April 13, 2017
04/13/17
By Gigi C
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Blue Apron February 2017 Review + 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 February 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 Nordic Ice ice packs so it stays nice and fresh. Bonus – these are reusable – just put them back in your freezer!
The Recipes:
Meyer Lemon Bucatini – The first meal I made was on a night when my 5-year old son and I had dinner alone together. I wanted to make something I knew he would eat. This dish was inspired by a traditional Naples (Italian) recipe, spaghetti “al limone.” The bucatini pasta is a big, round noodle that soaks up the lemon butter sauce well. This was paired with a butter lettuce and radish salad. I hadn't eaten radishes in a long while so I was happy to rediscover this spicy veggie. I forgot how good they are – especially in a fresh salad. Overall the dish was great – I really liked the zesty lemon butter flavor of the pasta. It was topped with parmesan cheese. It was fun to eat and both my son and I enjoyed it.
Meyer Lemon Bucatini ingredients.
Close-up of the pasta.
The butter lettuce and radish salad.
West African Peanut Chicken – This recipe was based on the flavors of mafé, a hearty peanut stew from Senegal. The chicken was basted in a peanut sauce (including a traditional mix of spices including paprika, coriander and two kinds of peppercorn). On the side, it was paired with sauteed kale and a vinegar-infused jasmine rice which was a tart contrast to the sweet peanut flavor of the chicken. Overall I did enjoy the flavor of the peanut sauce. It's not something I would have normally picked and it was a nice change. I think it would be really good with shrimp as well.
West African Peanut Chicken Ingredients
Close-up of the peanut chicken.
The final dish
Beef Tacos & Radish Salsa – What's better than taco night? A FRESH version of taco night! This simple recipe paired tender Mexican-spiced beef and warm corn tortillas with a side of roasted sweet potato wedges kicked up a notch with some Serrano pepper, marinated with lime juice and sugar, then topped with a layer of melted Monterey Jack cheese. This was a really good dish – like gourmet tacos! We all liked this very much.
Closeup of the final dish
Final Thought: Overall we had 3 great meals. Everything was easy, fast and fun to try. Of all the recipes, the tacos were everyone's 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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