Blue Apron is a company that delivers pre-portioned ingredients and matching recipes, similar to Home Chef, HelloFresh, and Plated—basically a weekly meal-kit service. Each week it offers different specialty recipes, mostly creative Western dishes. This time, I decided to try it thanks to a TopCashback moneymaker deal.
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About the Blue Apron Moneymaker Deal
This time, TopCashback launched a limited-time Blue Apron offer that gives $25 cash back. Combined with a Blue Apron email offer, you can get $40 off. So the first shipment only costs $20 (original price $60 - $40), and you can get $25 cash back. If you are a new TopCashback user, you can also activate the $10 sign-up bonus. Basically, you get two boxes of three meals each for free, plus make $15. Awesome. For the detailed steps, see:
I had ordered Blue Apron once before, but back then I forgot to go through TCB, which felt like such a waste. This time I used a different account and ordered again, since it was a moneymaker anyway. My delivery was scheduled for 10/11, and this week’s default three meals were: a U.S.-style roujiamo, spicy chicken with radish, and pan-seared salmon with vegetables.
Actually, creative Western food doesn’t look all that different from Chinese food.
Blue Apron Unboxing Experience
- Yesterday I saw a FedEx notification saying the ingredients shipped from Texas, and this morning they were already at my doorstep. It felt so fresh
- After opening the box, the top layer was the detailed steps for making these dishes. If you want, you can also watch the step-by-step video on the official website
- The cooking instructions are illustrated with text and pictures on the back. You can think of it as doing a middle school chemistry experiment
- Inside the box, everything was tightly wrapped in insulated foil
- After opening the foil, a blast of cold air came out, and the top layer was vegetables
- After taking out all the vegetables, a big bundle of something unidentifiable appeared
- It turned out to be a huge bag of ice. Under the ice were the meat and seafood ingredients, and under those was yet another big bag of ice. It was incredibly heavy, which explains why the box felt so cold the moment I opened it.
- My habit is to group the ingredients by recipe and then put them in the fridge. This salmon looks pretty good.
- And here is a photo of all the ingredients together
Cooking Experience
Blue Apron’s recipes are very simple. You just follow the steps one by one. One of the tricky parts of cooking is getting the amount of seasoning and the ratio of each ingredient right, but you don’t need to worry about that at all. Blue Apron not only pairs all the sides for you, but even the seasonings for each dish are pre-measured and packed into small bottles or little bags.
The cooking steps are very clear. If you still have questions, you can log in to your Blue Apron account directly, where there are videos that can answer some of them.
Basically, almost all the seasonings you need are included. The only things you may need to prepare yourself are salt, black pepper, and water. Sometimes it also uses cups as a measurement for the amount of water to add. If you don’t have one, just estimate it roughly.
Finished Dish Showcase
Since this batch of ingredients arrived after lunch, I could only cook them for dinner. If the results turn out well, I’ll update with photos later. For now, here’s the finished dish from a previous Blue Apron box.
