Costco Hanwoomul Shrimp Fried Rice Review

At the risk of spoiling the rest of the review, the photo on the package of the Hanwoomul Shrimp Fried Rice from Costco is kind of misleading. It shows a dish loaded with shrimp. This is far from accurate. Even though there’s a lot more rice than shrimp, does this shrimp fried rice have any redeeming qualities?

Costco carries a lot of convenient products similar to this, like the Bibigo Vegetable Fried Rice, Ajinomoto Yakitori Chicken with Japanese-Style Fried Rice, Ajinomoto Tokyo Style Shoyu Ramen with Chicken, Kevin’s Teriyaki-Style Chicken Stir-Fry, Pulmuone Pad Thai, Kirkland Signature Ginger Beef Stir Fry, Kirkland Signature Chicken Chow Mein and the Kirkland Signature Yakisoba Stir Fry.

Location in Store

This is located in the freezer aisle at Costco, the item number is 1660547.

Taste

The first thing I notice is that the rice is all stuck together in clumps after heating it. The flavor is odd, it’s almost like an smoky, plastic flavor with a hint of spice or pepper. There’s very few shrimp in one bag. I counted six very small tiny shrimp so if you’re expecting a lot of shrimp, you’ll be disappointed.

The fried rice is pretty salty and it’s very rice heavy. There isn’t a lot of vegetables either so I would probably add some more steamed vegetables. The fact that it’s mainly just unpleasantly tasting, salty rice with a few rubbery shrimp means I can’t recommend buying this and wouldn’t want to eat it again.

Cost

The large 2.1 kilogram bag comes with seven 300 gram small bags of fried rice and costs $21.00 Canadian. After trying this I feel like I wasted $22 dollars.

Convenience

The rice is really convenient and I think that’s why I gravitated towards it and picked it up. I decided to cook the rice in my frying pan and it seemed to turn out fine that way. I don’t think frying it made it any better than it would be if I were to microwave it.

Next time I’d probably just microwave it but there likely won’t be a next time! The best before date is about nine months from when I purchased the rice and it needs to be kept frozen. To make the rice more palatable you might try adding more shrimp, chicken or vegetables.

Nutrition

Calories

One pouch contains 490 calories, eight grams of fat, 94 grams of carbohydrates, three grams of fibre, three grams of sugar, 12 grams of protein and 1080 milligrams of sodium! If there were more shrimp the protein would be a lot higher, that’s also a ton of carbohydrates and sodium.

Ingredients

The ingredients list is pretty disappointing. There’s a ton of unhealthy ingredients list canola oil, sugar, glucose-fructose, artificial onion and roasted onion flavors, MSG and even artificial meat flavor! The rice contains shrimp, oyster, wheat and soy. The rice is a product of Korea but it doesn’t say where the shrimp are from or if they’re fresh/farmed.

Scoring

Taste: 4/10

Cost: 5/10

Convenience: 9.5/10

Nutrition: 2/10

Overall

Walk on by!

Costco has products that are just as convenient and taste a lot better. I don’t recommend this.

Have you tried this Costco Hanwoomul Shrimp Fried Rice? What did you think of it?

Please note that this review was not paid for or sponsored by any third party. This product was purchased by Costcuisine for the purpose of producing this review. The opinions in this review are strictly those of Costcuisine. Costcuisine is not affiliated with Costco or any of its suppliers. In the event that Costcuisine receives compensation for a post from the manufacturer of a product or some other third party, the arrangement will be clearly disclosed (including where the manufacturer of a product provides Costcuisine with a free sample of the product).