purchasing a meal is if it’s tasty. What are customers saying about Blue Apron’s food?
Healthline tried two of their meals and thought it was fresh ad tasty. While a lot of the ingredients came loose in the box and not packaged separately, they thought it was still fresh and high-quality ingredients. They did mention that the meal did take a bit longer to cook and there was quite a bit of multitasking, so it might not be as simple as what was advertised.
Is Blue Apron Worth the Price?
This is really dependent on what you’re trying to get out of it. If you’re trying to find an affordable solution to easy dinners, this might not be for you. But if you’re trying to find a way to have more date nights, or fun and exciting activities with your kids, this could be a great solution.
While customers have said that Blue Apron is much more expensive than normal meals, several have said it was worth having the experience. One customer said to Six Figures Under it was “like a private cooking lesson where we got to eat a restaurant-quality meal.”
The portion sizes are also a factor. The maximum serving size that you can request is 4, but even that might not be enough for your family. Several families eat more than the suggested serving sizes, which means you might need to make more side dishes or have a late-night snack. It might be a better choice for those that have a smaller family or two or are just by themselves.
Comparing to Other Meal Delivery Services
As of right now, Blue Apron does not hold up well compared to other services. It seems like HelloFresh is holding up as one of the top meal delivery services. Blue Apron is a couple of dollars more expensive than services like Hello Fresh and Dinnerly per serving and shipping.
Blue Apron also has the least amount of customization options as well as diet-friendly options compared to other brands such as Hello Fresh, Green Chef, Home Chef, Sunbasket and Dinnerly.
In Conclusion
Currently, Blue Apron is not accredited by the BBB and holds a D- rating. On Trustpilot, the company has a 4.1 with over 5,500 reviews.
Several reviews have mentioned billing issues, and others saying they had missing ingredients or moldy ingredients. Other customers raved about the service and rated it five stars for not only the quality, but for the experience.
In conclusion, if you’re looking for an interesting experience without minding the budget, this is a great option. But for those that are on a tight budget, have a big family, or have dietary restrictions, this is not the meal delivery service for you.
