We love meal kit subscription services. They’re convenient, have easy-to-make recipes, and there’s a meal kit for just about anybody’s food and diet preferences.
With so many choices, it’s tough to choose which one may be the best for you. Today, we’re going to go over Blue Apron and Green Chef.
If you want to know more about everything these meal kit subscriptions have to offer, we’ve compiled a comprehensive guide to help you.
We will go over what’s offered in each kit, how they taste compared to each other, and who they’re best suited for.
Each one of these services offers pre-proportioned, fresh ingredients, plans for different diets, and more. We spend many months reviewing these two services so we could help with your choice.
Although Blue Apron is the cheaper option, we chose Green Chef as our favorite because their meals tasted better, were healthier, and there are more options for health-conscious individuals.
Blue Apron vs Green Chef
Choosing the best meal kit subscription isn’t the easiest task in the world. There are dozens of services, two of which are Blue Apron and Green Chef.
You have to look at what both of these have to offer you and what it is that you most value when it comes to planning your meals. Here’s everything you need to know about each one of these meal kit subscriptions services.
| Service | Serving Sizes | Price | Meals per week |
| Blue Apron | 2, 4 | Starts at $7.49 | 2-4 |
| Green Chef | 2, 4, 6 | Starts at $10.49 | 3-4 |
About Blue Apron
Blue Apron was founded in New York in 2012. It’s a meal subscriptions service offering upscale-casual versions of various dishes.
It’s a service more fit for those who are learning how to cook and those who are looking for a little bit of a break from the challenges that come from meal planning.
We found that Blue Apron lacked breakfast options and dietary accommodations. However, there are certainly plenty of options with a menu that offers over a dozen two-serving meal kits that change every week.
We like this because we weren’t ordering the same thing every week.
Ease of Ordering
Signing up for Blue Apron is as simple as most of the others. You will have to first set up what you want your weekly box to consist of, servings, and your preferred proteins.
The minimum order is a pair of two-serving meal kits and the maximum is four, four-serving meal kits. You can change these preferences at any time.
As with most other meal kit services, you can’t choose your meals until after you’ve checked out.
You can choose to schedule deliveries up to six weeks in advance and you can skip any number of deliveries, add another box, change your delivery day, and ship to an alternate address.
You can choose to order everything yourself each week or you can put your subscription on autopilot.
The only issue we had was that the meal kits are only available for subscription. If you want weekly Butcher Bundles, you will have to manually order them each week, although it’s not too difficult to accomplish.
Meal Options
There are 14 different choices each week for the two-serving kits. There are half as many choices for the four-serving kits.
The cool thing about Blue Apron that we really liked was that you don’t have to choose meals if you don’t want to. You can just set your general preferences and Blue Apron will surprise you.
They have a great mix of styles, flavors, and ingredients. However, if you don’t want to be surprised, you can select recipes from the website.
We came to the conclusion that Blue Apron isn’t very customizable. There weren’t many kits that offered modifications, which could be a simple protein or starch swapping.
There are even fewer for the bundles and add-ons. This is why we think that omnivores would benefit the most from this subscription.
With our kit, some of the recipes we made included:
- Togarashi scallops
- Jalapeno burgers with goat cheese
- Calabrian shrimp
- Veracruz-style shrimp
- Cashew Korma-Braised chicken
Recipe Cards
We thought that the recipe cards that came with our meal kits were well-detailed, clear, and easy to follow.
The app also has a cookbook that’s organized by main ingredient, season, or even style of cuisine.
When comparing this to other meal kit recipe cards, we don’t think these were as detailed or helpful.
Packaging
The packaging, although effective, was extremely excessive. The box is about the size of a case of wine and there’s a silver insulating bubble bag on the inside.
We found two large cold packs on the bottom as well. The nice thing about these ice packs is that they’re filled with a drainable gel that doubles as nitrogen-based plant food. It’s also safe for your drain.
