Originally Posted by
SanDiego1K
Blue Apron - tried this first, thought it was good, but now that we have tried others it is unlikely we will return to it. You get the ingredients for the 3 meals intermixed in a box with a separate bag for the seasonings for each of the meals. The meat is frozen. We only cook with fresh meat. While you are shown 6 choices, once you make your first choice, a couple of the choices are removed as options.
The first who introduced me to Blue Apron (who also coincidentally introduced me to FT) told me that he's called to complain about the fact that you can't pair some meals with others. Apparently -- and I'm paraphrasing --
BA has done big data analysis about how people select meals, and know that people who pick one vegetarian meal are likely to pick three vegetarian meals, and plus other combos are likely to be picked together, so their assembly lines are set up so certain dishes can't be selected together. Or something like that. But I agree, that's one of my least favorite parts about BA. (The other thing that annoys me: The fact that the nutrition info isn't included on the recipe card but rather on a separate piece of paper that also has the ingredient list. I staple the nutrition info/ingredients to the recipe card, because if you're remaking a recipe at a later date, knowing that you need a teaspoon of "Cajun spice mix" isn't very useful.
HelloFresh - at the moment, this is our favorite. All ingredients other than meat come in one box. Pull that box from the refrigerator, find the corresponding protein, and begin to cook. The meat is fresh, not frozen. And we can get Tuesday delivery.
I feel as if each service excel in different areas. I didn't particularly like the box system (we don't necessarily have room in our fridge for three boxes), but one of the services I tried (Green Chef, I think) has color-coded stickers on each ingredient that correspond to a color on the recipe card, which I thought was clever.