I’ve Tried Nearly Every Meal Delivery Service on the Market — Find Out if I’d Order From Blue Apron Again After a Week of Meals

For me, the allure of a meal delivery service is not only the convenience of premeasured ingredients arriving at my door but also easing the mental burden of decision-making. Plus, there’s the benefit of getting introduced to exciting meals I might not have thought to make myself. Even as a dietitian and food professional, I get tired and uninspired when it comes to planning dinner for my household, so I was excited to try Blue Apron.

I already knew of Blue Apron's reputation for asking its customers to roll up their sleeves and get cooking, so I expected to put in some work — ideally with delicious results. I was interested in using my expertise in diet and nutrition to find out what this culinary-centered service offered in terms of healthy meal options, since my perception was that it isn’t a central component of the brand's marketing. I tested Blue Apron’s meal delivery service with my household for one week. Here’s how it went.

Getting the ball rolling with Blue Apron was very simple, with a quick and easy sign-up process.

First, I chose between meal kits or prepared items. I picked meal kits, then selected my meal type preference from a list including chef’s favorites, wellness, family-friendly, fast and easy, and veggies. I opted for chef’s favorites, though I was happy to see that I still had access to the full menu and wasn’t limited to only the meals in this category.

Next, I selected my plan size, either two or four servings per meal and from two to five meals per week. I chose two servings of four meals per week, but I appreciated that this selection was flexible and could be adjusted during meal selection.

From there, I entered my payment information and moved on to meal selection.

Choosing the Meals

Blue Apron’s menu is really fun to look through, with premium options like scallops and prosciutto and eye-catching ingredients like Calabrian chiles and seasonal squashes. The menu includes about 20 meal kits each week, plus around 30 prepared meals and 10 to 15 add-on sides, proteins, breakfasts, and desserts, which rotate weekly like the menus. As a customer, I was able to preview and select meals up to four and sometimes five weeks in advance.

The menus, while on the smaller side when compared with other meal delivery services, have substantial variety in flavor profiles and ingredients. I saw pastas, noodles like udon and soba, rice bowls, burgers, seared proteins with roasted side vegetables, grain bowls, pizzas, and more. Meals tend toward a combination of comfort classics with what’s trendy. For example, melty pimento cheeseburgers, steak and cheesy homemade biscuits with roasted broccoli, and hand-cut pappardelle in spicy tomato sauce were on the same menu as tamarind honey chicken breasts, Calabrian chile shrimp and orzo, and curry lime cod.

I appreciated the wide range of protein variety, especially in the seafood department. Moving beyond just shrimp and salmon, the menu delves into cod, trout, scallops, and more. I also noticed less common ingredients like duck, pork roast, and pancetta peppered among the standard chicken, turkey, beef, and pork options. None of the ingredients I came across were entirely new to me, but there were some, like tamarind and kimchi, that I enjoy but aren’t in my regular rotation.

One of Blue Apron's unique elements is being able to select both two-serving and four-serving meals in a single week. While I didn’t take advantage of that, I did appreciate that it was available because the menus for those different serving sizes vary a bit.

As I got further into the meal selection process, I realized that choosing my plan during sign-up felt like a formality, since even though I picked a plan with a certain number of meals each week, I could always add more or order less, plus pick and choose add-ons.

Many of the meals have labels to make it easier to filter for foods for specific diets or lifestyles, such as fast and easy, wellness, 600 calories or less, carb conscious, vegetarian, 45 grams of protein, 15-minute meals, and nutritionist’s pick. Additionally, the individual meal pages display the full nutrition label with allergen information, so I could further vet a meal based on nutrition criteria.

There is flexibility with the protein type for many of the meals, with an option to add protein to a meal that doesn't have any or swap one protein for another. This seemed to be the primary way to customize the meals, but I could also double the protein, add meats like pancetta or sausage to a vegetarian pasta, swap chicken for salmon in entrées, and more.

Ultimately, I ordered the following four meal kits and two prepared meals:

• Fall Kale and Apple Salad With Roasted Squash, Chickpeas, and Goat Cheese
• Seared Salmon and Lemon-Caper Sauce With Farro, Kale, and Pickled Peppers
• Spicy Pork Sausage and Mushroom Gnocchi With Spinach
• Chicken Ramen With Kimchi, Mushrooms, and Crispy Onions
• Coconut Korma Chicken With Rice and Chickpeas (prepared)
• Loaded Beef Brisket Bowl With Honey BBQ Sauce (prepared)

Add-Ons

Blue Apron offers a variety of add-ons for weekly meal kits, though the selection is smaller than what I’ve seen with other services. Still, I was happy with the add-ons available.

Weekly menus include mostly kits to make your own sides, salads, or breakfasts, plus some family-style meals, raw proteins, and a dessert or two. I ordered the Breakfast Apple Crisp With Pecans and Greek Yogurt, which while simple, was tasty and would have been just as good for a weekend brunch as it was for my breakfast for the week.

