How to Prepare Meals Faster for Blue Apron

Faster food prep means having the right tools. Here's our favorites.

Faster meal prep for meal delivery services like Blue Apron. Tips for making Blue Apron meals faster to prepare and cook.

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We have been getting Blue Apron meals for well over a year now and while we’ve tried other meals such as Plated and Terra’s Kitchen, we keep coming back to Blue Apron because we like how the meals taste. Terra’s Kitchen was easier to prepare as most of the vegetables came cut up, but I found that Blue Apron ended up being our favorite.

Click here to get a discount on your Blue Apron trial!

That said, we have been trying to cut down on the prep time for our Blue Apron meals in order because we have 3 little boys and limited time. Preparing the meals can be BRUTAL some days. We have some tools that help substantially.

Here’s a quick video showing how some of these tools work.

Best Kitchen Tools for Speeding Up Food Prep

Garlic press, hand held — A garlic press minces cloves of garlic within seconds.

Garlic Press: This garlic press is the one we own. You mince a LOT of garlic with Blue Apron and fresh is always better. Getting a press made the job much easier. You can just put your clove inside and squeeze. It spits out perfectly minced garlic. SO EASY.

Air Fryer: I bought this air fryer for my husband and he frequently uses it to cook items that would have otherwise have gone in the oven. Because it’s a set and forget item, he can throw in something to cook while we work on the rest of the meal. This is good for items like sweet potato wedges.

Rice Cooker or Instant Pot: We use our Instant Pot for rice for the meals. Again, it’s another set and forget item. It’s a bit bigger to clean than a small pot and the rice portions are pretty small for the meals, but it’s an option.

Great Knives: A great set of knives is a huge help, but the main priority is making sure they’re sharp. I have this knife sharpener that works well if you want to keep your current knives up to par. Want some nice knives? We have Wüsthof knives which my brother (who loves to cook far more than I do) says are excellent.

Olive Oil Dispensers: I found a set more highly rated than our set to share, but these are neat because they measure within the dispenser, meaning there’s less to clean after you’re done.

Food Slicer: There’s so many different kinds, but I can’t find the one I have on Amazon still. This one looks like it will have many of the same features that mine does.

You’ll probably have some of these already, but non stick pots and pans and a baking sheet are a necessity too.

Ninja Food Processor for Blending, Chopping Etc: This is my go-to for dicing onions or peppers into smaller pieces.

Tips for Preparing Blue Apron Meals Fast

Selecting your delivery day: We order our meals for the days that I have the best opportunity to prepare them. Our meals get delivered on Fridays so I can make them over the weekend.
Don’t burn out: I usually buy two weeks a month and skip the other two weeks. This means we don’t burn out on making the meals. If you love meal prep, then this may not be an issue. But when I hear my husband cussing at the cutting board or when I’m just done trying to prep the meal, I open up my Blue Apron app and adjust our schedule accordingly. A week or two off usually gets us yearning for another meal.
Share tasks: If my kids are behaving, preparing meals goes so much faster with help. My husband and I will often work together on prep.
Prepare Ingredients in Advance: For some ingredients, you can prepare them in advance so they’re ready when you want to cook them. For other ingredients, such as avocado, you want to prepare them on the day you cook them. If you have a chance, prepare all of the appropriate items ahead of time and place them each in small containers until you’re ready to use them.

Make sure to check out my post about Organizing Blue Apron meals because having the meals organized does help speed things up quite a bit.

I also have posts on How to Use a Blue Apron Free Trial, How to Cancel Blue Apron Easily, and information on Terra’s Kitchen, another meal delivery program. You can get Get $60 Off Your First 3 Boxes when you use my link.

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