We Tried Costco’s Food Court Chicken Strips (And We’ll Stick To Hot Dogs, Thanks)

I’m a certified Costco boy. I’d trust them with my life. If I could only choose one store to shop at for the rest of my life, it’d be Costco. I was also partially raised by chicken strips. They were basically a surrogate father to me. All that to say, if Costco’s new chicken strips were going to wow anyone, it’d be me. I’m still an impartial judge, though. So let’s see if the new Costco food court chicken strips can wow me.

Videos by Sporked

Here’s What We Thought

Pros: The sauce has flavor! It’s definitely giving heavy hits of mustard. I’ve also seen talks around claiming it tastes like Chick-fil-A sauce. I specify it in that context because I’ve never actually had Chick-fil-A’s sauce so I’ll have to take everyone else’s word on it. Either way, the sauce is definitely the star of the show here. Unfortunately, that’s where the pro category ends.

Cons: Oof. There’s a lot to dislike here. Starting off, before we even take our first bite, you’ll notice the calories on these chicken strips. I’m certainly not one to count calories. It is, however, hard to not notice them when Costco puts them on display for you to see.

Each serving of five strips and the accompanying sauce can hold up to 1640 calories. That is wild. I understand that we’re talking about Costco. Bulk is their specialty. I just don’t know why each order of chicken has to come with five massive strips. We certainly don’t need that many. Give us three―that would be sufficient.

Now let’s take a bite. The breading isn’t giving much. There’s a bit of tingle that hits you on the back end but there’s not any real flavor. I guess that’s why they give you the sauce to go with it. Then comes the chew. There’s a lot of it. Both the breading and the chicken are somehow both individually gummy? I don’t know what’s going on there.

My best guess is that Costco is just baking these up from frozen. There’s no frying happening in the food court kitchen to get some crisp into the equation. It’s all incredibly unsettling. Chicken shouldn’t take this long to chew. I tried to separate out the breading and the chicken and find any good flavor from either. I couldn’t find anything to write home about. Overall, these are just an immense miss for me. You’re much better off sticking to a hot dog combo.