I previously reviewed the three meals I ordered from Hello Fresh, so when a friend of mine was offering a free box of Blue Apron, I figured I would give it a shot. Once I received the email, I started going through the site to see what options I was going to have. This time around, I opted for the two meals for four people. I figured this would give Mom and I some left overs and we could see if this was a better option. After selecting the program the site takes you to the are where you can pick out your meals and I was kind of disappointed when there were one four options. My mom is a very picky eater, so I can immediately tell when there is something that she won't eat. I picked the two meals I thought she would be okay with and all I had to do was wait for the box to arrive.
The system is set up a lot like Hello Fresh, where the box is delivered with all of the ingredients you need, but I didn't like the fact that the ingredients weren't all bundled together by meal. The one thing I loved about Hello Fresh, besides the meals, was the organization of the boxes. Each meal comes in its own separate bag and is labelled. With this, I had to pull out the menu cards and sort the ingredients into each meal.
Blue Apron Box
The inside contents of the box
I didn't wait very long to make the first meal and it was Chicken Souvlaki. I picked this meal because it looked like chicken gyros and the photo just made it look tasty. I gathered all of my ingredients from the fridge and started following the recipe card. The one down side to this meal, and I don't know if it is all Hello Fresh meals, but I feel like two people need to be in the kitchen to make these recipes. I felt like I was constantly running around my kitchen trying to make sure everything was being cooked correctly and nothing would be burnt. The total amount of time for this meal was longer than the Hello Fresh meals, as it took about 45 minutes to make. In the end, the dinner was delicious and Mom and I had enough left overs to take to work the next day. Check out the steps of the meal, and the final product, below:
The recipe card for Chicken Souvlaki!
All of the ingredients!
Roasting the potatoes!
The veggies and sauce
Cooking the chicken
Everything is ready, we just need to make our plates.
The final product, I should've put more chicken on it.
Beyond the feeling of running all over the place while trying to cook this meal, the taste was great and it wasn't on overfilling meal. The potatoes as the side just made it the perfect amount of food. I will definitely keep this recipe card and make this meal again. My second meal is a steak dinner, so I know Mom will be super excited to have that one! Meal two review will be coming next!