When you start looking at using a meal kit delivery service, choosing which company will provide the best service to meet your needs can be confusing. This is where we come in! We provide information on all meal kit delivery services, make comparisons, review the different recipes, and generally give you an overview of the industry in one convenient place.
This comparison will look at two exciting meal kit delivery services – Martha & Marley Spoon vs. Blue Apron.
Martha & Marley Spoon is a meal kit company featuring recipes created by Martha Stewart, the mother of all-American home cooking. Meanwhile, Blue Apron is one of the industry’s pioneers and remains one of the most well-known services on the market today.
Our team recently re-tested Blue Apron and Marley Spoon for two weeks in 2024 to update our review and comparison. Both companies provide excellent service, but some major differences are important to consider when choosing the right one.
Short On Time? Our Winner is Martha & Marley Spoon. Here is Why….
What is Blue Apron?
Blue Apron is a pioneer in the meal kit industry as the first to operate in the US. They’ve stood the test of time, delivering chef-designed meals and high-quality ingredients to customers for over 10 years.
Their weekly menu includes a great variety of 60+ recipes delivered straight to your door. These days, Blue Apron continues to offer traditional meal kits and microwave-ready and oven-ready meal options and add-ons.
What is Martha & Marley Spoon?
Marley Spoon is a meal kit delivery service in partnership with Martha Stewart, the famous American homemaker. It offers 100+ weekly recipes designed by chefs, including Martha Stewart herself!
This meal kit company is known for the high quality of its recipes, which are also quick and easy to cook. Its menu includes traditional meal kits, oven-ready one-pot meal options, and a market with plenty of add-ons.
Pros and Cons
Blue Apron Pros
- Good variety of chef-designed meals to choose from each week
- Provides high-quality, sustainably sourced ingredients
- Includes oven-ready meals and add-on options
- Meals suitable for many diets, including vegetarian, keto, and carb-conscious.
Blue Apron Cons
- Smaller amount of weekly menu options than in some other meal kit services
- Fully prepared oven-ready meals are single-serving only
- Some recipes are more sophisticated to cook
Martha & Marley Spoon Pros
- Enjoy Martha’s Best Meals, recipes created by Martha Stewart
- Pre-portioned, high-quality ingredients
- Includes add-on options like coffee, breakfast, and quick lunches
- Vegetarian, dairy-free, low-calorie, gluten-free-friendly, and low-carb meal options
Martha & Marley Spoon Cons
- Ingredients are not delivered pre-sorted per recipe
- Unable to accommodate some food allergies
The Meal Plans
Blue Apron Meal Plans
With Blue Apron, you can choose a plan for couples or four people. Your weekly meal kit delivery can include anywhere from 2 to 5 meals. You can also shop their market to buy one-time meal kit deliveries without a subscription.
When you sign up, you can personalize your weekly recommendations by choosing a few options: Chef Favorites, Wellness, Family Friendly, Fast & Easy, and Veggies. Even if you specify a preference, you’ll still see the full menu of options each week. Blue Apron customers can also shop add-ons, including breakfast, quick lunches, desserts, and more.
Martha Stewart & Marley Spoon Meal Plans
Marley Spoon offers plans for 2 or 4 people, with the option to receive between 2 to 6 meals delivered each week. This includes traditional meal kits and oven-ready, one-pot recipes. Martha & Marley Spoon also has a market where you can shop for add-on items like breakfasts, snacks, and more.
During sign-up, you can specify preferences to get recommendations that suit your dietary needs. The categories include Gluten-Free Friendly, Low-Calorie, Low-Carb, Picky Eater-Approved, Quick and easy, and Vegetarian options. Regardless of your selected preference, you can still browse and choose from the full menu every week.
The Meals Style
The variety and style of meals matter when comparing Blue Apron and Martha & Marley Spoon.
Martha & Marley Spoon has the upper hand in terms of variety, with over 100+ weekly menu offerings to choose from. They also cater to more dietary needs, with gluten-free, low-carb, low-calorie, vegetarian options. Their menu is easy to navigate, with meals clearly labeled for dietary preferences.
With Blue Apron, you can choose from 60+ recipes, including traditional meal kits and prepared-and-ready meals. Their styles tend towards more classic American meals but also include different cuisines like Mexican and Asian-inspired. Their menu is labeled with key details like prep time, ready-to-cook oven-ready options, and vegetarian items.
Is It Tasty? Our Experience
At the Meal Kit Review, we’ve had six years of experience with Blue Apron and Martha & Marley Spoon. Over that time, we’ve been impressed with both services time and again. Both arrived in well-insulated boxes, and the quality of the produce looked good. Both kits also come with comprehensive, full-color recipe cards that make it easy to cook your meals and support building better eating habits.
We re-tested Blue Apron and Marley Spoon for two weeks in 2024 to keep our comparison up-to-date with the latest offerings.
