Does dinner time stress you out? Are you too busy to meal plan and shop for every meal, yet you want home-cooked dinners? I’ve found something that lets me provide home-cooked meals for my family with less stress! Let me tell you about Blue Apron.
Blue Apron is a meal delivery service. You all know how much I love all the different subscription services that are available today. From clothes to kids’ activities, I’ve enjoyed this trend. Blue Apron was no exception.
Blue Apron offers farm-fresh ingredients, sourced from smaller, family owned farms, with the step-by-step recipes, delivered right to your door. The fresh ingredients are perfectly portioned for you, so there’s no waste and it makes preparation easier.
Even though I love the way Blue Apron makes dinner time less stressful, there is more to this company than that. I am impressed with Blue Apron’s commitment to sustainability. They are focused on sustainable fishing and farming practices and the ethical treatment of animals. Where my food comes from is important to me, and they’ve taken care to source their food well. Please check out their mission page to read more about it.
I also have to talk about their recycling program, which is great. If your community doesn’t have recycling, you can return 100% of your meal packaging to them for recycling and reuse. They’ve partnered with the USPS to use existing delivery routes, so there’s no additional carbon footprint to your return.
Let’s get to the food, shall we? You’re probably wondering how the meals were. We tried two meals from the family plan, which were four servings each. They did not disappoint: both were fabulous.
The first was Seared Sirloin Steaks with Roasted Potatoes, and “Creamed” Kale. 
One of my favorite things about the service was having perfectly portioned dinners. Sometimes Tim and I overeat at dinner when we have leftovers. We just eat it because it’s there. My parents actually tried Blue Apron also and my dad lost weight during the time they were using the service for this reason. It has built-in portion control.
I loved how each ingredient was already measured. This meal took about 10 minutes to prep and then 25 minutes to cook. 
The large recipe card gives easy to follow, step-by-step instructions.
The final dish? Oh my. So good! My favorite was the kale. I’d never prepared kale that way, and now I will make it like this over and over. 
My kids love steak and potatoes, so this went over very well. The kale was more tricky to get them to try as they have never accepted cooked greens. Meghan tried it, but Luke wouldn’t. He ate everything else on his plate, though.
I’m always happy when there are smiles at the dinner table. Even if he has a cowlick that won’t stop and closes his eyes when he smiles. Every. Single. Time.
Meghan gave the meal a thumbs up!
The second meal was Star Anise & Soy-Glazed Cod with Gai Lan and Cashew Brown Rice.
This was fun because I’d never cooked with star anise before. I love learning about and trying new ingredients! 
Blue Apron is a great way to get out of a cooking rut and try new things. In this meal alone we had a fish I rarely buy, a green I didn’t know about, and a spiced I’d never cooked with before. I love that!
Every Blue Apron meal takes 40 minutes or less to prepare. This one was right around 40 minutes.
It was another winner! The flavor of the cod was amazing.
One of my biggest reservations about trying Blue Apron was not knowing if the kids would go for the meals. Even though this was a meal with three foods that are not on their favorite list, it was a great experience and I got them to taste the foods. I actually got Meghan to eat the fish; she’s getting much better about eating new foods. Luke is still hesitant, but slowly he is coming around.
I figure if you only stick to your kids’ favorites, they’ll never expand their preferences. Blue Apron is great for helping your kids try new foods and expand their taste preferences. I presented the meals like “tasting adventures” and that made it fun and interesting for them.
Blue Apron offers a large selection of recipes and are adding new ones every week! We are going to start using Blue Apron bi-monthly. I can’t tell you how nice it was to have two of my meals for the week planned and the ingredients ready for me. It really took some stress away from dinner time.
If you would like to try Blue Apron, they have generously offered to give the first 50 readers who respond two free meals on their first order! Just click here to redeem this offer.
This post is sponsored by Blue Apron; all opinions are my own.
I have looked up Blue Apron before and the price is ASTRONOMICAL!!!!! I can usually make a HEALTHY non-processed dinner for my family of 2 adults and 3 children, use meat AND have leftovers often for $10….maybe $15 if I splurged. The price of a single, minuscule meal on Blue Apron that would leave ALL of my family members hungry and snacking in an hour is nearly $40! It’s just insane and totally not even remotely affordable! (at least for me and my family!)
You are definitely paying for the convenience, but it’s still less than take out. Do you price out your homemade dinners? I have never done that, so I’m not sure what they cost exactly. I would guess that our meals with meat are definitely more than 10-15 dollars. I’ll have to price them out sometime though.
I don’t price out every meal but whenever i do I am never over $15 for an entire meal that will include leftovers. For us, we live in a Chicago suburb, all our take out would be between $30 and $40 and again, would feed the family of 5 and most likely include leftovers. The service from Blue Apron looks yummy and fun but wouldn’t be a good fit for our family.