For many years, blue apron is one of my favorite meal kits Of the dozens I tested. it was number 1 inch Our Buying GuideAnd my colleague Adrienne So also served it's its own love letterI recently re-tested the service to make sure our coverage was up to date, and I'm disappointed to announce that, while it's still a good meal kit subscription service, Blue Apron is now my top choice. Not there.
I still think it has its merits and I wouldn't call it “bad” by any means. Having content shipped to your door is undeniably convenient, because who really like it Going grocery shopping? And the dishes I've tasted have mostly been good. But I had some issues during this period of testing that lead me to believe that other services may be a better use of your time and money.
a fly in my soup
Photograph: Laurin Strampe
After talking to the lovely PR folks at Blue Apron to begin a round of re-testing, they confirmed my recipe: Sour Cherry-Dijon Chicken, Chimichurri Shrimp, autumn harvest grain bowls, Southwestern Style Egg BitesAnd Double Chocolate CakeOnly three of the five were actually cookable upon arrival.
It started with eggs that were packed inside my shipping box, which broke and coated everything inside. I washed everything and put it in my fridge. There's no use crying over broken eggs or whatever the old saying is. That night, I cooked a chicken dish, which was mostly delicious, except that my chicken had a flaw called “”.Spaghetti Meat” – a muscle abnormality that causes chicken breast to appear soft and stringy, like spaghetti. This is usually not obvious on the outside of the meat (it was not in my case), but when cooked these internal strings become tough and alter the texture of the finished dish, making it more fibrous. I discovered the abnormality only after slicing a cooked chicken breast, if the instructions had already said to shred the protein – for example, if the breast Be a butterfly in – But since I was cooking it whole, I didn't realize the problem until dinner was served.
I know it's foolish to expect a meal kit service to deliver the highest quality butcher-grade pieces of meat, and despite its distaste, I ate it. My chicken was much tougher and tougher than it would have been without any blemishes, but the “spaghetti meat” is still safe to eat. It is less tasty. And despite that problem, the rest of the meal was great. I reached out to the PR people and mentioned it, because if I were a paying customer I would do the same with customer service. They said they would send two replacement meals-Pork Schnitzel and Pancetta-Potato Saladas well as Beef over curry-spicy rice(For customers, if a problem arises, Blue Apron usually offers a credit toward your next box or order.)