Sporked Staff
Gwynedd Stuart
Costco is huge. Even the smallest Costco is 80,000 square feet. And while browsing one of the chain’s warehouses is our preferred method of exercise, it’s not the most efficient way to find the best things to buy at Costco. Luckily, we have done a ton of taste testing and found the best Costco items to add to your grocery list.
When we talk about the best Costco items, we’re largely talking about Costco brand items—the Kirkland label, of course, but we’ve also included some non-proprietary brands you’ll frequently see at Costco. We searched through all of our rankings and found the Costco products that scored the highest. Here they are for your perusal—it will take you a lot less time to read this list than it would be to even get to the Costco dip aisle. Here’s all the best Costco food we’ve tasted so far.
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- Kirkland Signature Turkey Jerky
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Flavored with a mix of tamari, vinegar, brown sugar, and spices, this Costco turkey jerky has a sweetness that pairs well with the savoriness of the meat. It’s extremely tender. In fact, it’s so tender we wondered whether it actually counts as jerky in our ranking of the best turkey jerky. But, regardless, it’s a good, protein-packed snack.
Read the full ranking of the best turkey jerky
Credit: Merc / Amazon
- Kirkland Thick Sliced Center Cut Bacon
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Costco’s thick-cut bacon is really is made for wrapping. Use it to wrap scallops or dates or cheese-stuffed peppers or hot dogs—honestly, we’d probably eat clumps of sod if they were wrapped in this stuff. It’s just thick enough and just salty enough to work with all sorts of other foods.
Read the full ranking of the best bacon
Credit: Sarah Demonteverde / Sporked
- Kirkland Cheese Pizza with Breadcrumb Crust
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Costco’s pizza game is strong, and that doesn’t begin and end at the food court. We particularly like Kirkland Cheese Pizza with Breadcrumb Crust. Why? Read that name back and tell us a single thing that sounds better on a cold winter’s Friday night than a cheese pizza with a breadcrumb crust. This is good pizza, plain and simple. The crust is crispy, the cheese is thick, the sauce is sweet, and most of all, it is cheap. We are talkin’ four-large-pizzas-for-$12 type of cheap. That’s a steal for good pizza, and it’s one of the reasons we keep going back to Costco for staples.
Read the full ranking of the best cheap frozen pizza
Credit: Merc / Instacart
- Kirkland Italian Style Meatballs
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Here’s one of the best things at Costco to buy to stock your freezer. These frozen meatballs taste like Italian sausage. They’re super savory and spiced just right. They practically taste homemade, which we can’t say for a lot of frozen meatballs (trust us, we’ve basically tried them all).
Read the full ranking of the best frozen meatballs
Credit: Ryan Martin / Costco
- Kirkland Signature Organic Pure Maple Syrup
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Costco makes the best, cheap maple syrup. If you regularly make pancakes or waffles, you need this Kirkland brand jug of maple syrup. It’s not fancy, but it’s full of rich, maple flavor. It’ll certainly do the job if you’re feeding a crowd of hungry kiddos. Real maple syrup isn’t for everyone (some of our taste testers are into the buttery, corn syrup-based stuff), but if it’s for you, this is one of those Costco groceries that you’ll keep returning to.
Read the full ranking of the best maple syrup
Credit: Sarah Demonteverde / Costco
- Kirkland Signature Variety Pack
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If you like White Claw but you want to save a little bit of cash, buy Costco’s hard seltzer variety pack. All of the flavors are good, but Black Cherry was our favorite. Unlike most cherry hard seltzers, it actually tastes like cherry. These hard seltzers are low cal, gluten free, and 5% ABV—pack a cooler with these babies the next time you’re heading to the beach.
Read the full ranking of the best hard seltzer
Credit: Liv Averett / Instacart
- Kirkland Basil Pesto
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There’s a reason Kirkland pesto has such a dedicated fanbase. It’s incredibly rich and cheesy with bright pine nut flavor and a delicious base of fruity olive oil. It’s nutty, cheesy, oily, and herby without being too overwhelmed by garlic, which is a mistake a lot of pesto brands make. Some store bought pesto is downright bad—this is genuinely good stuff. This is one of our favorite additions to a bland chicken soup, but we bet you’ll find all sorts of ways to get through the oversized jar.
Read the full ranking of the best jarred pesto
Credit: Merc / Costco
- Kirkland Butter Toffee Cashews
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Costco is a great place to buy office snacks in bulk. And these nuts are so tasty you can feel good about committing to a giant bagful. They will be eaten. They’re sugary and taste like a day at the carnival, but they still totally make sense as a protein-packed mid-morning snack.
Read the full ranking of the best Costco snacks
Credit: Merc / Costco
- Kirkland Signature Margarita Mix
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This is one of the best deals you can find at Costco. You get two 1.75L bottles of Margarita mix per purchase. And the mix is really good! It’s citrusy without being too sour. It’s just sweet enough to take the edge off a measure of tequila. If you’re hosting a BBQ and don’t want to spend the day squeezing limes for Margs, this is one of the best Costco items to buy for sure.
Read the full ranking of the best Margarita mix
Credit: Ryan Martin / Amazon
- Kirkland Brut Champagne
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Most of the cheap Champagne you buy at the grocery store isn’t actually Champagne. It’s sparkling wine from other regions. No shade—there are some good, affordable sparkling whites out there!—but this is actual Champagne. It’s toasty, a little lemony, and wonderfully effervescent. And you can toast to the fact that it costs less than 30 bucks a bottle. Cheers!
