A new year begins, and we’re still cooking with Blue Apron! Coming off the holiday overindulgence wagon, I tried to select meals that were a little more friendly for the waistline this month. There were a few carby treats here and there, but for the most part, I felt pretty good about our picks!
Just to recap a little of what our Blue Apron experience is like:
- We cook three meals a week with Blue Apron, which is around $60 a week for meals for two people.
- We always add our own seasoning to the dishes – flavor (and spice) is key!
- To be extra, whenever we have garlic as an ingredient, I generally double the amount. You can never have too much garlic!
- We do not cook with mayonnaise, so anything that comes with mayo gets subbed for sour cream (which I think gives dishes a much better flavor anyhow).
I write these posts so you can see what kind of delicious dishes you could cook with Blue Apron too! You can read more about my Blue Apron favorites in my past post archives.
We had some really flavorful meals to choose favorites from in January. Enjoy the recap!
Shawarma-Spiced Turkey Kofta
This Shawarma-Spiced Turkey Cofta recipe certainly had a lot of ingredients to it, but we really enjoyed all the Middle Eastern and Mediterranean flavors.
Kofta are basically Middle Eastern meatballs, shaped slightly more oblong/oval. We flavored these with a delicious pre-packaged shawarma spice blend. The kofta were served atop a warm salad of farro, arugula, cucumbers, and tomatoes with a tahini dressing. My dressing did not turn out as a creamy looking as the recipe card photo, but it still had great flavor.
Finally, we finished the dish with kalamata olives (always great for extra salty flavors) and crumbled feta cheese.
This was a really unique dish and we were both pleasantly surprised!
Shawarma Chicken Skillet
In keeping with the Middle Eastern theme, my next favorite dish was the Shawarma Chicken & Couscous skillet. This dish was designed for easy meal prep and clean up, being a one-pan/pot dish.
To prepare this dish, we cooked the chicken in a shawarma spice blend. Then, we added green beans, red bell pepper, and scallions. Lastly, we threw in the couscous, currants, capers, and water and let the couscous cook and absorb all the liquid. Couscous is such an easy carb to make, and super fast!
We topped the dish with harissa, lemon puree labneh, and scallions. Lots of great flavors, and I love the cooling effect the lemon labneh gave to the dish!
Chicken & Dijon Pan Sauce
Next up on the favorites list was Chicken and Dijon Pan Sauce, served with spicy collard greens and apple rice. I gotta tell ya, I did not initially think this would make my list of favorites. However, after preparing everything and eating all the components together, I was blown away!
It can be hard to cook chicken breast and keep it moist but my husband does a great job with that usually. The dijon pan sauce added great flavor to the chicken, and the collard greens and apple rice were such great accompaniments! I’ve never thought about putting fresh fruit into rice before, but it really worked.
Cheesy Tomato Chicken
This Cheesy Tomato Chicken with orzo and kale was actually one of my favorite recipes of the month. The chicken breasts were baked in tomato sauce with capers, oregano, red pepper flakes, and garlic. We also topped the chicken with slices of fresh mozzarella! The juicy flavorful chicken was then served atop an orzo pasta mixed with garlicky kale, sweet piquante peppers, and a bit of crème fraiche.
There were a lot of bold Italian flavors in this dish, and I don’t think you can really go wrong with chicken baked with melty cheese!
This is a WW dish (Weight Watchers), that also has a variation to choose vegetables as the base of the dish instead of the orzo pasta.
Calabrian Beef Gnocchi
My last favorite of January 2021 was the Calabrian Beef & Gnocchi. Any time we see a dish with Calabrian chile paste, we know it’s going to be good!
The ground beef was simmered in a sauce of garlic, tomato paste, and Calabrian chile paste, and combined with browned zucchini (gotta find a way to get some veggies in there right?). The beef and zucchini mixture was then combined with cooked gnocchi and a little mascarpone cheese to make everything nice and creamy.
This dish = delicious comfort food!
Did any of these dishes sound good to you?
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