Welcome back to my monthly installment of Blue Apron Favorites! My Blue Apron favorites for November 2019 definitely feature some comfort and carbs, and are a mix of vegetarian, seafood, and chicken. If you didn’t read my previous post on October, I had seven favs the prior month – this month, I’m only choosing five that really stood out to me most!
A few notes and reminders:
- We’re on the $60/week meal plan (which equals $10 per person for each meal)
- For proteins, we primarily stick with vegetarian, seafood, and chicken/sometimes pork (sort of more of a Mediterranean diet)
- A lot of our favorite meals are Weight Watchers Freestyle meals, which makes us feel a bit healthier even though we don’t count WW points
Tomatillo Fish Tacos
First up, we have the Tomatillo Fish Tacos with wild Alaskan Pollock served with a tangy tomatillo sauce, lime-infused sour cream, and a sweet pepper cabbage salad. Tacos are one of my favorite meals, and I especially love trying out a variety of fresh fish tacos (tilapia excluded). The flavors came together quite nicely in this dish and created a big flavor bomb!
Our Variations
- We omitted the delicata squash on the side, as we didn’t feel like having that with tacos. This freed up the chipotle rub, which we put directly onto the fish instead of the squash. This was definitely a good idea! It gave the fish an incredible smokey flavor that meshed well with the tangy tomatillo sauce and cool lime sour cream.
- We also added avocado for some healthy fats and more color – can never get enough avo!
- Lastly, we also added a sprinkle of mixed shredded cheese…because cheese.
Cheesy Brussels Sprout Cannelloni
The Cheesy Brussels Sprout Cannelloni was a little carb-heavy splurge that we just had to get because it sounded so good. Brussels sprouts are a regular in our fridge/pantry, and pairing them with cheese and pasta is top notch! This is a Christian Petroni meal – you may know him if you are a fan of the Next Food Network Star show. Every once in a while, Blue Apron will have a guest celebrity chef curate meals especially for Blue Apron subscribers.
The pasta arrived in fresh sheets (meaning not dried) and was very easy to work with. The filling was a mix of shaved Brussels sprouts with ricotta and parmesan cheese, and to top it off for baking, we made a creamy fontina cheese sauce, which was very decadent! The crunch of the Brussels filling and toasted rosemary breadcrumbs provided a great balance of texture.
Our Variations
None! This dish was perfect on its own.
Korean-Style Fire Chicken
This Korean-Style Fire Chicken happens to be very special as it earned the top spot on my husband’s list of all-time favorite Blue Apron meals! What can I say – Blue Apron really excels in its Asian dishes. The chicken and bok choy are served with Korean rice cakes which have an interesting dense and chewy texture. They are different, but we really like them! Of course being the rice-lover that I am, I would have like to have a little bed of steamed white rice to help soak up some of the sauce – but that is a bit extra in terms of carbs since you already have the rice cakes.
Gochujang is the star flavor here, and mixing it with the crème fraîche achieved that beautiful creamy red sauce.
This was definitely a real winner. I hope they repeat this one in the future!
Our Variations
None again! The gochujang and red pepper flakes provided enough spice for us.
Spicy Shrimp & Udon Noodle Soup
This little bowl of Spicy Shrimp and Udon Noodle Soup was actually my personal favorite of the month! I am really loving udon noodles lately, and shrimp is one of my favorite seafoods. Even though this dish had mushrooms in it (which aren’t my favorite), I love the development of flavors in the soup broth thanks to the gochujang and mirin. I was actually pretty sick this day (maybe a wee bit too much beer drinking the night before) and the soup noodles hit the spot.
Our Variations
My husband added a little extra spice for the broth.
Creamy Chipotle Chicken
This Creamy Chipotle Chicken dish actually really surprised me in terms of flavor! The combination of sweet and spicy between the honey and chipotle sauce made my taste buds do a little dance. The savory flavors of the cilantro rice and earthiness and texture of the poblano peppers really rounded out this dish, along with the salty cotija cheese (my favorite finishing cheese). Where do I get this chipotle and cilantro sauce because I would definitely like to replicate this dish in the future?!
Our Varations
The creamy element in this dish was mayo, which we hate, so we subbed sour cream in for it. Much better! I think you could also do a plain Greek yogurt or crème fraîche (if you’re fancy like that, and have it on hand).
That’s a Wrap!
I hope you enjoyed a rundown of our favorite Blue Apron dishes from November! If you haven’t signed up yet, check out their website and see what future menus hold. Do know that you can skip weeks if you need to (if you’re too busy or just don’t see anything you want to cook that week).
https://www.blueapron.com/pages/sample-recipes
I’m not currently affiliated with Blue Apron – we just really love their meals!
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