Most of our ingredients were packaged in plastic bags, especially the veggies such as peppers, radishes, onions, and others.
Proteins were packaged as you would see them in supermarkets, but sometimes had another layer of plastic.
The sauce components were also individually packaged and labeled as “Knick Knacks”. The outer bag was kind of excessive but kept everything well-protected.
Recipe Difficulty
We found that Blue Apron has a decent balance between convenience and complexity.
The recipes are clear to follow, so it made even the most complex meals easy to prepare. We made Calabrian shrimp and pancetta pasta perfectly the first time.
The recipes will require simple kitchen equipment such as pots, pans, baking sheets, a cutting board, a chef’s knife, and aluminum foil.
You will need to provide the salt, pepper, and cooking oil. You don’t need a lot of skill to make the meals.
If you’re looking to learn from Blue Apron as an experienced cook, you may not learn much. The instructions may even be a little too tedious.
Taste & Nutrition
We thought that the Blue Apron recipes had a wholesome taste with a great blend of proteins, veggies, and carbs.
We also saw that there were some whole grains in some of the recipes. The calorie count for the meals ranged from 480 to 1100 calories per serving.
We found that only a small amount of the meals had tags such as “Vegetarian”, “WW Approved”, “Diabetic Friendly”, “Carb Conscious”, etc.
The meals you get from Blue Apron aren’t the most healthy or excessively rich, but there’s a nice compromise between nourishment and hedonism.
We didn’t think that this meal kit was the best for somebody who may be nutrition-conscious.
Advantages
We thought that Blue Apron is better suited for smaller families who are looking to increase their basic cooking skills and gain relief from shopping and food planning. It’s also a pretty affordable service with meal plans starting at roughly $7 per serving.
Disadvantages
Blue Apron isn’t suited for those who are diet-focused or want to eat healthily. There aren’t a lot of meal options for those who may be gluten-free, vegan, or on a keto diet.
Additionally, some found that the ordering was a little too complex for them. We don’t think that this is a good service for long-term ordering.
Pros
- Taste: Most of the meals have a great taste to them
- Recipe Cards: Generally easy to follow, although some find them to be tedious
- Complexity: The recipes are easy to make
- Price: Starting at around $7, this is one of the cheaper meal kits
Cons
- Nutrition: The meals that come with the kits aren’t very nutritious
- Serving Sizes: The servings are good for smaller families, but not recommended for large groups/families
- Meal Options: There aren’t as many meal kit options as there with other services
About Green Chef
Green Chef is a certified organic meal service that was founded in 2014. It is geared towards individuals who are looking to maintain a healthy and green lifestyle.
They take pride in their ingredients being free of GMOs, pesticides, and antibiotics.
As with Blue Apron, their kits contain pre-measured ingredients that don’t require a lot of prep along with pre-made sauces, spice blends, and marinades.
The recipe cards contain step-by-step instructions, photos, and tips.
Unfortunately, they are more expensive than Blue Apron because of their certified organic ingredients. Their pricing starts at $10.59 per serving.
Ease of Ordering
We loved how easy it was to order our meal kits. We could choose between plans such as Balanced Living, Keto + Paleo, and Plant-Powered.
Once you select the category you want, you will then choose how many meals you want per week (3-4) and either 2, 4, or 6 servings per meal. They offer more serving sizes than Blue Apron.
After you’ve made your selection, you will see the pricing per meal, and then you will have to choose a delivery day.
You will then need to enter your email address and password on the next page. On that page, you will then enter your delivery address and any discount code you may have.
As with Blue Apron, you have to pay for the subscription before you can choose your meals.
Meal Options
There are 9-12 meal choices per week and you can prepare them as either lunch or dinner. However, they are targeted more towards dinner.
The difference between this meal service and Blue Apron is that this meal service doesn’t offer a specific meal prep selection, which has up to 12 servings.
