Best Food Set: Blue Apron Vs Hello Fresh Vs Plate
Food subscription services like Blue Apron, Hello Fresh, and Plated bring fresh ingredients to your door every week, saving you the time and hassle of meal planning and grocery shopping. But are they worth it? Here’s a look at how these services work and how they compare to each other.
What are food subscription services?
These services (sometimes called “meal kit delivery” services) allow you to select meals each week and then deliver recipes and pre-portioned ingredients on a weekday of your choice so you can easily prepare quality meals at home. They are like a combination of meal planning, grocery shopping and recipe finder apps all rolled into one.
These services naturally cost more than just meal planning and grocery shopping, and more than just ordering food, but these services combine convenience with, sometimes, cooking training. Plus, all meals are portion-adjusted (so you don’t waste food and can keep an eye on your waistline).
If you enjoy cooking and trying new meals but often don’t have the time to plan and prepare all of your meals, one of these food subscription services might be for you. I have been using Blue Apron from time to time for over two years and Hello Fresh for about a year, and have also ordered several times from Plated over the past year. Let’s compare.
Costs
This is probably the first question that pops into people’s minds when it comes to these services. Prices are the same for everything, from $ 9 per person for lunch to $ 12 (including shipping).
Blue Apron has two tariff plans: a subscription for 2 and 4 people, both with three meals a day. The 2 person plan is $ 59.94 per week ($ 9.99 per person) and the family plan is $ 139.84 per week ($ 8.74 per person).
Hello Fresh costs a bit more, again with 2 and 4 person subscription options and 3 meals per week. The 2 person plan is $ 69 per week ($ 11.50 per person) and the family plan is $ 129 per week ($ 10.75 per person).
Plate prices are based on the number of plates you order, with a minimum of 4 plates per order / week. Most of them cost around $ 12 each, so by comparison, an order for 2 people with 3 meals would cost $ 72 per week. However, you can order a minimum of two plates for two, for a total of $ 48. Plated also offers some specialties (such as filet mignon or fried scallops), which can cost up to $ 30 per dish.
By now, depending on your eating habits, you might be thinking either “Holy scallops are expensive” or “I still spend so much on takeout.” I have been to the Scallop Saint Camp but one thing to keep in mind is that the ingredients are locally sourced and organic if possible, and these products are also more expensive in the grocery store.
Depending on where you live, when you consider that grocery delivery charges are often around $ 7-10 per delivery, and meal planning services cost around $ 6-8 per month, the $ 10 per person price is actually not so bad. (Big Mac lunch at McDonald’s costs $ 7.45, in my opinion, in the woods, and these dishes are significantly tastier and better for you.)
Winner: Blue Apron. Per person, Blue Apron is the lowest cost per meal.
Power options and flexibility
Part of the fun of using these services is discovering new recipes and ingredients, but having a choice of food is also beneficial, especially if your family has picky eaters, food allergies, or special diets (these services offer both vegetarian and omnivorous food). All three allow you to preselect meals and view recipes, but some are more flexible than others.
For example, Blue Apron chooses default meals for you based on your saved preferences (vegetarian or not, or avoiding certain proteins). Instead of the three meals they choose for you, you can switch from a different menu (vegetarian or meat and fish). Oddly enough, not all combinations may be available. For example, if you want chicken thighs and pork chops but not salmon, your only other six-course option is soba noodles (the other two vegetable dishes are grayed out). So the choice is limited. Examples of dishes:
- Pork chops with beets, family carrots and hazelnut salad
- Crispy chicken thighs with kumquat and frike salad
- Butternut squash and minestrone cabbage
Hello Fresh is similar. You choose from three of the five available food options. However, there are no restrictions on the combination. Examples of dishes:
- Fried hake with potatoes, spinach and lemon and mayonnaise sauce
- Tuscan meatballs over spaghetti
- Mediterranean vegetable toast
Of the three services, Plated offers the largest selection: nine dishes to choose from and the ability to order as many dishes as you want (for 2, 4 or 6 plates). You get a much wider variety of foods, including gluten-free and low-calorie foods. Examples of dishes:
- Thai Chicken Curry with Peanuts and Sticky Rice
- Meatloaf with fried broccoli with parmesan
- Italian cheese farro and red rice with fried cabbage
As for all services, you can skip a week (or more) in advance if you don’t like the menu, but you must remember to do it a week in advance (otherwise you will end up with a refrigerator full of food. Prepare what you are not interested in). The good thing about Plated is that you can see food options three weeks in advance, but on the other hand, if you arrive too late, some of the meals might be sold out (unlike Blue Apron and Hello Fresh). You can also change your Plated biweekly shipping options.
Winner: On a plate for more food options and more options to add to your order.
Recipes and Cooking Skills
All of these services are accompanied by beautiful recipe cards that explain a little what you cook, in addition to the ingredients you need, the time to prepare the dish and the number of calories per serving.
