The dinner with the best value might surprise you.
Easy, ready-made meals can be a life-saver. Whether it’s frozen food, heat-and-eat sides, or even a fully prepared dish, there are some days when making something from scratch (or even assembling a meal beyond using a microwave) can seem like a monumental task. Luckily, there are plenty of grocery stores with prepared meals that make lazy weeknight dinners or busy workday lunches a breeze.
But ease and effort aside, there’s also the price to consider. Sure, wholesale retailers, like Costco or Sam’s Club, offer a variety of prepared dishes with sticker prices that seem like a steal, but, when you break it all down: What's the cost of convenience for a prepared meal?
To find out, we calculated the cost of each serving in seven popular Costco prepared meals, and compared it to the cost of making the exact same meal yourself. The best value for some of these dinners may surprise you.
The Costco Prepared Meals Cheaper Than Homemade
Kirkland Signature Salmon Milano With Basil Pesto Butter
Fans on Reddit love Costco’s Salmon Milano, which comes with a house-made basil pesto butter. One shopper on a thread about the value of Costco’s prepared dishes dubbed the prepared dish "one of my family's go-to dinners, and one I often pick up when company is coming over." Other customers agree that it’s "quite tasty and definitely worth the price."
Prices can vary by the pound, but the Salmon Milano With Basil Pesto Butter typically weighs around two pounds and retails for $25-30—and making it yourself comes pretty darn close. If budget is the concern, though, there are plenty of tweaks you can make to cut back on costs—although the final total may not be far off from the prepared version, and you’ll end up with plenty of leftover ingredients.
Of course, the dish starts with salmon fillets, which can cost $10 to $13 per pound—already bringing the total for two pounds beyond $20. As for toppings, Kirkland Signature Basil Pesto costs $10.99 for a 22-ounce jar, when the meal itself only requires about two tablespoons (about 75 cents worth) and will leave you with a solid amount of leftover pesto for pastas, sandwiches, or other meals. Last but not least is about a dollar’s worth of Kirkland Signature Grass-Fed Butter (which costs $13.99 for two pounds), mixed with a few sprigs of fresh dill.
All in all, you’d be looking at about $25 for the same amount of food, so this one comes down to how much time you want to spend on prep and cooking—and if you feel like eating more than 20 ounces of pesto afterwards.
Kirkland Signature Chicken Tacos
The Kirkland Signature Chicken Tacos are "a pretty good buy," according to one Redditor. "Sure, I could buy chicken breast, marinate it, make some salsa, grate some cheese, and make tortillas. But for me, $15 for some tacos and zero effort is worth it [versus] three hours making [it]."
"We love the tacos," reported another shopper, who said the kit makes an "easy three meals for two people…all for $15." If you also can stretch the kit that far, each serving comes out to about $2.50 a serving—a steal considering today’s rising food costs.
When it comes to cost, there’s only a couple dollars between the two versions, but time is definitely of the essence. Costco’s taco kit costs about $16 and typically provides 12 small tacos, and by purchasing the bulk versions of the exact ingredients used in the deli, you save about 30 percent on the same amount of food—but of course, you’ll have plenty of leftovers.
If you’re stocking up on ingredients at Costco, you can grab one of the grocer’s $5 rotisserie chickens in lieu of the kit's pre-seasoned meat. 12 tortillas clock in around $1.50 (pro-rated from a bulk 50-pack), while buying the toppings in the kit—cheese, slaw, sour cream, and salsa—are roughly $4.50 for 12 servings from bulk purchases.
5 Costco Prepared Meals Almost as Cheap as Homemade
Kirkland Signature Chicken Pot Pie
Costco's ready-to-bake chicken pot pie is one of the most popular items in the deli, and one of the heaviest, as it weighs more than five pounds. Despite its huge size and relatively low price tag, the savory meat-filled pie does have one of the highest "convenience taxes" among the chain’s prepared meals because its core components—flour, water, and rotisserie chicken—are some of the most affordable staples in the warehouse. While the prepared pie sells for $3.99 per pound (usually retailing for about $22 in total), you can recreate the exact same meal from Costco for approximately $10.50 by using bulk ingredients, which slashes the cost per serving from $2.75 down to just $1.31.
According to one Redditor, however, the chicken pot pie is well worth the convenience fee: "We are able to get three meals for two adults (one very hungry adult) for under $25. And it’s delicious."
To match the scale of the deli version at home, start with hand-shredding the breast meat from Costco’s signature $5 rotisserie chicken to obtain the same high-quality protein for a fraction of the cost of raw poultry. Combining this with about $1.80 worth of fresh or frozen mixed vegetables and a homemade gravy made from Costco chicken broth and milk makes an easy filling, and you can always season it to your own tastes. Even the double crust only adds about $1.50 to your total when it’s made with bulk Kirkland Signature Organic Flour and Salted Butter, showing how the the majority of the $22 payment at the deli is for labor rather than food—if you don’t want to be stuck with pounds upon pounds of leftover bulk ingredients, of course.
