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When Allure started sending out promotional emails for a new subscription box from Bon Appetit, I was really excited. Mr. Subscription Addict is a foodie and we cook a lot, so this seemed like the ideal box for us. Bon Appetit has a big name so let’s see if this box lives up to it.
About Cook with Bon Appetit
Remember when we had to sell magazine subscriptions as a fundraiser for school? My family always purchased the food related ones and Bon Appetit was a favorite. We would pull out the recipes that looked good and put them into sleeves in a binder organized by category so we could try them out.
With Bon Appetit’s new subscription service, they are doing part of that work for us. Every month they send out five recipes cards and one of the specialty ingredients for each recipe. It also includes a binder to store your recipes in.
Bonuses include free online access to Bon Appetit and Epicurious, discounts on the brands featured in the box, and online instructional videos.
Pricing
Month-to-Month the price is $34 per box with free shipping. Paid upfront, you can get down to $28 per box or $366 for the year.
I opted for a quarterly plan, which was $32 per box or $96 total.
Box Contents:
- Gimme Roasted Seaweed Snacks – Amazon has packages with more seaweed for $2.94 today, normally around $3-4. The Kroger version is $1.25 in stores.
- Fly by Jing Sichuan Chili Crisps – This retails for about $10 on Amazon and at Walmart, but it’s three times the size.
- New York Shuk Preserved Lemon Paste – Online this is $15, but it’s about $12 at Whole Wallet
- Maille Dijon Mustard – It’s about $5 in stores.
- Spice Walla Garam Masala – You’re unable to buy this as a single on Amazon, but other brands offer it for less. For example, this jar for $9 and it’s much larger. In stores, other brands are $5-6 as well.
For food products, Amazon often isn’t the cheapest place and it looks like ordering all the products there would be about $46. Looking at store prices, I would pay about $28 for the same ingredients shopping on my own.
September 2024 – Coming Soon
October 2024 – Coming Soon
The Experience
All the recipes that we were sent were ones that are available on Bon Appetit’s website. While you can only access a few before it wants you to trial and ultimately pay for a subscription to their site, you can access some free.
For example, these are the recipes for the first month:
- Chicken Noodle Salad With Spicy Peanut Sauce
- Black Bass with Preserved Lemon-Pistachio Sauce
- Lamb Keema Tacos
- Creamy Bucatini with Roasted Seaweed
- Spicy Ceasar Potato Salad
Each recipe featured one of the ingredients in the box, but some seemed to have the ingredient as an afterthought. For example, potato salad uses a half teaspoon of the mustard. Most foodies likely already have Dijon Mustard.
We tried the chicken noodle salad, pasta with seaweed, and fish with lemon-pistachio sauce. They were good, but not something I’d want to add to our regular rotation.
Pros & Cons of Cook with Bon Appetit
What I Love
- Ingredients encourage trying new recipes
- May help you break out of a food rut
- Comes with a recipe organizer
- The recipes could all be made on a week night
The Less Desirable
- No savings over the store
- Some recipes are super simple (pasta in cream with seaweed on top)
- Already had some of the ingredients in the box (most foodies have mustard, right?)
- One recipe use 1/2 tsp of an 8 ounce jar while another uses all of what was sent
- The ingredients are not necessarily the star of the recipe
- Not very cohesive, thrown together recipes to match the box
- Recipe organizer does not have tabs or dividers
- Other ingredients in the recipes may be harder to find, like Black Bass, but the recipe does offer some other ideas if you can’t find it.
Verdict
This subscription box is not designed with a foodie in mind. The target audience is likely a beginner to intermediate home cook that wants to learn to use new ingredients. If meal kits are out of the budget, this is an easy way to take some prep work off your plate as you learn to meal plan.
As an advanced home cook with access to tons of grocery stores, I’m struggling to find the value in this box. I already had a few of the items in the box and there wasn’t a significant savings over buying them at the store.
Perhaps my expectations were too high, especially since Allure was promoting this and their subscription provides massive value. I assumed this would be either more of a gourmet experience or an introduction to a type of cooking. For example, Japanese cooking themed box with mirin, rice vinegar, miso paste, etc. Or they would send one star ingredient with 10 recipes for it and a few smaller specialty ingredients to round it out. Even adding more recipes featuring each ingredient would make this feel more valuable. Currently, it feels a little thrown together.
This box would be great as an activity to do with a teen to teach them basics of cooking, meal planning, and shopping. It’s giftable for a new grad or young adult living away from home for the first time. Alternatively, this could be a great date night activity for a couple wanting to learn to cook and make healthy meals together. If you’re stuck making scrambled eggs, pasta, and pancakes, this would be great to level up your cooking skills. It’s also a cheaper variation of the meal kits that get expensive fast!
If this would help elevate your meals or get you out of a food rut, you can sign up here.
Alternatives
Buy the magazine (digitally or physically) and commit to making 1-2 new recipes a week from each issue and shop at your local stores. It would be a similar experience and better value.
Not in to Commitment?
When I was in a food rut, I made it my New Year’s Resolution to try one new recipe a week. Similarly you could buy a cookbook and commit to 1-2 recipes a week from it. If you pick something large and versatile, like The Dean & Deluca Cookbook, you can really expand your cooking skills and repertoire.
Michael Symon’s 5 in 5 and Michael Symon’s 5 in 5 for Every Season are great for fast meals that can help you learn to cook. They take longer than 5 minutes with prep time, but they are fast and delicious meals.
