My Top 8 Blue Apron Meals of 2022

I've been a personal subscriber to Blue Apron for more than two years now, and I don't plan on stopping. Almost every week I get the familiar blue and brown box delivered to my door, and now I only have to go to the grocery store every other week or so (it's awesome). Blue Apron has a cool feature in their app where you can snap a photo of the meal you've cooked so you can show it off with pride, and it also keeps a log both the photos you've taken and all of the meals you've ordered. It's easy to go back and look up everything you've cooked all year, and that's what inspired me to make this list of my top 8 favorite Blue Apron meals that I cooked in 2022.

Sheet Pan Panko Chicken with Vegetables & Maple Mustard Sauce

Delivered the week of December 6, 2022

This chicken was alright- it had a decent-but-not-great crunch and a tasty maple mustard sauce paired with it. However, this meal earned its spot on the list for teaching me that I liked a new vegetable (!!!)! I was not enthused about the purple cabbage in this dish, and almost didn't make it at all. I have a friend who I got hooked on Blue Apron and I was texting her as I was getting ready to make dinner, and she encouraged me to try it. I did but I threw in some extra brussels sprouts I had in my fridge too, so convinced I was that the cabbage would be unenjoyable. When I tried them, my worldview was shook. Why have I primarily seen people cook cabbage wet ways, like steaming it or boiling it?? Roasted purple cabbage, treated the same way I treat my brussels sprouts, is delicious. Plus, I know it's good for me to eat a colorful array of vegetables- here is an entirely new color that I can now cook with and enjoy.

Spicy Glazed Tofu Rice Bowls with Avocado, Bell Pepper, & Marinated Carrots

Delivered the week of December 13, 2022. Tofu replaced with flank steaks for a small upcharge.

I would say flank steak is actually one of my favorite cuts of steak, and it's another protein option I frequently choose from Blue Apron even if I have to pay a little extra. Also, where do they get these adorable single portion sized steaks? The only flank steaks I see at the store are like 2-3 pound steaks, but I digress. This meal was so good. You can see by the picture I jazzed it up by adding some extras I had laying around the kitchen that needed to be used up- a random sweet potato, a chunk of a purple cabbage (after learning I enjoyed roasted purple cabbage I immediately went and bought one at the store, and one cabbage is enough for like... three or four meals. It's a lot of cabbage), and an egg (and no bell pepper because I don't like it- the only time you'll see me cook with it is if I am dicing it for my holy trinity). Egg yolk over rice is delicious and any time there is a rice bowl I will want to add an egg to it; I make no apologies. Even without my additions, though, I could still tell this dish was a winner. It felt a little luxurious to have a whole half of an avocado I could do what I wanted with, and it paired really well with the rice and the steak. The glaze was made with gochujang, honey, and a black bean chile sauce that had a really tasty flavor that was great over the steak and rice. I love that Blue Apron makes customizing so easy- I could swap in flank steaks, and other meals let you add in proteins to vegetarian dishes or even remove meat protein to swap in a vegetarian-friendly substitute. I would say almost every single weekly delivery has a customization of some kind that I have made, and it's really made me able to maximize the ability to enjoy this meal kit subscription.

Turkey over Curry-Spiced Rice with Creamy Cilantro Sauce

Delivered the week of August 23, 2022

I find Blue Apron's curry powder to be aggressive and I've had a few of their other dishes where you make curry-spiced rice (you just add the curry powder to the rice before you cook it) and it didn't make for an overall balanced dish. And ground turkey? I love how lean it is but you need to add a lot of seasoning if you want flavor. But Blue Apron brought the flavor with a sauce called tomato achaar that I had never cooked with before (google says achaar is a catch-all term for "pickle," and that a tomato achaar will typically have tomato, garlic, ground Indian chilis, tamarind, and cane sugar) and paired it with golden raisins. I don't like the purple raisins, but these golden ones added colorful bursts of flavor that really brightened up the entire dish. Then I got to make an easy sauce by combining sour cream and Blue Apron's cilantro sauce and top the entire dish with crispy crunchy onions? Every bite was a great balance of taste and texture that was a joy to eat.

White Pizza with Hot Honey Pineapple

Delivered the week of December 20, 2022. Pancetta added to the dish for a small fee. 