As far as the meals go, we picked a couple of our favorites that tasted the best:
- Stuffed peppers
- Cheesy baked penne
- Cotija chicken
- Boom Boom shrimp bowls (these were our absolute favorite)
All of these recipes were tasty and easy to cook,
Recipe Cards & Coupons
Each meal kit includes easy-to-follow recipe cards that have detailed pictures and instructions.
The recipe cards will include information such as the time it will take to prepare the meal, ingredients in the kit, allergens (something we didn’t see with Blue Apron), what the dish is, and any additional ingredients or equipment you may need that isn’t included in the box.
We also found coupons in our boxes as well as ads from other brands. We discovered that they come with every meal kit and they may become excessive.
We ended up recycling most of them. However, we did get a free sample of plant-based pea milk from a new brand.
Packaging
The packaging from Green Chef is less excessive than Blue Apron. The ingredients come in an insulated cardboard box with recyclable ice packs on top of the proteins.
Each meal was nicely packaged in its own bag or plastic container. On their website, you will find detailed information about each type of packaging in the box.
Recipe DIfficulty
All of the recipes we had were easy to follow. The recipe cards were pretty straightforward and there were nice visuals and cooking tips.
No matter how difficult a recipe was, it was still completed in the estimated timeframe, which was around 30 minutes for each one.
You will need some basic kitchen equipment such as mixing bowls, pots, pans, a cutting board, a chef’s knife, and even a grater.
However, if you don’t have one or more of those items. Green Chef offers suggestions for alternate items.
These recipes weren’t as tedious as Blue Apron’s, but the cooking time was about the same for each meal.
Nutrition
All of the ingredients were fresh and tasty. There really weren’t any dishes that we didn’t like.
All of the ingredients that Green Chef uses are sustainably sourced and organic unless otherwise stated and this includes the proteins.
Our only issue was that some of our veggies began to get squishy around the 3-day mark when they’re supposed to last 5 days.
The recipes aren’t packed with sodium and the pre-made sauces don’t contain preservatives.
Most of the meals had between 500-900 calories with the most being upwards of 700-800. Most of the meals had over 50g per serving, with most being unsaturated. Some meals had over 1000mg of sodium while others were closer to 700mg.
Overall, we thought that the serving sizes were more than we expected. We were able to stretch a two serving meal to three.
Advantages
Green Chef is a great meal kit for those who are looking to eat healthier with foods that are certified organic.
If you’re on a keto, paleo, or gluten-free diet, you’ll benefit greatly from this kit. You can choose from vegetarian meals if you’re vegan or keto-friendly meals if you’re on a keto diet.
There are also potential allergies outlined on their recipe cards, something Blue Apron doesn’t have.
Disadvantages
It’s unfortunate that Green Chef is so expensive because it’s such a great meal kit service. They have a better selection of meal plans, but not as many as Blue Apron.
Pros
- Plans: The meals are gluten-free and there’s an option for plant-based meals
- Ease of Completion: The recipes are all easy to make and can be completed in 30 minutes or fewer
- Ingredients: The ingredients are all certified organic unless otherwise stated
- Allergy Conscious: They make it a priority to put possible allergens on their recipe cards
Cons
- Pricing: Prices are more expensive starting at around $10 per meal
- Meals: There are only 9 meals per plan, so there are not many options
We Thought You Would Like
Final Thoughts
Blue Apron and Green Chef are both great meal kit services. However, we really liked Green Chef because we didn’t think that Blue Aprons’ meals were as tasty.
Additionally, we knew that Green Chef had healthier ingredients since they are certified organic unless they were otherwise stated.
Even though Green Chef is more expensive, the nutrition, packaging, recipe cards, ingredients, and preparation is so much better. We would recommend Green Chef to just about anybody.
We are a team of passionate moms and homemakers. Among us are certified nutritionists, chefs, certified food handlers, accountants, financial gurus, and other professionals. Our joint goal is to educate homemakers. Check out the about us page for more information about our team’s credentials.