A sweet & spicy, easy and convenient meal from Costco perfect for kung pao chicken lovers!
When Costco introduces a new convenient pre-made meal like this EastWest Cuisine Kung Pao Chicken I always want to try it and review it. I love these kind of meals for busy nights or Friday’s when I’m feeling tired after a long work week.
Some other pre-made, convenient meals that I’ve reviewed from Costco are the Kirkland Signature Shepherd’s Pie, Rana Tagliatelle Seasoned White Chicken & Mushroom Sauce, Caesar’s Kitchen Chicken Florentine with Riced Cauliflower, Caesar’s Kitchen Lemon Chicken Piccata, Kirkland Signature Chicken Pot Pie, the 44th street Beef Pot Roast and the Kirkland Signature Meat Lasagna.
This can be found in the refrigerated deli section (where the sausages and cheese are), I found it randomly beside the Crepini Wraps. The item number is 5051511.
Taste
Both my husband and I tried this and enjoyed it. The meal comes with boneless skinless chicken breast meat, sauce, vegetables and a crunchy garlic/red chili flake topping. There’s no rice or anything carby like that so I made the Lotus Foods Organic Millet & Brown Rice Ramen to go with the kung pao chicken.
The chicken is moist and tender, neither one of us had a bad bite of chicken and both commented on how good the chicken was. The sauce is quite sweet with a decent amount of heat. I don’t like a lot of spicy food and found this just bordering on too hot to handle.
We both think the sauce is a little too sweet and would have preferred if it were just a tad less sugary. The vegetables which are carrots, onions, green bell peppers and red bell peppers are nice and add a bit of crunchyness and additional flavor.
We both thought this was pretty good and finished it without complaint. Served over a bed of rice or noodles this makes a super easy, quick and convenient dinner or lunch.
Cost
I paid $17.99 Canadian for the meal which is a bit pricey considering we could get takeout for a similar cost and the serving size isn’t really that much.
Convenience
You can choose to heat this in the microwave or on the stove top. I decided on the microwave method since that seemed more convenient to me. Dinner was done and on the table in just a few minutes.
In the box of the Costco Kung Pao Chicken you get a large black plastic try, a plastic bag of vegetables, a bag of sauce, a bag of chicken and a bag of garlic topping. There’s a ton of plastic packaging which isn’t exactly great.
The best before date is about two months from the date we purchased this which is kind of perplexing to me. It’s got cooked chicken and vegetables yet it’s good in the fridge for two months? How does that work? Possibly chemicals or the vacuum sealed packaging or both.
The kung pao chicken from Costco can be enjoyed alone or with some rice or noodles or even spiralized zucchini.
Nutrition
Unfortunately the EastWest Cuisine Kung Pao Chicken is not completely gluten-free as the sauce contains gluten. The ingredients list is long due to the many components in the dish but the ingredients are ones I’d expect to see in a kung pao chicken.
One cup is 150 calories, three and a half grams of fat, 13 grams of carbohydrates, six grams of sugar, two grams of fibre, 430 mg of sodium and 15 grams of protein. That’s not tha many carbs, calorie or fats but you have to consider that you’re probably going to eat a bit more than a cup.
This isn’t as tasty as takeout but it’s pretty close! The thing I appreciated most about this meal from Costco is the high quality, tender, white chicken, I just wish there was a bit more of it!
Scoring
Taste: 8/10
Cost: 5/10
Convenience: 9.5/10
Nutrition: 6/10
Overall
Give it a try!
This an easy and convenient, tasty meal that I enjoyed trying. It also goes well with the Bibigo Steamed Dumplings as a side!
Would you try this? Do you have a favorite pre-made meal from Costco?
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).
A watery mess of goo. The picture is a total lie. If they only spent half as much money as they did the packaging, it may be worth it. But like everything else today, it was an illusion. I’ll never pay money for this crap again.
Total waste. Picture is NOTHING like the result. Costco is usually reliable, this is at the top of my “do not buy” list. I even woked it. You start by heating oil that is then overwhelmed by saucy chicken, giving none of the needed stir fly effect. Spicy? NO. This is not authentic, at all. A rare Costco total bomb. Way too costly as well.
Terrible rip off-cant believe I actually (a spur of the moment toss into the cart) paid 23.00 for
maybe 2 cups of chicken, some veggies and some sauce. A fair price would have been about eight or ten dollars. So disappointed that Costco is selling at this ridiculous price. A much better deal if I had just stopped by my local Chinese restaurant. Benita Jonez
Had this tonight. This is not a good value for the money. I had to add red extra chicken to make a full meal and most of of the veggies were shredded carrots. Better choice for my money would have been my local Chinese restaurant.
I loved it and so convenient to make. Only problem is they don’t have it in stock when I went to get back some more. Typical Costco. Buy it once then you can’t get it. Boo hoo
I absolutely loved this dish. Next time I make it I wouldn’t add as much of the spices in the pkg.
Chicken cooked like mush … what’s that big plastic bowl for anyway? I wish I could buy the sauce on its own and make my own chicken and vegetables. Thanks.
it was so spicy i could not eat it. should show on package how spicy hot it is
. will not buy again
I really appreciate all your reviews and follow you regularly. Thank you.
Thank you so much! That means a lot to me 🙂
I have had frozen TV dinners that were better then EastWEST KUNG PAO CHICKEN for half the price.
You say that “Unfortunately the EastWest Cuisine Kung Pao Chicken is not completely gluten-free as the sauce contains gluten. ” as if not being gluten free is a bad thing when actually it is a good thing. Gluten free is for people with celiac disease which is less then 1% of the population. Gluten also affects people supposedly with something called gluten sensitivity but there is no scientific test for that so there is no way to tell if somebody really is sensitive. Being gluten free means less nutrition as the process does not only remove gluten. If you do not have celiac you should stay away from gluten free, it is less nutritious and more expensive and the food companies have jumped on this as a way to charge more for products which actually give us less.
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