Blue Apron's Weight Watchers Plan: A Detailed Review - Healthline

Blue Apron is a meal kit service designed to make preparing healthy meals at home easy, fun, and affordable.
Recently, Blue Apron partnered with WW (Weight Watchers) and introduced a line of WW-approved meals, which are included as part of the Signature menu.
The company specifies the number of SmartPoints in each serving, which is the points-based system used by the WW program.
This article reviews Blue Apron’s Weight Watchers plan to determine whether it’s worth a try.
Blue Apron is a subscription-based service that provides healthy meal kits with premeasured ingredients and easy-to-follow recipe cards.
On the service’s Signature plan, you can pick and choose recipes from a rotating menu, which features 7–12 meals per week.
Weekly menus also include up to three recipes approved by WW, formerly known as Weight Watchers.
These meals are rich in vegetables and highly nutritious, plus low in calories, added sugar, sodium, and saturated fat.
The number of SmartPoints — a system that WW uses and which assigns each food or meal a certain SmartPoints value — is also specified for each recipe depending on your WW plan, and you can scan the barcode for easy tracking on the WW app.
Blue Apron features up to three WW-approved recipes per week on the Signature plan, which are clearly labeled on the menu with the WW logo.
Some examples of WW-approved meals include:
You can also create your own custom menu each week and can order regular meals from Blue Apron’s Signature menu.
However, meals that aren’t WW-approved don’t specify the number of SmartPoints in each serving, meaning that you would need to calculate the number of points manually using the recipe.
Blue Apron says it’s committed to using high quality, sustainably sourced ingredients in each meal kit.
All meals are free of genetically modified ingredients (GMOs), and organic ingredients are occasionally used in select recipes.
Additionally, Blue Apron works with suppliers that adhere to strict animal welfare standards and partners with over 100 family-run farms that use sustainable farming practices.
Blue Apron offers a variety of fresh and flavorful meal kits on the Signature Plan.
WW-approved meals generally feature a source of protein with a starch and a vegetable, along with a range of herbs, spices, sauces, and condiments to help ramp up the flavor.
Boxes are packaged with insulated thermal liners and cooling packs to ensure that ingredients remain fresh during transit.
Blue Apron also has a Freshness Guarantee and provides customers with meal credits if any ingredients are unusable or missing from an order.
With only two to three options to choose from each week, Blue Apron’s WW plan may be unsuitable for those with certain dietary restrictions.
In particular, it may not be a good choice for people following restrictive diet plans, including vegan, ketogenic, or paleo diets.
Additionally, while Blue Apron does offer some vegetarian and carb-conscious selections, these meals aren’t always WW-approved.
Note that Blue Apron meals are packaged in a facility that processes many major food allergens, including milk, eggs, wheat, soy, fish, shellfish, and peanuts.
Therefore, Blue Apron’s WW plan is also unsuitable for people with severe food allergies or those following a gluten-free diet.
Several studies have suggested that WW may aid weight loss.
For instance, one review of 39 studies showed that people who followed WW for 12 months experienced 2.6% greater weight loss than those who received brief health education (1).
In another large study, individuals who followed WW for 1 year lost twice as much weight as those who received self-help materials and 5 minutes of non-tailored nutrition advice (2).
While participants did later regain some of this weight, they still maintained a greater amount of weight loss after 2 years compared with the control group (2).
Note that this study was in part funded by WW, which may have influenced the results.
Additionally, studies show that preparing more homemade meals may be beneficial for weight loss.
According to one study in 11,396 participants, eating home-cooked meals more frequently was linked to better diet quality and lower body fat (3).
Similarly, another large study in 40,554 people found that regular meal planning was associated with a lower risk of obesity (4).
Blue Apron offers a few different plans, which vary in price. However, only the Signature plans include WW-approved meals.
On the Signature plan, you can order between two and four recipes per week, which contain either two or four servings.
Meals range in price from $7.49–$9.99 per serving, depending on the number of meals you order each week.
Most plans offer free shipping within the contiguous United States. However, if you order only 2 servings per week from the 2-serving Signature plan, shipping costs a flat fee of $7.99.
Blue Apron’s Weight Watchers plan can be a great option for people who follow the WW program and are looking to enjoy more healthy homemade meals.
With a variety of options and many fresh and flavorful recipes, it can also be a great way to bring more diversity to your diet.
Keep in mind that Blue Apron offers limited options for certain dietary patterns and may not be a good option for people with severe food allergies or those following restrictive diets, including vegan, keto, low carb, or paleo diets.
Blue Apron’s weekly menu also includes only 2–3 WW-approved recipes per week, meaning you’ll have to prepare other WW-friendly meals on your own or order other meals that may not be WW-approved and calculate the number of SmartPoints manually.
Additionally, Blue Apron currently doesn’t offer any fully prepared meals, which may deter people with limited time for meal prep.
Blue Apron’s WW plan provides up to three WW-approved meals per week, which specify the number of SmartPoints in each serving and are low in calories, added sugar, sodium, and saturated fat.
It may be worth a try for those looking to lose weight, brush up on their cooking skills, or include more homemade meals in their diet.
However, it may not be a good choice for those with limited time to spend on meal prep, and may be unsuitable for people with severe food allergies or dietary restrictions.