Costco’s pre-made meal section is always introducing new options, and the Kirkland Signature Fried Rice Takeout Dinner is one of the latest additions. It features not just fried rice, but also tempura shrimp, chicken bites, egg rolls, and dipping sauce—a full takeout-style feast in one box. As a fan of fried rice and Asian-inspired dishes, I was excited to give it a try, but unfortunately, it didn’t live up to my expectations. Read on to find out why.
Location in Store
This is located in the refrigerated pre-made meal section at Costco, near the chicken pot pie and quinoa salad. The item number is 71151.
Taste
Overall, this meal is just okay, not great. I’d rather spend my money on fried rice and tempura from a Asian takeout restaurant. The shrimp is the same as the shrimp you get in the tempura tacos and just like the Kirkland Signature Tempura Shrimp.
The pieces of chicken and super tasty and probably my favorite part of the meal but there was only like eight of them. The chicken is all white tender chicken in a salty, crispy breading, it has a bit of a peppery kick to it! The chicken goes really well with the dipping sauce, I do wish there were more chicken pieces.
The egg rolls are my least favorite part of the meal, they were really soggy and hard to crisp up. Even though I cooked them longer and they seemed crispy on the outside the inside was still soggy. one. They also have a minced meat filling that has a bit of an odd seasoning, it tastes like thyme or rosemary.
Both the sweet and sour sauce and the plum sauce are quite sweet and taste pretty much the same as one another. The fried rice is fine, it has a bit of a smoky/plastic flavor that I didn’t love and was a bit greasy and salty.
Cost
The Kirkland Signature Fried Rice Takeout Dinner costs $14.99 per kilogram so the cost of each tray is dependent on the weight. I paid $27.61 for my particular tray which isn’t cheap! There were four egg rolls, seven tempura shrimp and eight chicken pieces in my tray along with the rice.
Convenience
The fried rice meal needs to be kept refrigerated and has a best before date that’s four days from when it was packaged. Heating it up was pretty simple but I found the egg rolls were still soggy at the 14 minute mark and needed longer to get crispy.
The meal comes with two sauces so everything you need for a complete fried rice takeout meal is in the pack. My toddler liked the chicken bites and tempura shrimp but wasn’t a fan of anything else in the meal.
Nutrition
Calories
In 1/7th of the tray there are 500 calories, 17 grams of fat, 72 grams of carbohydrates, four grams of fibre, 18 grams of sugar, 16 grams of protein and 1350 milligrams of sodium. That’s quite a bit of sodium and carbs for only a seventh of the tray!
Ingredients
The ingredients list is pretty long but doesn’t have as many unhealthy ingredients as I expected there to be! There’s a few like canola oil, soya oil and dextrose. The fried rice takeout dinner contains soy, sesame, wheat, egg, milk and shrimp. It may contain mustard, fish, molluscs, tree nuts, peanuts and other crustaceans.
Scoring
Taste: 6/10
Cost: 5/10
Convenience: 9.5/10
Nutrition: 2/10 (Points for protein).
Overall
Walk on by!
The best part of the meal is the tempura shrimp and the chicken bites and the worst part is definitely the egg rolls. Honestly for the cost I’d just get Chinese takeout from a restaurant.
FAQ
Fried rice, egg rolls, tempura shrimp and breaded chicken.
Soy, wheat, egg, milk, shrimp and sesame.
1/7th of the tray contains 500 calories.
Have you tried the Costco Kirkland Signature Fried Rice Takeout Dinner? 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).