The add-ons are a decent value, reflecting a similar price per serving as the meals, but the nutritional value varies a lot. The meals called "fresh and ready" are not the healthiest items on the menu, with sky-high sodium and saturated fats, but some are wheat-free, which the rest of the menu is a bit lacking in.

Blue Apron also has a marketplace with boxes of prepared meals, wellness meal kits, and holiday boxes. No subscription is required to access the market, so it could be a good entry point if you want to try the service but don’t want to commit to a subscription.

Just like with the regular menu, the nutritional value varies with add-ons. The wellness meal kits are more nutritious than the prepared meals or the holiday boxes, but clearly, they are designed with that in mind.

Customer Service

I needed to interact with customer service when my first order, which shipped in two boxes, only partially arrived. It was a little confusing because I didn’t know it had shipped in more than one box, and I was following the tracking information, which showed it was delayed over and over. Once I was about 24 hours past the expected delivery day and time, I figured the food was no longer viable even if it did show up, so I decided to reach out to customer service.

It was a Sunday, and the phone lines weren’t open, so I emailed and received an automated response saying it would take several days to get to my request. I decided to call on Monday, which worked out better because the issue was dealt with immediately. I had a quick conversation with a customer service rep and explained the issue. Despite receiving part of my order, I was issued a full refund, and the rep was very apologetic.

While I would have liked to handle the problem on Sunday when it was an issue for me, the resolution was ultimately satisfying, especially because the issue was related to the delivery company and not Blue Apron.

Blue Apron’s meals are well packed for temperature maintenance and security. Without a doubt, I could leave that box on my porch for hours on a hot day without a concern about spoilage. The cardboard box that held all of the meals was equipped with a liner for insulation, and all of the goods were layered inside. I received tracking information to follow my order, and it took about a week from the day I finalized my order to receive the delivery.

When I opened the box, my meal kit recipes were on top along with a sample of fajita seasoning (most shipments include an ingredient sample). Next, I found bags holding the key ingredients for each recipe, then the produce. Under that was a foil pan for heating the prepared meals. Unfortunately, our pan was warped from shipping, but it still was fine for cooking.

Underneath the foil pan was a cardboard separator, the meats, the prepared meals themselves, and ice packs for cooling. Everything, including all of the produce and ingredients, was well packed and cold on arrival and, with the exception of the baking pan, fully without issues.

Much of the packaging was recyclable, including the larger components, like the delivery box and cardboard dividers, as well as the paper products inside, like the recipes. Rigid plastics, metal cans, and bottles were recyclable curbside for us, but the plastic bags and the plastic around the gel packs for cooling were only recyclable at certain drop-off centers, not in my home recycle bin. The remaining items, like small bottles of sauces and a small bag of brown sugar, ended up in the garbage. Overall, it is a lot of packaging to contend with week to week, but Blue Apron provides guidance on how to responsibly dispose of it, and it’s only a bit more than you’d get from grocery shopping.

Cooking and Preparing the Meals

Blue Apron is not shy about putting you to work in the kitchen, and although it offers some easy and quick meals, the brand embraces the cooking process, so you should expect to juggle a few things at once. In general, don’t expect the produce to be washed and prepped, and while a lot of the ingredients for sauces come in packets, you will have to do some combining. For the recipes I chose, everything except some cooking oil was included, even the butter for the apple crisp.

None of the skills required for cooking were highly technical, and no specialty equipment was needed either. But if you’ve never seared salmon skin-side down or cut butter into flour and oats, you might find some of the instructions challenging. The ramen and salmon were the most labor-intensive meals that I ordered. Still, as someone who loves to cook, I thought the recipes were organized and provided helpful visual guidance as well as accurate cooking times. While the recipes were labor-intensive, a beginner could make them, but the process would likely take longer than estimated, since chopping and other prep can take longer when you aren't practiced.

The quicker recipes like the gnocchi didn’t even require a knife — everything could be torn by hand and put directly into the pan. These recipes were a lot of fun and still pretty hands-on, with accurate and solid instructions.

The prepared meals were microwaveable, took less than three minutes to heat, and came together easily per the instructions.

Overall, everything I ordered came out true to expectations based on the menu descriptions and photos. I was really impressed with the outcomes and can see myself ordering more challenging recipes in the future to pick up new skills in the kitchen or hone existing ones.

Tasting the Meals

Flavor is where Blue Apron meals shine, and for me, that's what sets its meal kits apart from those by other services. All of the meals I selected were dishes that I looked forward to eating and kept me excited for what I might find on the menu next week.

My favorite dish was the salmon with lemon-caper sauce. I’m not usually a seafood lover, but this tasted great and seemed like better quality salmon. It had none of the typical fish smell that I find off-putting.

I also really enjoyed the sausage and mushroom gnocchi and the chicken ramen, which were both savory and filling. My one gripe with the ramen was that the chicken was precooked and shredded into very small pieces, so it got lost in the ramen.

I generally enjoyed the kale salad. I do like meatless dishes, however, this one was lacking in the protein department, having only chickpeas. I would have enjoyed some chicken with it. I wasn’t hungry as the portion was generous, but it was less satisfying without that additional protein and savory quality.

