Barbecue chicken and bacon paired with mac and cheese is a flavor combo that’s hard to resist, so I had to try the Kirkland Signature Chicken and Bacon Mac and Cheese from Costco’s pre-made meal section. Although the meal sounded delicious, there were a few things I didn’t quite enjoy. Keep reading to find out what I liked and what didn’t quite hit the mark!
Location in Store
I bought this in the pre-made meal/deli section at Costco, near the stuffed peppers and the quinoa salad. The item number is 71113.
Taste
The main two flavors I noticed were the smoky bacon flavor and the slightly sweet barbecue sauce flavor from the barbecue chicken. The cheese is fairly mild or there’s not enough of it, so the flavor doesn’t stand out as much as the bacon and barbecue chicken flavors do, but bacon, barbecue chicken and cheese are definitely a tasty combination.
The macaroni is a large-sized version; it tastes like typical macaroni but the texture was a little hard and firm for my liking. Let’s be honest though – it’s basically just a vehicle for the good stuff.
There are fairly generous amounts of bacon and chicken in the dish, which is great. My biggest complaint is that it’s lacking in cheese flavor and unbelievably greasy. I’m guessing most of the grease is coming from the bacon and cheese. The flavor is still enjoyable, but it’s pretty heavy and the amount of grease grossed me out.
The bacon and chicken chunks seemed to be of good quality in the bites I tried. I didn’t get any gross or inedible pieces.
Cost
The chicken and bacon mac and cheese costs $14.99 per kilogram so the cost per tray is dependent on the weight. My particular tray cost $22.46 which isn’t bad considering it’s a really large tray and a small serving is really filling.
Convenience
I had to cook the mac and cheese dish way longer than the 30 minutes the cooking instructions called for. After baking the meal in the oven at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 30 minutes, when I checked the internal temperature of the center of the dish was only 70 degrees and still cold.
I ended up baking it close to an hour for the center to be done which resulted in some of the top noodles becoming hard and almost crunchy. The best before date is four days from when it was packaged and it needs to be kept refrigerated.
I imagine you could also freeze the meal and thaw it overnight if you weren’t going to have it right after purchasing it. Since it’s so heavy I recommend serving it with a side salad or maybe some peas or broccoli! Garlic toast would also be great with it too.
Nutrition
Calories
A fifth of the tray contains 910 calories, 56 grams of fat, 66 grams of carbohydrates, three grams of fibre, six grams of sugar and 1090 milligrams of sodium. Honestly this doesn’t shock or surprise me!
I expected the fat and calories to be high based on how much grease there was in the pan. I also knew the sodium would be high because pretty much all the pre-made meals from Costco contain a lot of sodium.
Ingredients
The ingredients list doesn’t have as many concerning ingredients as I expected! There still are a few, the big ones I don’t like is the corn syrup solids, sugar and hydrolyzed corn protein.
The chicken and bacon mac and cheese contains milk, egg, wheat, mustard and may contain fish, molluscs, crustaceans, tree nuts, peanut, soy and sesame.
Scoring
Taste: 7.5/10
Cost: 8/10
Convenience: 9/10
Nutrition: 0/10
Overall
Give it a try!
This is a great winter comfort food that a lot of people will love. I think it might work better as a side than a main course just because it’s pretty greasy and a little goes a long way, but the flavor is certainly enjoyable.
Have you tried the Kirkland Signature Chicken and Bacon Mac and Cheese from Costco? What did you think of it? Drop a comment below!
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).
