We used blue apron for almost a year, and another competitor for quite awhile as well. Blue Apron recipes seemed almost specifically designed to be hard to replicate and over-complicated. They always used strange ingredients you'd never have in your kitchen, far more pots and pans than necessary, took 2-3x the quoted time for my wife and I to prepare TOGETHER, and the pan-searing time for meats was always half of what was required to get it remotely cooked.

Very few Blue Apron meals were pasta, from what I can remember. If any.

I think the competitor, Gobble, was better by a fair bit, because less prep was required. But obviously that's a tradeoff.

> We used blue apron for almost a year, and another competitor for quite awhile as well. Blue Apron recipes seemed almost specifically designed to be hard to replicate and over-complicated. They always used strange ingredients you'd never have in your kitchen, far more pots and pans than necessary

Huh? Don't think I ever had BA need more than two pots/pans total (usually, at most one each, sometimes with the pan reused. Often just the pan.)

> took 2-3x the quoted time for my wife and I to prepare TOGETHER

Usually took slightly longer than quoted alone; but that's going to vary a lot by skill in the kitchen and equipment quality; if you have crappy or poorly maintained knives or poor knife skills, for instance, prep time goes way up.)

> and the pan-searing time for meats was always half of what was required to get it remotely cooked.

Cooking times IME were exact, or a little long; again, though, equipment (stove and cookware) play a role.

It was almost always 2 or 3 pans, and lots of prep bowls and the like. Sometimes I found out later they were unnecessary and the recipe should have just been worded differently.

I completely agree with you. Always a lot of pots/pans and I think I was a little embarrassed to admit it took me so much longer than their promised times, 2x to 3x was normal for us too. :(

I dont know how experienced you are cooking, but I have not had the same experience you have had with blue apron at all. Never took many pots or pans, and certainly never took 2-3x as long to pan-sear meats. My guess is you just aren't managing the heat appropriately. Their times are consistent with anything you would find with other recipes online.

We also did Gobble for about two weeks, there is no comparison in the quality of food, Blue Apron is SIGNIFICANTLY better. Gobble was FAR easier to prepare, for example, you would get pre-seasoned, and pre-prepared beef for a meal. Obviously that's very different than cooking a raw cut of meat yourself. But, as you pointed out, the tradeoff was in the quality of the finished food. Not even remotely close between the two.

I'm not particularly experienced (I've been cooking for years, of course, but it's hardly a hobby, more like a necessary evil), it's entirely possible we were doing something wrong. -- but it didn't seem to matter if I was using an Ikea pan or a cast iron pan I preheated for awhile; i was always on the verge of the smoke point of the oil and it still took way longer than suggested.

Blue Apron food was good; occasionally they gave us something nasty but we were usually able to toss it and just skip that one thing.

>i was always on the verge of the smoke point of the oil and it still took way longer than suggested.

So I used to struggle with this exact thing as well, and this is how I solved it. You have to remember that when you add the protein to the pan the temperature is going to drop by a large amount. So for me, as soon as I saw the first whisps of smoke off the oil, I would crank the heat up a bit and toss in the protein (or whatever I was starting with). You will be amazed what a difference in makes.

I think you just have to look around. https://www.gobble.com/ promises 15 cook times. There are also fully prepared meal delivery services like https://www.freshly.com/ or https://www.preppeddelivery.com/ where you just have to microwave the meals.