Costco Kirkland Signature Chicken Pineapple Teriyaki Review

A rare miss from the pre-made meal section at Costco!

Please note that this review was not paid for or sponsored by any third party. I purchased this

product with my own money. I am not affiliated with Costco or any of its suppliers. I am just a fan of the company who writes these reviews to help my fellow shoppers. The opinions in this review are strictly my own.

The Chicken Pineapple Teriyaki dish from Kirkland Signature showed up in the pre-made dinner part of the Costco deli section recently. I needed a couple of easy dinners for that week, so I decided to review it.

Taste

To make a long story short, I won’t be buying this again! This is probably the worst pre-made meal from the Costco deli that I’ve ever purchased. The chicken in the tray consists of chicken thighs with the bones in and the skin on; the chicken thighs sit on top of a bed of kale and cabbage and are marinated in a teriyaki sauce, with sesame seeds and pieces of pineapple on top. I didn’t mind the flavor of the teriyaki sauce; it was actually quite tasty when I drizzled it over the rice I made as a side. Unfortunately I couldn’t taste much of the sauce on the actual chicken because I removed the thick and rubbery skin on the thighs and lost most of the teriyaki sauce as a result. The chicken thighs themselves seemed to be very low-quality. Each thigh had a relatively small amount of meat that was edible; the majority of the thighs seemed to consist of bone, fat and gristle. My favorite part of the meal was definitely the teriyaki sauce and the pineapple pieces. Maybe it could have been good if better quality chicken was used?

Cost

As with most pre-made meals at Costco, the price depends on the tray’s weight. I paid $14.32 Canadian for my Kirkland Signature Chicken Pineapple Teriyaki meal and that included eight chicken thighs. That seemed like a great deal until I started eating it! I guess you get what you pay for when it comes to meat.

Convenience

In a way, this meal was very convenient – all that you have to do to get it ready is put it in the oven. The catch is that it took me much longer to cook it than the directions stated. I used my instant-read thermometer to check each thigh and actually ended up cooking mine for about an hour and fifteen minutes before all of the thighs reached a safe temperature. The package said it would take 40 to 60 minutes! I was very hungry and more than a little bit irritated by the time they were done!

Nutrition

This certainly isn’t the least healthy pre-meal in the Costco deli section, but it’s not the healthiest either! Beyond the fact that the meat just wasn’t very appetizing, the amount of fat on it wasn’t ideal from a nutritional perspective either. I’m sure the teriyaki sauce has decent amount of sugar in it. I served my Chicken Pineapple Teriyaki dish with rice, which can be fairly healthy or fairly unhealthy depending on which type you choose. The list of ingredients is long and contained a few items that had me scratching my head (e.g., “bonito tuna”). The package states that the dish may contain peanuts, tree nuts, mustard, milk, egg, shellfish and other crustaceans – that doesn’t sound very appetizing! Wheat is also included on the list of ingredients, so this dish isn’t gluten-free.

I won’t be buying the Chicken Pineapple Teriyaki dish from Costco again. It looked very intriguing, but made for a disappointing dinner. My husband and I ate any decent, meaty pieces of chicken that we could find, but it felt like we threw most of the food away in the end. We both wondered aloud if maybe we just aren’t people who like bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs with a lot of fat on them, but even if that’s the case I can’t help but feel like the chicken thighs were of below-average quality.

Taste: 3/10

Cost: 6/10

Convenience: 6/10

Nutrition: 5/10

Have you tried the Chicken Pineapple Teriyaki meal from Costco? What did you think? If not, would you still try it after reading this review?