Best Meal We Enjoyed From Marley Spoon
We adored the NYC Halal Cart-Style Cauliflower with Golden Rice & Creamy Garlic Sauce. Even though it looked fancy, the golden rice was a breeze to prepare and turned out delicious! The spiced cauliflower was perfectly roasted and paired beautifully with the simple but tasty creamy garlic sauce. The freshness from the lettuce and tomato lifted the flavors for a satisfying meal with significant portions!
We thought we’d be in the kitchen for a while with so many components with this one. But we were pleasantly surprised with how easily and quickly it came together!
Best Meal We Enjoyed From Blue Apron
Unfortunately, we were slightly disappointed with the Spicy Chicken & Snow Pea Stir-Fry from Blue Apron. It was ok regarding taste, but it didn’t wow us. We love experiencing delicious new flavors when using a meal kit service, but this one was too simple to impress. The portion size was also too small, leaving us hungry and wishing for more flavor.
On a positive note, following the recipe card, the dish was easy to cook. All you needed to do was cook the rice and stir-fry the chicken with the snow peas, sambal oelek, honey, and tonkatsu sauce.
Other Popular Meals To Try
Blue Apron Meals
- Spicy BBQ Pulled Chicken Bowls with Crispy Onions & Ranch Dressing
- Chili Crisp Vegetable Lo Mein with Eggs, Bok Choy, & Carrots
- Spicy Pork Sausage & Mushroom Gnocchi with Spinach
- Calabrian Shrimp & Orzo with Tomatoes & Romano
- Greek-Style Chickpea & Couscous Bowl with Tzatziki & Feta
- Kung Pao Chicken with Rice, Broccoli, & Peanuts
Marley Spoon Meals
- Pineapple Chicken with Coconut-Lime Rice
- Za’atar Roasted Salmon with Feta & Shepherd’s Salad
- Martha’s Best Pulled Pork Quesadillas with Pickled Radishes & Sour Cream
- Creamy Lemon Burrata Ravioli with Bacon & Corn
- Wonton Stir-Fry with Chicken Breast Strips
- Harissa Shrimp Pan-Roast with Broccoli & Sweet Potatoes
The Ingredients Quality
Both Blue Apron and Martha & Marley Spoon offer high-quality ingredients in meal kits. However, customers sometimes find Blue Apron portion sizes a bit too small.
From our experience, the quality of Marley Spoon’s products is beyond amazing! Martha & Marley Spoon works directly with the finest purveyors to deliver ingredients like fresh produce, grass-fed beef, sustainably sourced seafood, and more to your door.
When looking at Blue Apron the service guarantees that they only use meat that aligns with their animal welfare standards and is hormone-free. All vegetables are farm-fresh and occasionally organic when possible. All seafoods are also sustainably sourced as well.
Diet and Lifestyle Support
When it comes to supporting specialty diets, Martha Stewart & Marley Spoon comes out on top. They offer clearly labeled menu options for many dietary needs, including Gluten-Free Friendly, low-carb, low-calorie, vegetarian, and dairy-free options. You can also easily see the proteins for each meal right from the menu page, so it’s simple to prioritize meats for diets like the carnivore diet or a Pescatarian diet. While some one-pot meals come together quickly and have a few oven-ready options, you can expect at least some prep with most Marley Spoon offerings.
Blue Apron offers many vegetarian options and labels its menu to highlight low-calorie dishes. However, its client focuses on delicious chef-designed meals, and it does not offer meals to suit many specific diets. That said, it wins out with pre-prepared and oven-ready options, with a whole menu of prepared and ready meals you can simply heat and eat.
Diet Support Marley Spoon:
Our Dietitian Take on It
“Marley Spoon stands out in the meal kit space because it uses super-fresh ingredients and high-quality proteins, including seafood choices. Their gourmet recipes are ready in 6 steps or less, perfect for beginner cooks or those with less time in the kitchen. They also offer a much larger variety of meals per week and have many healthy plans, including low-calorie, low-carb, and gluten-free-friendly.
Blue Apron offers fewer weekly meal choices and diet plans, which can be problematic for those following specific diets. However, they do offer a “wellness” option that includes dietitian-approved recipes that meet specific protein, carbohydrate, and calorie targets, which is beneficial for customers looking for weight loss or maintenance,” highlights Kathryn Drakeford, MA, RD, CSP, LD, CLC.
Optional Add-ons
In addition to the regular dinner meal kits offered in the Martha & Marley Spoon subscription, the company offers a market full of add-on options. Each week’s add-on selection includes desserts, breakfast meal kits, and ready-made meals for a fast lunch or dinner.
Blue Apron’s add-ons are easy to browse right from the weekly menu. Options include quick lunches like salads and soups, breakfast meal kits, sides, extra proteins, and single-serving microwave-ready meals.
