While the goals were out of the top drawer, the performance closely resembled a shabbily constructed flat pack wardrobe.
United's defending was often too casual and, on occasions, simply slipshod.
The Reds took a 24th minute lead from the first real chance of the game.
Gary Neville's throw on the right was headed on to Quinton Fortune by Ruud van Nistelrooy.
The South African played a beautifully weighted pass back to van Nistelrooy, who had ghosted in on the blind side of the Rovers defence, to finish with a superbly struck right-foot shot 12 yards out into the far corner of the net.
United made it 2-0 14 minutes later with an even better goal.
Roy Keane released van Nistelrooy down the right. His cross to the far post was knocked back by Fortune for Kleberson to score with a left-foot shot from 12 yards.
It was the Brazilian's first goal for United since his £5million summer move and the Reds could easily have increased their lead three minutes later when Brad Freidel's acrobatic stop kept out a Keane effort.
United continued to press at the start of the second half and Friedel made another fine save to turn over John O'Shea's powerful far post header from Gary Neville's right-wing cross.
But the arrival of Nils-Eric Johansson and Paul Gallagher as half-time substitutes for Steven Reid and Matt Jansen gave Blackburn a more threatening look.
Tim Howard kept out fine shots by both players and Rovers were back in the game after 62 minutes.
Ironically, the goal came seconds after United had been denied a clear penalty by referee Mark Halsey.
Keane was upended in the Blackburn box by Vratislav Gresko after he ran onto David Bellion's pass.
Mr Halsey waved away United's appeals for a penalty and, within a minute, Brett Emerton was racing onto Gallagher's pass to bury his right-foot shot high in the roof of the net from the corner of the box.
Blackburn pressed hard for an equaliser, but United held on to take the points in front of a record Premiership crowd - 67,748.