Home » Subscription Box Reviews » Meal Subscriptions » Blue Apron Reviews » Blue Apron January 2017 Review – (week of January 20th) + 3 Free Meals

February 13, 2017 02/13/17 By Gigi C 1 Comment 1

Blue Apron January 2017 Review – (week of January 20th) + 3 Free Meals

Disclosure; I received this box for review.  This post contains affiliate links.

Guest Review Alert- Gigi!  Hi everyone – I'm back with another food box review.  I had another chance to review Blue Apron a few weeks ago.

Blue Apron January 2017 Review

Blue Apron is a meal subscription box that sends you delicious recipes and all the ingredients you need to make the dishes.  What's different about Blue Apron?  Their chefs work together with farmers to make food more sustainable, cutting out the middle man and delivering ingredients at their freshest.  This allows them to deliver top-notch recipes at a great price. Blue Apron uses:

• Farm-fresh, seasonal produce
• Meat with no added hormones
• Sustainably-sourced seafood
• …and everything else you need to create delicious, healthy meals for your family!

There are two plans, a two-person plan and a family plan.  The two-person plan is $59.94/box or 9.99 per serving.  The two-person box includes three meals for two people.  With the family box, you can choose either 2 or 4 meals (each serves 4 people).  The family box starts at $69.92/box for two recipes (8 meals) or $139.84 for four recipes (16 meals) which comes out to $8.74/meal.

When you sign up, you check all the kinds of food you like.  Each week, you will be sent meals based on your preferences.

Blue Apron ships in a big box!

First Look:

All the food is packaged in an insulated bag.

All the produce is packaged (if necessary).  The “knick-knacks” (condiments and spices for each meal) are packaged in brown paper bags.
There are two-sided recipe cards for each meal.

All the meat comes packaged under ice packs so it stays nice and fresh.

The Recipes:

Seared Chicken & Mashed Potatoes  –  The first meal I made had plenty of comfort-food appeal, perfect for a winter meal.  Buttery mashed potatoes were accompanied by a hearty sauté of cremini mushrooms and kale.  Rich crème fraîche, tangy verjus (the juice of young wine grapes), and a finishing touch of thyme brought it all together.  I really enjoyed this dish – and the cremini mushrooms were delightful.

The chicken was coated with a flour crust and seared in some olive oil to make a great, crunchy coating.

Closeup of the mashed potatoes.

The final product.

Pibil-Style Pork – I was excited to try this one because there were oranges involved!  This recipe was inspired by “cochinita pibil,” a dish of marinated, slow-cooked pork from Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula.  To replicate the flavor in a fraction of the time, the pork was briefly marinaded with lime juice and a blend of traditional spices.  The salsa was made with the cara cara orange, cilantro, scallions, olive oil and pepper.  The rice was infused with orange rind to give it a citrus kick.  This entire meal was really delicious and the orange salsa added a great flavor!

Prepping the ingredients..

Closeup of the orange salsa!

The final product

Fresh Fettuccine with Beet, Goat Cheese, & Poppy Seeds – In the Dolomite region of northern Italy, the fill ravioli with beets and serve them with a butter and poppy seed sauce – the inspiration for this dish came from these traditional flavors.  I've never cooked with beets before, so I didn't know what to expect.. they were messy, but tons of fun.  But – fair warning – they WILL stain your hands BEET red 🙂  The fettucini was cooked, the beets shredded, and then both combined to form the red flavor.  This was then topped with sauteed rainbow chard and goat cheese.  This was fun to make, but quite messy.. I think next time I'd leave out the beets – but the flavors were great.

Shredding the beets

Before adding in the color.

The final product

Final Thought: Overall we had 3 great meals.  Everything was easy, fast and fun to try.  Of all the recipes, the Pibil-Style pork was my favorite.  The recipes are simple, easy to follow with the instructions – and the recipe cards are nice to put in your recipe book when you're done so you can make them again.  All the ingredients are provided except things you should already have on hand (for all three meals I only had to provide salt, pepper, and olive oil).  Everything tasted VERY fresh and I was impressed with the quality of the produce and the meats.

I would recommend trying Blue Apron – you might discover a new recipe you can't live without!  Also, after you become a subscriber, you can skip any week in your account.   So give it a go, skip when you want and if you want to try Blue Apron, use this link to get 3 Free Meals on your 1st order (shipping charges apply).  There is no commitment – you can skip or cancel any time.

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