What are your thoughts on services like Blue Apron that send you ingredients and recipes for meals? I've had Blue Apron for a while now and while it's too expensive to get every week we'll usually opt in for a shipment once a month. I've actually gotten quite a few really good recipes that we make often and I learned a few things about different ingredients and cooking styles from it.
tl;dr Blue Apron is cool and very delicious
yes
no
It was actually one of their recipes that finally got my fiancee to start eating onions. She used to avoid them like the plague, much to my chagrin, but one of the recipes had a good grilled onion and fennel side dish and she fucking adores onion now. Thank you based Blue Apron
It's an awesome idea, but I wouldn't pay for it. Also I hear some people get ingredients that have gone off.
I've purchased similar set meals at farmer's markets before. I feel like that's a better option than hoping some mail-order company isn't sending you bad ingredients.
My mom got me a year's worth of meals from Plated for my birthday
I've yet to have any off produce/meats and everything has been edible
It's nice for learning new ways to handle things you might be stuck in a rut on
I ordered from homechef once. They had some Facebook discount for 50% off so I said why not to getting a week of groceries for nada.
The recipes are clear, easy, and taste honestly great.
I wasn't expecting it to be anything from a Michelin star restaurant but the quality of food is A+.
Upside: if any of the food is spoiled - you can contact them and they will refund you for that meal.
Downside - they are relatively small meals? Usually around 400-600 calories. Which is great if you're trying to lose weight. (Could feel small because dinner is the only time I eat) so I generally cook an additional side.
The whole meal is portioned out exactly as much as you need so it's pretty hard to fuck up.
10/10. Would order again
>$ 0.10 has been added to your account
It's an entertainment product. It's too expensive and time consuming to be considered a convenience. It's kind of fun and tasty if you want to cook new interesting things but are lazy about finding recipes online. The packaging is stupidly wasteful. You're probably a viral marketer
>$ 0.10 has been added to your Veeky Forums account
what a clever poster
>It's an entertainment product. It's too expensive and time consuming to be considered a convenience.
This.
Blue Apron already had their Billion dollar Unicorn valuation dropped and the next round of funding might drop them even more.
Blue apron is a novelty product fun for a weekend cooking experiment.
If I wanted daily meals, there are 20 other internet food options that are pre-made and ready to eat.
>You're probably a viral marketer
Whats wrong with this? Blue apron and most food startups rely HEAVILY on viral marketing to take off...
They span the shit out of every cooking forum. It's free advertising for them.
my mum's been getting gousto recently. i think it's a temporary thing, but she has clearly learned from it.
>Whats wrong with this?
cuz the Soylent shill isn't far behind
I don't like them.
1) too expensive
2) you get stuck with the menu choice they send you, rather than being able to cook what you want, or being able to take advantage of what's on sale, or what happens to be of unusually good quality. I prefer to go to the market and choose what's a good deal or whatever looks really fresh/nice
3) Even if you happen to like the menu choice they send you, you don't get to choose the specific ingredients. If I want carrots for a dish then I want to be able to choose the specific carrots I'm buying out of the market bin. I don't want someone else to grab them at random.
>Whats wrong with this?
You don't seem to know what Viral Marketing is. You're confusing plain 'ol shilling with actual viral marketing,
>You're confusing plain 'ol shilling with actual viral marketing,
How else do you think virals start? Somebody has to shill first before the customers start shilling to each other.
>How else do you think virals start?
They're deliberately created as a tie-in in something that you would share to your friends, like a funny video or picture.
One of my favorite things to do is find a recipe and get what I need from the store that day.
This would take that joy away and has to cost an arm and a leg.
I enjoyed it for a while to try out new recipes, and play with spices I'd been curious about but never got around to. Once they started repeating the recipes, it was too expensive for ingredients I can get much cheaper so I un-subbed but still make versions of the meals they introduced me to.
The worst part of it though is that it was my GF's first experience cooking, and now she can't break the habit of prepping all the ingredients, and putting each into its own cute little bowl, like on the picture of the recipe. Swear to God it takes me longer to do all the dishes than it takes her to cook anything now because of those little shits.
>2) you get stuck with the menu choice they send you, rather than being able to cook what you want,
Not entirely true, they let you pick what meals you want to make.
The rest of it, I kind of agree with.
OK, fair enough. You do get to pick. But you get to pick from a limited list of what they happen to offer.