Read the full ranking of the best cheap champagne at the grocery store
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- Kirkland Breaded Panko Shrimp
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If you have room in the freezer, we insist you buy this big box of fried shrimp. They’re big and sweet, the breading is crispy rather than soggy, and the oil they’re fried in tastes fresh—the shrimp taste like they came from a good restaurant kitchen rather than a grocery store’s cooler. Serve them as an appetizer or make them a meal—when you have 50 of these suckers in the freezer, the possibilities are endless.
Read our ranking of the best frozen fried shrimp
Credit: Merc / Instacart
- Kirkland Signature Shrimp Cocktail
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Ditch that ring-shaped shrimp cocktail platter with the itty-bitty shrimp and buy this for your next party instead. Okay, Costco’s shrimp cocktail may not have the same aesthetic effect as a ring, but would you look at the size of those shrimp? They’re huge. And sweet. And flavorful. Even if you aren’t hosting a swanky little get together, this is the shrimp cocktail platter to buy if you like cold shrimp salads—we also wouldn’t judge you for just eating the whole thing for lunch. We’re obsessed with Costco’s shrimp cocktail (as you can see).
Read our ranking of the best shrimp cocktail platter
Credit: Merc / Costco
- La Terra Fina Artichoke & Jalapeno Dip
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We tasted all the Costco dips we could find and La Terra Fina Artichoke & Jalapeno Dip took the number one spot. It’s rich. It’s tangy. It’s briny thanks to the artichokes. It’s zesty and bright thanks to the jalapenos. This is dip you can eat with a spoon, but it’ll be great with some chips, too.
Read the full ranking of the best Costco dips
Credit: Liv Averett / Instacart
- Cuisine Adventures Puff Pastry Bites
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If you are looking for mini apps to feed a small army, look no further than Costco. And once you are at Costco, look no further than these: Cuisine Adventures Pastry Puff Bites. They come in four flavors: Roasted Red Pepper & Cheddar; Spinach & Parmesan; Artichoke, Monterey Jack & Jalapeno; and Caramelized Onion & Ricotta, and we especially like the Spinach & Parm and Caramelized Onion & Ricotta. The next time you’re throwing a fancy app party, this is the best Costco product to toss in your cart.
Read the full ranking of the best frozen mini appetizers
Credit: Merc / Instacart
- Kirkland Chocolate Cake Filled with Chocolate Mousse
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Sporked taste tester Jordan Myrick once admitted that the main reason they have a Costco membership is to buy this chocolate cake for special occasions, and now that we’ve all tasted it, we totally get why. It’s extremely moist and extremely chocolatey, and we love that the frosting is fudgy rather than grainy or too sweet. The mousse filling is so light that you can eat a big ol’ slice of this without feeling like junk afterward. We’re with Jordan—this cake is yearly membership-worthy.
Read the full ranking of the best chocolate cake
Credit: Merc / Costco
- Kirkland Signature Smoked Pulled Pork
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When we conductedour pre-made pulled pork taste test, I don’t think we were expecting a lot from pulled pork you can simply heat and eat. How could smoked meat from the grocery store possibly hold a candle to the fresh piles of pork you spent hours preparing in your Big Green Egg? Welp, Kirkland figured it out. This pulled pork is meaty (other brands have way too much fat in the mix), and you get big chunks of bark that are packed with smoky flavor. Heat this in the microwave for a few minutes, pile it on some hamburger buns, and you’ll be eating like it’s summertime in no time.
Read the full ranking of the best pulled pork
Credit: Merc / Instacart
- Kirkland Signature Garlic Butter Shrimp
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We truly haven’t shut up about these frozen shrimp since we tried them last year. They’re not huge, but they’re snappy and sweet, just like shrimp should be—yes, even if they’re frozen. And they’re absolutely coated in tasty garlic butter sauce that needs zero zshushing to be delicious. Just boil some linguine and that’s dinner. A really, really good dinner.
Read our the full ranking of the best frozen shrimp
Credit: Liv Averett / Costco
- Cream Cheese Danish
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Grocery store pastries can be hit or miss. Sometimes you end up with a weirdly gelatinous chocolate cake or an absolutely rock-hard baguette. And as much as we love Costco, we can’t say every single pastry you get there is a winner. But oh ho ho, this danish. This we like very much. The pastry is buttery and flakey, the cheese filling is creamy, sweet, and ever so slightly tangy, the pastry comes slathered with icing—truly a very delicious danish and a very reasonable price. If you’re grabbing something from the Costco bakery for friends, family, or coworkers, you can’t go wrong with these.
Read the full ranking of the best Costco bakery items
Credit: Merc
- All Beef Hot Dog
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You know it, you love it—it’s the $1.50 (with drink!) hot dog at the Costco snack bar. And after tasting literally every single item on the menu, we can confidently say it’s the best thing to get when you need a quick bite to fuel your big box store spending spree. It’s big, juicy, perfectly spiced, and it won’t weigh you down like that big-ass slice of cheese pizza (which, granted, is also delicious). Sure, try everything on the menu like we did—we bet you’ll keep coming back to this tasty tube o’ meat.
Read the full ranking of the best Costco food court food
Credit: Liv Averett / Costco
Best Costco Jerky
Best Costco Bacon
Best Cheap Frozen Cheese Pizza
Best Costco Frozen Meatballs
Best Maple Syrup
Best Budget Hard Seltzer
Best Pesto
Best Costco Snack
Best Margarita Mix
Best Cheap Champagne
Best Frozen Fried Shrimp
Best Shrimp Cocktail
Best Costco Dip
Best Frozen Mini Appetizers
Best Grocery Store Chocolate Cake
Best Pulled Pork
Best NOT Fried Shrimp
Best Costco Bakery Item
Justine Sterling
Griffin Parker