This pizza deserves an award. I am so against pineapple on pizza it's literally been in my MSA bio for years. But my fiancé likes pineapple on pizza and I knew he would be home for this box, so I knew I would feel bad if I didn't give this a shot. Since I'm the chef in my kitchen, I knew I would get to call the shots- like dicing the pineapple into much smaller pieces than what I typically see on a traditional Hawaiian pizza, for example. This was delicious. I'm not saying I'm about to order pineapple on all of my pizzas, but I think the pairing of the hot honey with the pineapple, pancetta, and ricotta base works so much better for a pineapple pizza than Canadian bacon and tomato sauce. I would definitely order this again, even if the fiancé wasn't home.

Pork Chorizo, Potato, & Fig Bake with Almonds and Lemon Mayo

Delivered the week of March 1, 2022

There are a few things I love about Blue Apron, and you can find two of them in this dish. I love the quality of their chorizo- it's better than what I can buy here at Albertsons where I live. I love chorizo, so I almost always add the chorizo dishes when I see them. I also love how Blue Apron gets creative with their flavors. It may sound odd, but it has yet to fail me. I mean spicy chorizo? Sweet fig? Preserved lemon in mayonnaise? This was an absolute winner (and honestly was really easy to cook and clean up). It's gotten to the point where if a Blue Apron meal sounds like a really weird pairing, it's almost a guarantee I'll add it to my box because I look forward to discovering a new flavor combination that tastes great. This is a meal that's actually coming up in February, too- it's in my February 14 box and I am excited to taste these flavors again.

Steak Tips & Creamy Truffle Fettuccine with Mushrooms, Spinach & Parmesan

Delivered the week of December 20, 2022

I debated putting this on the list. I felt like the list had too many meals in December, and it was going to seem biased because these were the meals I just remembered eating rather than it actually being the best. But, honestly? Blue Apron struggles a little bit with pasta. Most of the time, they have you take some pasta water, toss it with mascarpone and maybe some heavy cream, and they call that your pasta sauce. It usually feels a little lackluster. This steak pasta, on the other hand, was decadent and dreamy. If I am remembering correctly I did have to pay a few extra dollars per serving, but it was worth it for the combination of fresh pasta, mushrooms, and spinach in a creamy sauce that actually clung to the noodles. This was definitely the best pasta from Blue Apron I had in 2022, so it earned its spot on the list via true merits. My fiancé was actually home for the Christmas holiday when I made this dish, and while he doesn't love pasta even he agreed that this one was delicious.

Hoison Pork Belly & Miso Ramen with Bok Choy & Soft-Boiled Eggs

Delivered the week of December 13, 2022

Pork belly is a new ingredient Blue Apron offers, and I've had fun adding it to my box when I see it pop up. It's considered a premium ingredient, so so far I haven't seen it available in a meal that didn't require an upcharge. I cooked my pork belly in the oven longer than the instructions called for so it had a little more crisp, added in some corn from the random can I had chilling in my pantry, and soft boiled some extra eggs (not pictured) because the egg yolk is one of my favorite parts of ramen. I took this picture before pouring the miso broth on top because I knew that wouldn't make for as nice of a photo, and the I dug in. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this- I ordered it because I wanted to play around with the pork belly, but I honestly thought it was better than some of the ramen I've had in the small town I live in (if you live in a big town with better access to Japanese food, that probably won't ring true for you). Also, this was the first time I prepared radishes and actually appreciated a dish, so Blue Apron got points for that too.

Crispy Prosciutto Lettuce Cups with Sambal Mayo & Pepper Rice

Delivered the weeks of February 10, August 16, and November 23, 2022

This genuinely may be my all-time favorite dish from Blue Apron. It's definitely my most-made dish- I think I was able to order it four times total in 2022 (I actually ordered two separate Blue Apron boxes the week of February 10th just so I could have this dish twice...), but I also got the ingredients to recreate it myself on more than one occasion too. Something about the crispy prosciutto, marinated mini cucumber slices, and the way the sambal mayo mixes into the rice all inside of a soft butter lettuce leaf makes this meal addicting, delicious, and one that I crave. I don't think it photographs as well as some of the other dishes, but if I had a plate of this in front of me right now I would gobble it up and ask for seconds.

Do you have any questions about a Blue Apron subscription? Have a favorite meal that you cooked yourself Let us know in the comments!