While the convenience of a fresh meal that simply needs to be popped in the oven is undeniable, the math is clear: If you can spare 30 minutes for prep, you can essentially serve two massive family dinners for the price of one.
Kirkland Signature Grilled Cheese & Tomato Soup
When you buy the ingredients in bulk at Costco to recreate the prepared soup and sandwich combo meal, the cost per sandwich and bowl of soup drops dramatically because you are buying high-volume staples—but the question is: Do you need 30 sandwiches?
Two 32-ounce tubs of Kirkland Signature Tomato Basil Soup retail for $9.99, which means that the single tub in the kit will set you back about $5 when pro-rated. The price per serving is pretty solid, especially given that you may not want to DIY your own tomato soup. The grilled cheese, on the other hand, is where the convenience, serving size, and overall cost differential come into play.
Kirkland Signature Sourdough Bread costs $6.99 for two loaves, and with the kit’s four sandwiches, you only need eight slices (about one fourth of the total bread you’d need to buy) in order to recreate the dish—leaving you with more than a loaf and a half of bread, while the serving costs about $1.75 when pro-rated.
If you were to use two one-ounce slices of cheese per each of the four sandwiches, you’re looking at about $1.37 worth of cheese for the whole meal, which is a mere fraction of the $13.69 price tag for five pounds of Kirkland Signature Sharp Cheddar.
And while mayo is my go-to for grilled cheese coatings, Costco’s kit uses Kirkland Signature Salted Butter, which costs $14 for four pounds—but only $0.22 when pro-rated for the half a stick you’d need to make the whole meal.
All in all, the total DIY ingredient cost comes out to about $9 for a four-person meal, but buying the ingredients from Costco would leave you with roughly $35 worth of leftovers—including almost five pounds of cheese, four pounds of butter, and more than 20 slices of bread.
Unlike other deli meals, like the Kirkland Signature Chicken Pot Pie, the grilled cheese sandwiches in the kit are not pre-cooked—you still have to stand at the stove and grill them yourself, meaning the added "convenience fee" is pretty much just for bread being sliced and cheese being portioned. Given that bread is pre-sliced, and, personally, I’d add way more cheese anyway, this dish is definitely one of the lowest-value prepared meals in the deli considering that if you cook the sandwiches yourself, the DIY method saves you nearly $10 per meal with minimal extra effort.
Kirkland Signature Meatloaf With Yukon Gold Mashed Potatoes
Costco makes its in-house meatloaf and mashed potatoes from USDA Choice beef that's sous vide cooked and braised in a red wine sauce, and with Kirkland Signature Ground Beef priced competitively, you’d save about $4.50 per meal kit if you make it at home. When it comes to pro-rated bulk ingredients from the warehouse, the same quantities of ground beef and potatoes (which require about two pounds each) retail for $8 and $1.50, respectively, while the pantry staples and add-ins, like eggs, milk, and butter, even out to about $2. Overall, the cost for the same amount of meatloaf is about $12—but the total for all bulk ingredients at Costco is roughly $65.
"I bought the meatloaf and mashed potatoes for $20 last week along with green beans (not prepared) for $5 and it fed four adults with leftovers," wrote one Redditor, who deemed the dish "not expensive at all."
The real kicker isn’t the ingredients, though—it’s the labor. "The flavor is [good] and cost is great, especially when you factor in how much time and effort it takes to make meatloaf and real mashed potatoes, i.e. thawing ground beef/pork, mixing with eggs, bread crumbs, seasonings, shaping, baking, then cleaning/peeling, boiling potatoes, straining, mashing," wrote one shopper on Reddit. "Sure, it's not hard or complex, but it takes time and makes a lot of dirty dishes!"
Once it’s all said and done, Costco’s spin on meatloaf is definitely a high-value prepared meal. While you save about $6 by doing it yourself, the labor involved in making high-quality mashed potatoes and a multi-ingredient glaze makes the low price point an attractive option for busy weeknights—and according to some taste-testers, the dish is so good that it belongs "on the [Mount] Rushmore of Costco pre-mades."
Kirkland Signature Ravioli Lasagna With Beef & Pork Bolognese Sauce
Kirkland Signature Ravioli Lasagna With Bolognese is a substantial deli offering that typically weighs around four pounds and retails for $5.99 per pound, bringing the meal’s total cost to approximately $24—but prices can vary. "I picked up the Ravioli Lasagna With Bolognese and it was $16.50 and made four portions," one Redditor recalled. "I felt like that was an OK deal and made a good meal with a salad."
