Blue Apron September 2016 Week 3 Review + Get 3 FREE Meals

Blue Apron is a meal delivery subscription box that makes cooking fun and easy. Every week, Blue Apron subscribers choose the meals they want from the changing weekly menu. Blue Apron ships you all the ingredients you need to make tasty dinners at home. With today’s Blue Apron review, we’re unboxing our Blue Apron September 2016 Week 3 meal delivery box.

Each Blue Apron box is shipped via FedEx and cool packs to ensure your proteins, dairy, and produce arrive at your doorstep cool and fresh. Here’s a first look inside our Blue Apron September meal box.

Inside Our Blue Apron September 2016 Week 3 Box

Our weekly September Blue Apron box contained ingredients and recipes for:

Brown Butter & Thmye Gnocchi with Maitake Mushrooms, Corn & Swiss Chard
Blackened Chicken with Zucchini Rice, Corn & Cherry Tomatoes
Korean Pork Tacos with Spicy Red Cabbage Slaw

Blue Apron includes colorful recipes cards for each of the meals. The cards have step-by-step instructions, along with pictures for each step to guide you through preparing the meal.

Blue Apron Brown Butter & Thyme Gnocchi with Maitake Mushrooms, Corn & Swiss Chard

For our first Blue Apron dinner, we cooked Brown Butter & Thyme Gnocchi with Maitake Mushrooms, Corn & Swiss Chard. Blue Apron provided the fresh vegetables, potato gnocchi, the butter and the cheese. We used the salt and pepper from our own pantry for seasoning.

Blue Recipe walks you through prepping the ingredients for your meal. For this vegetarian dish, we tore the mushrooms, sliced the shallots, and cut the kernels off the corn. We also chopped the Swiss Chard and the fresh thyme.

First, we browned the mushrooms in oil, seasoned with salt and pepper. Next, we added the butter and let it brown. After the butter was browned, we added the shallots, followed by the corn, chard stems, and thyme. We seasoned the veggies again as the recipe instructed.

As the veggies cooked, we boiled the potato gnocchi. Once the gnocchi started floating, we added them to the vegetables and mixed everything together. The entire dish is topped with Parmesan Cheese.

The Brown Butter & Thyme Gnocchi was an incredibly flavorful dish. As all the vegetables cooked, the aromas filled the house. Even the non-vegetarians had to admit that it smelled amazing. The food tasted as good as it smelled. The sweetness of the corn contrasted with the earthiness of the mushrooms. The potato gnocchi provided a heartiness to the dish and the thyme gave it some extra zest. This was a vegetarian, comfort food-style dish that is perfect for Fall. The meat-eaters didn’t even miss the meat.

Blue Apron Blackened Chicken with Zucchini Rice, Corn & Cherry Tomatoes

The next dish we tried was Blue Apron’s Blackened Chicken with Zucchini Rice, Corn & Cherry Tomatoes.

The first step to cook this dish was to cut the tomatoes, zucchini, corn, scallions, chives, garlic and limes. We love the vibrant colors of the fresh vegetables.

We threw the zucchini and part of the garlic into a pot and started cooking the rice. As the rice cooked, we started cooking the chicken using the provided Ancho Chili Powder. We went pretty light with the spice. Because the spices are separate, you can adjust the spice level according to your tastes. After the chicken cooked, we used the same pan to cook the vegetables.

When the rice finished cooking, we fluffed the rice and added a bit of lime. We served the Blackened Chicken, sliced over the rice. The corn and tomatoes were served on the side.

The corn and cherry tomatoes had a great sweetness and crunch. The rice was amazing. Forget just plain rice – the garlic, zucchini and touch of lime juice made each bite savory. The dish is served with lime crema on the side, which added some creaminess to the dish. The chicken was moist with a hint of spice and the overall dish was hearty and fulfilling.

Blue Apron Korean Pork Tacos with Spicy Red Cabbage Slaw

The last meal in our September Blue Apron box was the Korean Pork Tacos.

This dish was the simplest of the 3 dishes to prepare. Once again, we prepped the vegetables by slicing the cabbage, scallions and radishes. The ginger was diced and we made a garlic paste by smashing fresh garlic with a knife.

The red cabbage is marinated with sesame oil, sugar, garlic, scallions and vinegar. Blue Apron provides gochujang to add spice. You can add as much or as little of the gochujang according to your taste level.

The pork is simply cooked with salt and pepper. Then you add the ginger, garlic, scallions and gochujang, if desired. The final step is to heat the tortillas and then serve.

We enjoyed this Korean spin on tacos. The ginger and garlic really amped up the flavor of the pork. The taco is topped with radishes, which give it a great crunch, and sour cream mixed with vinegar. The sweet and sour flavors of the red cabbage slaw was a great combination. We only used a little of the gochujang so it was mildly spicy.

Blue Apron September 2016 Review Wrap-Up

Blue Apron delivered another gourmet experience with our Blue Apron September 2016 Week 3 meal delivery box. Receiving the fresh ingredients and vegetables in one box ensures we have just what we need to cook each meal. The recipes are easy to follow and the pictures of each step help guide you along the way. We love that we get the opportunity to cook and eat dishes we wouldn’t normally prepare or order. It’s a fun way to practice cooking and learn how to cook different dishes.

What was your favorite Blue Apron dinner?