Of the two prepared meals, I preferred the Coconut Korma Chicken With Rice and Chickpeas over the Loaded Beef Brisket Bowl With Honey BBQ Sauce. While I didn’t think the korma had coconut flavor, it was well spiced and seasoned. The sauce for the brisket, on the other hand, was too sweet for my taste.

Overall, I really liked the flavors, and even though the item from the nutritionist’s pick category (the kale salad) was my least favorite, I still thought it was tasty. I’d order all of the meal kits I got again without hesitation.

While health-focused meals are not necessarily central to Blue Apron's brand identity, it’s impossible to totally ignore health if you’re in the business of food. I’m a firm believer that you shouldn’t have to sacrifice flavor or work from an overly restrictive place to incorporate healthy eating behaviors, but Blue Apron didn't offer a lot that crossed over both healthy and delicious.

Nutrition content varies widely across Blue Apron meals, but in general, the calories range from as low as 450 to upward of 1,400 calories. Sodium also varies widely by meal, with some below 500 milligrams and others upward of 2,000 milligrams per serving. Protein seemed to be consistently high. In all, I found it hard to know what to expect from each meal, so if you are concerned about levels of nutrients like saturated fats, fiber, or really anything, reading the labels before selecting your meals is essential.

The speciality diets on offer from Blue Apron are somewhat limited, with meals that accommodate a vegetarian diet or higher protein intake, carbohydrate-conscious choices, items with moderate calories, and the nutritionist’s pick category.

The website does describe how the service defines its nutrition tags, which is helpful and not something that every company does. To review the details of the criteria on dietary tags, go to the recipe page and click on the tags themselves to get a full list.

There are both pluses and minuses to the health components of Blue Apron’s meals. The diet options available are useful in a general sense, but limitations might make the service difficult for some people, especially those who avoid specific ingredients like allergens or gluten. If you have a medically necessary diet to moderate carbohydrates or increase protein for blood sugar management, you may find options that work, but anything beyond that might be tough.

Blue Apron’s closest competitors are Sunbasket, HelloFresh, Green Chef, and Hungryroot. Sunbasket is the most similar, and it has far more diet options than Blue Apron, albeit at a higher starting price. Sunbasket has a more robust selection of add-ons but doesn’t have the punchy flavors that Blue Apron has. The menus from both services are fun and dynamic.

HelloFresh is a giant in the meal kit space. It has a far larger menu, nearly double the size of Blue Apron’s, but a lot fewer gourmet selections and a higher starting price. The portions from HelloFresh are a bit larger than Blue Apron’s, but there are fewer healthy options to choose from.

Green Chef is a health-oriented meal kit service and one of the few that is certified organic. Its kits feature whole grains and produce prominently, which is similar in some ways to Blue Apron, but the starting price is almost $4 higher per serving.

In a departure from the other meal kit services, Hungryroot is less about cooking and more about easy assembly and health-conscious options, whereas Blue Apron is not as diet oriented and requires more elbow grease in the kitchen. Hungryroot is similarly priced to Blue Apron, but the latter has among the lowest starting prices for meal kits on the market.

Blue Apron is a fit for foodies who enjoy cooking. It offers restaurant-quality meals at one of the lowest price points for a meal kit. The service is just as functional for beginner cooks who want to learn as it is for experienced culinarians who want some support with supper. Blue Apron could work for couples or smaller families with adventurous eaters who want to replace some takeout, and I’d consider the service if I wanted meal kits on a regular basis.

That said, there are some limitations in terms of who should order from Blue Apron. If you have a medically necessary diet that requires avoiding ingredients or limiting nutrients, you’re not likely to have a lot to choose from here. However, if you're just looking for Mediterranean-style eating and seasonal produce without a lot of other restrictions, Blue Apron might be a match for you.

To be clear, a lot of the meals from Blue Apron are not out to prioritize health, rather flavor is the focus. So if you want to use the service multiple days per week, be sure to review the nutrition information and select meals that are lower in saturated fat and sodium, and those that prioritize fiber and protein. If you’re interested in enjoying Blue Apron's splurge meals to replace a date night or takeout meal, then I advise ordering sporadically rather than as a nightly dinner.

The Everyday Health team of experts is conducting a thorough review of the meal delivery landscape, putting over 50 services to the test by food and nutrition experts to determine which are the best, healthiest, and most recommended for our readers.

For each review, we evaluate a service across several categories:

• Sign-up process
• Meal selection
• Delivery
• Ease of preparation and cooking
• Flavor and tastiness
• Nutritional profiles
• Pricing

Our writer Tori Martinet is a registered dietitian with over 10 years of experience in recipe development and nutrition counseling. She holds a master’s degree in nutrition and exercise physiology from Columbia University Teachers College and spent over five years in contract dining and restaurants, overseeing wellness and sustainability initiatives. She has been a food and nutrition writer since 2021 and is widely published on the topic of meal delivery as well as kitchen equipment, home cooking, and nutrition topics. She has been featured in publications like Eating Well, Food & Wine, The Spruce Eats, and U.S. News 360 Reviews.