While Costco provides a quick and satisfying meal for roughly $4 per serving, the entire dish can be replicated at home for roughly $10.85, or just $1.81 per serving. The massive savings from DIYing the dish, which can total more than half the cost of the prepared ravioli, does require leveraging Costco’s bulk pantry staples—specifically the 10-pound bags of pre-made ravioli and multi-packs of marinara sauce.
To make it at home, you would have to use about $2.85 worth of the frozen ravioli layered with a single jar of marinara, topped with a small portion of ground beef to create the "bolognese" component. Adding a generous topping of Kirkland’s Shredded Mozzarella and sprinkling it with Parmesan adds only a few more dollars to the total, bringing the cost of ingredients used to just less than $11. So, while the initial checkout total would definitely be higher since most ingredients are in bulk, the per-meal cost is significantly lower than the pre-assembled tray.
Ultimately, the lasagna is one of the best value swaps to DIY, especially since this meal is simply a matter of layering pre-made ingredients—rather than painstakingly making a pie crust, shredding chicken, and cooking a filling like the chicken pot pie. The $10 to $13 markup on the prepared tray compared to the cost of each serving is essentially paying a convenience fee for just 10 minutes of prep time and assembly, which is a pretty steep price for a low-effort meal.
If you have the freezer space to store the remaining ravioli and cheese, and a few extra spots on your pantry shelves for some jarred sauce, making Costco’s Ravioli Lasagna With Bolognese yourself is a high-reward, low-effort way to cut your grocery bill in half. Plus, there’s plenty of uses for a few extra jars of pasta sauce.
Kirkland Signature Stuffed Bell Peppers With Ground Beef & Rice
The Kirkland Signature Stuffed Bell Peppers are a Costco deli staple that, according to one shopper, "is three nights dinner for me and my boyfriend" when paired with one of the store’s bagged salads. Each tray typically contains six stuffed pepper halves, and, at the current price of $4.99 per pound, costs about $18—$3 per each half of a pepper.
To replicate the six-count tray using Costco staples, you’re looking at a pro-rated cost of about $14 for the same serving amount—but the checkout amount is roughly six times as much at $88. With bell peppers ($9 for a pack of six), Kirkland Signature Ground Beef ($36 per package), long grain rice ($18 for 25 pounds), marinara sauce ($12 for a three-pack), and shredded cheese ($13 per bag), this meal is one of the steeper checkout costs upfront, especially considering the amount of ingredients you need is pennies on the dollar.
That said, stuffed peppers are notoriously labor-intensive, and the price difference essentially pays for about 90 minutes of prep and cook time—but that doesn’t include the $40 of extra ingredients. If you have the time and are already planning on buying ground beef in bulk for other meals, making your own stuffed peppers is a no-brainer. Otherwise, Costco’s prepared option is a fair price for the time and effort saved. If you live alone, need a work lunch, or don’t feel like stocking up on ingredients, Trader Joe’s also has single-serving heat-and-eat stuffed pepper meals for $7.
Saving Money vs. Saving Time
One thing to consider when choosing between prepared meals from Costco vs. DIY dishes is the potential food waste—which is ultimately wasted dollars. If making tacos from scratch requires you to buy a whole head of cabbage, a large jar of salsa, and a full pack of tortillas—half of which might go bad before you use them—Costco's taco kit (which is about $15) can actually be cheaper than the $20–$25 checkout total for individual ingredients. But, you also should account for a "pantry tax"—the upfront cost of spices, oils, and condiments that Costco already includes in the preparation.
Alternatively, it’s important to consider that the prepared meals often use Kirkland Signature ingredients, which are already a great value. Specific dishes, like the stuffed peppers or chicken pot pie, use Costco’s rotisserie chicken meat, which is notoriously budget-friendly. If you buy the $5 chicken yourself and shred it, you can replicate these meals for nearly half the deli price.
Ultimately, if you want the absolute lowest cost for your meal, you should DIY the lasagna, chicken pot pie, and grilled cheese meal, as these simple assembly tasks carry a markup of 50 percent or more over their bulk ingredients. On the other hand, if you're looking for a convenient and ready-made meal from Costco that's delicious and well-worth the saved labor, you should buy the stuffed peppers, tacos, salmon, and meatloaf.
Whether you're saving serious cash with a DIY pot pie for meal prep or splurging on the Salmon Milano for a stress-free weeknight meal, you really can’t go wrong—after all, in the world of Costco, the only true "loss" is leaving the warehouse grocery store without a giant bag of budget-friendly bulk snacks.
Read the original article on Allrecipes
