Costco Kirkland Signature BBQ Pork Rib Ends with Baked Potatoes Review

I love making ribs at home, but making good ones takes some planning and prep work! I’ve found cooking ribs on low heat for a long time tends to produce the most tender result. That’s not something I have time to do very often, so being able to buy these Kirkland Signature BBQ Pork Rib Ends with Baked Potatoes that you can just heat and eat sounds awesome. The question is, are they as good as my homemade ribs?

This site is the place to find reviews for a ton of the pre-made meals from Costco. Meals like the Kirkland Signature Gyro Kit, Kirkland Signature Salsa Verde Enchiladas, Kirkland Signature Shrimp Tempura Tacos, Kirkland Signature Yakisoba Stir Fry, Kirkland Signature Chicken Noodle Soup, Kirkland Signature Meat Lasagna and the Kirkland Signature Chicken Pot Pie.

Location in Store

You can find the ribs ends and baked potatoes meal in the refrigerated pre-made meal section, near the quinoa salad and shepherd’s pie. The item number is 32264.

Taste

As is often the case with Costco’s pre-made meals, the recommended cooking time was pretty far off. It took me an extra 10 minutes for my ribs to reach 165 degrees Fahrenheit and even more extra time for the potatoes to get there.

There’s plenty of barbecue sauce. I used the whole packet on my ribs and as you can see, they were heavily coated. The barbecue sauce is fairly typical – pretty similar to Bullseye or something like that. It added a nice sweetness to the ribs. It’s not spicy at all.

The ribs are very tasty, though the quality of the meat is mixed. Some pieces are meaty and delicious while others are mostly fat and bone. Part of that is because ribs are fatty and bony, but I’ve had better quality ribs. I’m know the ribs are rib ends, but I’m not quite sure why Costco did it this way. I’d rather have normal ribs with long bones that are easy to eat around than these rib pieces with little chunks of bone. You have to be kind of careful eating them.

The baked potatoes (which are actually stuffed potatoes) are solid, but not as cheesy and flavorful as they look. Based on the outside, you’d think they’d be loaded with cheese and green onion, but they’re not. The inside is just slightly on the dry side, but they’re cheesy enough and seasoned nicely. I’ve had better stuffed potatoes, but they’re enjoyable.

This meal is really good as long as you’re having the good pieces of meat. Unfortunately there are a few too many bad ones in my opinion.

Cost

The cost is $15.99 Canadian per kilogram so you pay dependent on the weight of each individual tray. My tray cost $23.09 which isn’t bad for a convenient meal that could feed four people.

Convenience

The meal needs to be kept refrigerated and the best before date is about four days from the date I purchased them. The ribs are cooked separately from the potatoes on a baking sheet but both the potatoes and ribs are cooked at 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

This is a hearty, filling convenient meal that’s pretty easy to prepare and cook. I’m not sure if kids would love it because some kids are sensitive to textures and there are some fatty pieces of ribs.

Nutrition

Calories

1/5th of the tray contains 590 calories, 38 grams of fat, 27 grams of carbohydrates, two grams of fibre, 15 grams of sugar, 34 grams of protein and 1160 milligrams of sodium. This isn’t low in calories, fat or sodium!

1160 milligrams of sodium is a lot and I bet most families will divide the meal into four instead of five servings.

Ingredients

The ingredients list is pretty long but most of the ingredients are in the barbecue sauce. There isn’t any wheat ingredients directly listed on the ingredients ribs ends but the ribs and potatoes “may” contain wheat.

They also contain milk, mustard, sulfites and may contain egg, fish, molluscs, crustaceans, tree nuts, peanut, soy and sesame.

Scoring

Taste: 7/10

Cost: 7/10

Convenience: 8.5/10

Nutrition: 3/10

Overall

Give it a try!

These meal could score higher in taste if the quality of the ribs was better, but this could vary between packages.

Have you tried the Costco Kirkland Signature BBQ Pork Rib Ends with Baked Potatoes? What did you think of them?

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).