Blue Apron vs. Purple Carrot: Comparing Your Options

Pricing

Winner: Blue Apron

Typically, Blue Apron tends to crush the competition when it comes to pricing because they’re among the few meal kit delivery services that offer free shipping. However, Purple Carrot meal kits ship for free too!

Both services also offer a 2-serving plan size and a 4-serving plan size, with the larger plan having the cheapest per serving rate. With that being said, Blue Apron has the less expensive per serving rate for their larger plan at $1 less than Purple Carrot.

Conversely, you should note that Blue Apron has customizability options that can tack on dollars extra per serving, per meal. So if you’re on the pickier side or just like to take advantage of having a lot of options to really make the meal your own, this can tie up the playing field as far as pricing is concerned.

Additionally, there are a few “Premium” Blue Apron recipes that can cost more. We’ve seen meals as high as $19.99 per serving. 

If you don’t go for any extras, Blue Apron is more budget-friendly and thus wins for pricing.

Plans

Winner: Blue Apron

Blue Apron kind of wins by default here because they have a regular plan (called the Signature plan) that consists of meat and veggie style meals and a vegetarian plan. Meaning, you have two options.

With Purple Carrot, you only have one option: vegan. Though, that’s kind of the whole point of the service. 

As already stated, both services offer a 2-serving plan and a 4-serving plan. Purple Carrot’s 2-serving plan contains three dinners, and their 4-serving plan contains either two or three dinners. 

Blue Apron’s 2- and 4-serving Signature plans both contain two, three or four dinners. However, Blue Apron’s Vegetarian plan only comes as a 2-serving size with two or three dinners per week.

Because of the extra options, we’ve named Blue Apron the winner for plans.

Food variety

Winner: Blue Apron

You might think Blue Apron wins by default for food variety, too, because, again, Purple Carrot only offers vegan food.

However, that’s not the only reason they win. Blue Apron has a ton of customizability options for their meals that Purple Carrot doesn’t offer.

Here’s the low down on Blue Apron Customized; swapping allows you to exchange one ingredient for another, like changing out chicken for tofu or a starch for extra veggies. Adding increases the portion of an ingredient. Finally, upgrading allows you to select a more premium ingredient, like exchanging bistro steaks for NY strip steak.

Furthermore, with Blue Apron, you can choose from an ever-changing mix of meat, fish, Beyond Meat, WW Approved, Diabetes-Friendly recipes and health-conscious offerings.

Because of this, Blue Apron is crowned king of food variety! 

Accommodate dietary restrictions

Winner: Purple Carrot

Neither of these services accommodates a ton of different dietary restrictions. Though, Blue Apron has you covered if you follow a regular diet or are vegetarian. They also offer diabetes-friendly meals and meals that are WW-approved. 

However, we’ve chosen to name Purple Carrot the winner when it comes to accommodating dietary restrictions. They may cater solely to vegans, but services that do so are few and far between.

Because of this, we feel that Purple Carrot wins by default. Though, it’s really a draw because both services are limited in this regard.

Ingredient quality

Winner: Purple Carrot

For ingredient quality, Purple Carrot is where it’s at. That’s not to say Blue Apron’s ingredients suck, but Purple Carrot was quite impressive in this regard.

Our produce was pristine. When we ordered, they used whole ingredients for flavor instead of dried, ground seasonings. For instance, we received fresh ginger for one of our recipes instead of powdered ginger. They also have you throw nuts and seeds into dishes to add texture which really rounds out the meal. Purple Carrot has its ingredients on lock.

Blue Apron, on the other hand, struggled just a smidgen. Some of our produce was a bit beat up, and one of our meat packages was leaking. Now, mind you, we did only briefly try out this service, so our experience with these hiccups doesn’t necessarily reflect the service’s overall quality. 

With that being said, Purple Carrot’s ingredients were superior.

Ease of use

Winner: Blue Apron

Blue Apron is easier to use. When you read the recipes, they feel fancy, like they’re not for your average amateur chef. However, they’re easy to make. You don’t need to have special equipment. Furthermore, suppose you do find you have questions. In that case, you can easily find a tutorial for that meal to follow along with on Blue Apron’s website. 

One area in the cooking that wasn’t ideal was the amount of prep work. This might not apply to every Blue Apron recipe, but it definitely did to the meals we received. One recipe called for us to remove the husks and silks from corn before cutting the kernels off…..the kernels were hard to keep track of… they go everywhere. Plus, after that, you have to chop other ingredients.

In general though, even if you can’t read, you can totally make these meals. The video tutorials take all the guesswork out of the cooking process.

On the other hand, Purple Carrot tended to call for special equipment. One recipe we received called for the use of a blender, and another called for the use of a food processor. We feel like not everyone will have access to this type of equipment, especially younger customers. 

Blenders and food processors can be expensive. Plus, you need access to a reasonably powerful blend when you consider the fact that we had to blend nuts with water and jalapeno to make a smooth sauce. 

Other than this, the recipes aren’t too complicated. Most of the recipe comes down to prep work because the recipes are almost entirely composed of vegetables, and where there are vegetables, there’s usually the need for slicing and dicing. However, given that no meat needs to be thoroughly cooked to a specific temperature, these plant-based meals tend to cook a bit quicker than the average dinner from Blue Apron.

Ordering experience and packaging

Winner: Purple Carrot

Ingredient quality and packaging were the strong suits of Purple Carrot. We already mentioned the dreaded leaking meat package from Blue Apron.

However, there was another little snafu with Blue Apron. You better be rocking some iron-strong patience because there was about a five-week-long waiting period before our first box arrived when we ordered. 

When we tried other meal kits, this was the longest we had to wait, with most other services adding us to the following week’s delivery schedule. 

While Blue Apron is tasty and therefore worth the wait, most people who are meal kit shopping are looking to start their subscription as soon as possible. If this is the case for you, Purple Carrot may be the wiser choice.

The Bottom Line

As you can see, these meal kits come out nearly dead even in this side-by-side comparison. Blue Apron and Purple Carrot even scored almost identically in our individual full-length reviews, as well. Yet, they’re still very different services. 

With Blue Apron, you have a ton of customization options. Plus, they’re technically the more budget-friendly service because of their free shipping and slightly cheaper meals. 

The only reason you shouldn’t try Blue Apron is if you’re vegan. If that’s the case, Purple Carrot is the logical choice. 

However, if you have no specific food requirements or preferences, we encourage you to try both meal kit delivery services to find the one that is right for you. It’s a lot of fun!