Bigger Blue Apron recipe cards have better food photography, which really helps when you’re trying to figure out how crisp your dumplings should be. Product descriptions are also more edifying than other services. ” For example, the description for Chicken Charlemagne explains the star of the dish, demi-glace, and how it was created, while the gnocchi recipe explains why the Brussels sprouts combination works with Meyer’s lemons. This makes cooking more like learning, and more than once I’ve used a new recipe card trick, such as using bread crumbs to add texture to pasta. Blue Apron’s online recipes also include reviews from other members, so you’ll get advice on how to cook or adjust this recipe from other members.
Hello Fresh had the most factual information, including a list of kitchen utensils and approximate meals (not just calories, but also carbs, fats, proteins and fiber). Rather than say things like “spice up your chili to your spice tolerance” (as other services do), Hello Fresh makes specific recommendations (“we used 1/2 teaspoon”). For the most part, Hello Fresh recipe cards are simple and straightforward. I don’t think I learned any new methods of using Hello Fresh after I cooked about twenty dishes.
The Plated recipe cards were fine, covering the basics. I found the cooking tips and glossary to be obvious (“When done, the chicken skin should look charred but not completely charred” and “be sure to read the entire recipe”) or completely wrong at times (“Rinse the chicken and pat dry with a paper towel.”) Please do not wash raw chicken . However, the site offers a little more information on the Internet, such as cooking difficulties and occasionally suggests wine pairings. Due to the variety of dishes, Plated also showcases some unusual uses of ingredients, such as fried red. salad leaf for grilled meats I also appreciate that unlike most recipes, Plated steps sometimes save you time by forcing you to cook the ingredients while preparing other dishes (instead of cooking / chopping them all at the beginning).
Winner: Blue Apron. Small details like bold recipe ingredients and helpful cooking tips make recipe cards more useful and convenient.
Quality and variety of food
Finally, let’s talk about the most important thing: the food itself. It doesn’t make sense to pay more for food planning, preparation and delivery services if you don’t like or like the food. This is very subjective, but I liked most of the food from these delivery services – some more than others.
All Hello Fresh recipes were pretty straightforward and unsurprising – lots of pasta for vegetarian dishes, for example, or fried fish or roast for others, although there were also less common recipes like Lebanese cutlets and forbidden rice salad. (You can see an archive of their recipes here .) The point is that Hello Fresh curates the menu for you (usually on a topic such as unusual grains or seasonal dishes), and that all the ingredients are super fresh. … They all tasted and felt like healthy meals – albeit straight from Cooking Light magazine – but they give you a very decent serving size.
The Blue Apron recipes seem to improve the recipes slightly, including dishes like lemongrass and turkey burgers, cabbage and nutmeg lasagna, and shrimp and pineapple fried rice. (You can view their cookbook here .) There are more popular dishes like roast beef or white pizza, but they often have an unusual ingredient added or recipes highlight an ingredient or technique to give you a fresh look. … As my friend and food colleague Ann wrote:
The Blue Apron taught me a lot about shallots. Seriously, I use them all the time and never before. Also, quickly prepare a light salad dressing, which I now do all the time. And just wipe the pan and reuse it. So obvious, but it never crossed my mind. Oh, quick potato salad. I really love potato salad, but I never cooked it because it took too long. I’m going to cook one for dinner now.
Plated dishes seemed to me the most invariably aromatic. Instead of more experimental recipes (like Blue Apron), Plated felt more authentic or traditional. For example, Massaman Thai curry made me feel like my mouth was on fire – the spice was definitely not mild for those new to Thai cuisine. The other dishes were pretty basic, but the combination of ingredients worked (pine nuts are a great side dish with spaghetti, pumpkin, and kale!). Their vegetarian options also seem to be more interesting than other services (e.g. maple and soy portobello burgers with tahini salad, as opposed to pasta or salad dishes), and you can indicate on your flavor profile that you want to avoid things like nuts, spicy foods. , shellfish, dairy products and other ingredients.
Winner: Tie between blue apron and plate. It’s hard to choose. Blue Apron dishes are usually interesting and the quality of the ingredients is excellent (I love to know where they come from). Due to the variety of food on offer at Plated, the dishes are usually more satisfying because I have to choose exactly what I want to eat.
So are they worth it?
I would recommend these services to anyone who loves to cook and doesn’t mind paying more for the convenience of planning and shopping, and who value seasonal, locally grown and organic ingredients. However, it often takes more than half an hour to prepare food, so it doesn’t really save you a lot of time in the kitchen. (As for the gnocchi dish, Blue Apron made me pluck the leaves from a few tiny Brussels sprouts, which was crazy, but in the end it was worth it.) Whether the service was worth it or not may also depend on whether how much you hate “What’s for Dinner?” question.