Pricing
Blue Apron Pricing
Per Meal Cost: $7.99-12.49
Shipping: $10.99 per box (first box ships free)
Marley Spoon Pricing
Per Meal Cost: $8.69-12.99
Shipping: $11.99 per box
The Delivery Box
Both Martha & Marley Spoon and Blue Apron use insulated cardboard shipping boxes that are clearly branded with their company logos. Both delivery boxes contain recipe cards with detailed notes on how to make the meals, and all meats are packed at the bottom between ice packs to ensure freshness.
Marley Spoon uses boxes from sustainably managed sources that are curbside recyclable. Many elements inside the box, including the liners, are also recyclable. With Blue Apron, many items in their delivery box can be recycled. Their cardboard boxes, inserts, and many paper cartons are curbside recyclable.
You’ll need to take some time sorting your ingredients with both companies. Unlike some companies, Marley Spoon and Blue Apron do not individually package the ingredients by recipe. Instead, all produce and ingredients will arrive in an inner carton inside the main box. Both companies provide a clear ingredient list on the recipe cards, making it relatively quick to find everything you need.
Subscribing & Managing Your Online Account
Martha & Marley Spoon and Blue Apron offer a well-organized and easy-to-use website and app where you can sign up for their service. Everything you need to do to manage your account can be completed online.
That means you can register online, select or change your plan, pick out delicious recipes for each week, choose dietary preferences, change your payment method, etc. – all online or in the app.
What Do Customers Think Of It?
What Customers Think of Blue Apron
When looking at Blue Apron, customers appreciate the consistently delicious recipes and the high-quality ingredients in each box. That said, some have had issues with deliveries missing items or arriving late.
One Reddit user says, “There is no meal delivery kit that is as consistently good as Blue Apron.”
Another Redditor has used the service since 2015 and says, “As a single guy, it lets me eat like a king. It’s so worth it to me for the time saved and convenience.”
Blue Apron App Score & Reviews
The Blue Apron app has over 40K reviews in the Apple App Store, with an average score of 4.7 stars out of 5. Here is a snapshot of what users had to say:
What Customers Think of Martha Stewart & Marley Spoon
Marley Spoon customers love this service’s chef-designed recipes and variety of meal choices. They also appreciate the generous portion sizes and how the recipes are easy to follow but still feel upscale. Some customers have had issues with delayed deliveries.
As one Reddit user says of Marley Spoon, “MS boxes are way better. They have an awesome variety of recipes and don’t use the same rotation of vegetables like [other meal kits] like to do.”
When listing the pros of their Marley Spoon experience, @Bonbell822 says, “Better quality meat, fresher vegetables, larger quantities instead of packets, shreds and slivers, BULBS of Garlic!!”
Marley Spoon App Score & Reviews
The Martha & Marley Spoon app has a 4.7/5 star rating in the Apple App Store, with around 7.9K total ratings. Here’s a look at the overall score & recent reviews of the app.
Customer Support
Martha Stewart & Marley Spoon and Blue Apron offer FAQ pages full of common questions you might ask when considering a meal kit delivery. If you still have questions, each company offers customer support options.
With Blue Apron, you can use the chat option to talk with customer service or reach out via their contact form or phone during business hours.
For Marley Spoon, you can use their Help Center contact form or call customer service during business hours.
Delivery Area
Of course, you must subscribe to a meal kit service that delivers to your area! Here is how Blue Apron vs. Martha & Marley Spoon compare when it comes to delivery range.
Blue Apron delivers to the continental United States, excluding Hawaii and Alaska. You can skip or reschedule your weekly delivery before the next box’s cutoff date.
Marley Spoon operates in the US, UK, and Australia. Their US operation delivers to most of the contiguous United States. Entering your address to confirm they can deliver to you is part of the sign-up process.
Bottom Line – Our Winner is Martha & Marley Spoon
Both Blue Apron and Marley Spoon have plenty to offer as meal kit services, and you’ll likely enjoy home-cooked meals no matter which you choose. They deliver high-quality ingredients with easy-to-follow recipes right to your door.
That said, our winner here is Martha & Marley Spoon!
The service offers a much wider variety of delicious and crowd-pleasing recipes to choose from each week. Marley Spoon’s portion sizes are also larger, ensuring you’re satisfied after your meal. We’ve also been consistently impressed with the taste of our dishes and the quality of the ingredients we got from Martha & Marley Spoon.
Why Trust Us? Our Review Methodology
The experts at Meal Kit Review have several years of experience in the meal kit industry, and our goal is to share that knowledge with you. We provide hands-on reviews of the companies on the market to help you pick the right meal kit service.
During our review process, the team orders the product, cooks it following the provided recipes, and uses that experience to review each service. We sample multiple recipes from each meal kit and re-test services to keep our information and experience current.
