Blue Apron in May was one of my favorite roundups so far for 2021! This is partly because guest celebrity chef Roy Yamaguchi contributed several delicious Asian-inspired recipes for the month (two of which you’ll find on my list below). I also noticed that every single dish I picked out for this post has a rice component in it! There I go again with my rice obsession…
If you’re new around here, here are a few notes:
- My husband and I are on the three meal per week plan. This means we generally have about 12 to 15 meals to choose our top favorites from.
- I’ll note any variations we make to our Blue Apron recipes at the end of each recap, if there are any. Sometimes, we change up the ingredients if we don’t like something (I’m looking at you mayonnaise) or if we feel the meals need a little somethin’ extra. We also tend to add other seasoning to dishes, especially when it comes to cooking proteins.
- I write these posts so you can see what kind of delicious dishes you could cook with Blue Apron too! You can also read more about my Blue Apron favorites in my past post archives.
Here are my picks for Blue Apron Favorites for May 2021!
Soy-Ginger Shrimp
As I mentioned at the outset, Roy Yamaguchi was the guest chef for the month of May for Blue Apron. I tried to pick out as many recipes as I could for our meals! This Soy-Ginger Shrimp blew me away in terms of flavor.
- For the shrimp, we marinated them in Worcestershire sauce, sugar, soy sauce, chopped ginger, mint, white bottoms of scallions, and vinegar before cooking them in a pan.
- For the rice, it was steamed with fresh lemongrass to give it extra flavor (wow – totally going on the hunt for lemongrass in the future!).
- Lastly, we pan-fried the green beans in garlic oil and topped them with the crispy garlic that was used to make said oil. My husband doesn’t really like green beans that much, but he loved these.
No variations were necessary for this dish and I have to say, I think it’s my favorite of this bunch!
Togarashi Popcorn Chicken
Here we have another Asian-inspired dish making my favorites list! While this wasn’t one of Roy Yamaguchi’s meals, I still really enjoyed it a lot.
My favorite part of this meal was the popcorn chicken, which was battered in flour, cornstarch and togarashi seasoning before being pan fried to crispy perfection (thanks to my husband’s cooking skills). On the side, we had white rice and a sweet chili & vinegar marinated cabbage slaw. Everything came together in one bowl, and we had hoisin “mayo” on the side to pour over the chicken as we ate. Delish!
Our Variations
Since this recipe called for mayonnaise to make the hoisin mayo, and you all might know my disdain for the ingredient, we subbed that out for sour cream. Sour cream is the perfect substitute for creamy sauces that call for mayo in my opinion!
Gochujang Pork Chops
Next up, we have another one of Roy Yamaguchi’s Blue Apron creations! This Charred Gochujang Pork Chop dish was packed with flavor. This comes in as my second favorite for the month of May!
- For the pork chops, they were marinated before cooking in gochujang and sesame oil (and also a little S&P) before being pan fried. I think my husband did a great job getting a little bit of char on there too!
- Next up were the carrots which were pan fried with ginger, honey, butter, and water. The honey definitely gave them a nice glaze!
- Lastly, we made a glaze to top the pork with that consisted of soy and sour cherry spread.
Everything came together on the plate with some radishes marinated in sugar and vinegar, along with some plain white rice. There was so much flavor going on with the ginger from the carrots, the gochujang on the pork, and the soy and cherry glaze. I would love to recreate this one!
No variations were necessary other than I didn’t use all the sugar in marinating the radishes.
Cheesy Chicken Enchiladas
Oh enchiladas – how can you go wrong with these! The Blue Apron enchilada dishes are definitely some of our favorite meals to prepare. I had my husband take care of cooking the chicken, which was pan fried with sliced bell pepper, onion (an extra ingredient) and scallion white bottoms. I handled the rice, which was cooked with a Mexican seasoning blend. Then, I mixed the rice, chicken, and sour cream into the enchiladas, covered with cheese, and the rest is history!
Our Variations
I do like to get a little bit extra when it comes to Mexican dishes, so I sliced up some yellow onion for my husband to cook with the chicken (instead of just the white bottoms of scallions). I also topped the enchiladas with sour cream from our fridge, and a healthy scoop of guacamole that I had on hand.
Cajun Chicken & Rice
My last Blue Apron favorite for May 2021 was this Cajun Chicken & Rice dish with creamy pickle relish. This one was so good!
- For the chicken, the breasts were coated in a Cajun spice blend and then pan seared until cooked through (brown bits got left in the pan for the veggies)
- The veggies in this dish consisted of bell pepper, celery, and red onion. These were cooked in the fond from the chicken, along with chopped garlic and Worcestershire sauce.
- For the rice, once cooked, we mixed all the cooked veggies in to make a sort of “Cajun dirty rice.”
- Lastly, this dish had a creamy pickle relish component to it which is simply mayo, pickle relish, and hot sauce.
Our Variations
Of course, for the mayo in the relish, we used sour cream instead. I also added extra Frank’s Red Hot Sauce to the creamy relish. They don’t include a big amount of hot sauce with the ingredients. I’ve actually had to do this a couple of times before with Blue Apron recipes, so it’s good to keep a bottle of Frank’s Red Hot on hand if you like hot sauce!
And that’s all folks! Hope you enjoyed my recap of Blue Apron Favorites for May 2021. Did you see anything here you might want to cook? If you’re interested in cooking with Blue Apron, be sure to check out their website!
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