A Nanaimo bar is a festive dessert with rich custard icing in the middle, a chocolate ganache top and a graham cracker coconut base. Many Canadians look forward to this sweet treat every Christmas season and they’re named after the city of Nanaimo is British Columbia. This year the Costco bakery is making its own Nanaimo bar. Are they as good as Grandma makes?
Starting at age 16 I worked retail at the mall every Christmas until I finished my nursing degree and it was always such a busy time! To get through my shifts I would treat myself to a Nanaimo Bar from Cookies By George pretty often because I really enjoy them. Today I’m reviewing a very Canadian, very sweet and delicious festive dessert. The Costco Kirkland Signature Nanaimo Bars.
Other festive sweet desserts from Costco are the Kirkland Signature Christmas Fruit Cake, Kirkland Signature Ginger Cookies, Sticky Toffee Pudding Co. Sticky Toffee Pudding, Kirkland Signature Raspberry Crumble Cookies, Kirkland Signature Red Velvet Cheesecake and the Kirkland Signature Chocolate Yule Log.
Taste
Nanaimo bars are generally pretty sweet so if you’re not a fan of rich, sweet desserts you probably don’t need to read the rest of this review! The Costco Kirkland Signature Nanaimo Bars have a coconut, graham cracker and chocolate bottom layer. The bottom layer is a bit different from traditional Nanaimo Bars that have nuts in the bottom. The middle has a sweet vanilla custard icing filling and the top has a thick layer of chocolate ganache.
The inside vanilla filling is overly sweet and tastes more like sweet sugar icing than vanilla custard. I think the Costco Nanaimo bars might be a tad sweeter than homemade ones. The chocolate on top was delicious, tasty, sugary and smooth but very messy! It was all over my fingers and the bar was sliding out of my hand after holding it for only a few seconds.
These definitely aren’t as good as homemade Nanaimo Bars but are just as good as any store-bought Nanaimo Bars I’ve had in the past.
Cost
Each box of Costco Kirkland Signature Nanaimo Bars contains 24 Nanaimo Bars and I purchased the box for $14.99 Canadian. This is two dollars more than they cost is 2019, at that time they were $12.99 Canadian.
Convenience
These cut beautifully and freeze really well, the bars are already scored so you know where to cut to make nice, even-sized bars. I recommend cutting the bars prior to freezing because trying to cut the bars frozen causes the chocolate to shatter everywhere.
The best-before date for the Costco Kirkland Signature Nanaimo Bars is twelve days from the date they were packaged. Back in 2019 when I bought the bars they had a best-before date of seven days from the date they were packaged. The ingredients list is exactly the same so I’m not sure why that is.
These are very convenient to have around the holiday season for holiday cookie/dessert platters and I find Nanaimo bars are often a crowd favorite!
Nutrition
Calories
These are full of calories, fat and sugar and are definitely not nutritious. One bar is 270 calories, 16 grams of fat, 31 grams of carbohydrates, 22 grams of sugar, two grams of protein, and 130 milligrams of sodium. I thought they would have a higher sugar content per bar based on how sweet they are.
Ingredients
All of the ingredients listed are ones I hate to see. Lots of palm oil, sugar, canola oil. Propanediol is used to make anti-freeze and can be harmful in large quantities. I would much prefer to eat a homemade Nanaimo bar made with simple ingredients.
Scoring
Taste: 7.5/10
Cost: 7.5/10
Convenience: 10/10
Nutrition: 0/10
Overall
Give it a try!
If you’re too busy to make Nanaimo bars but they’re a must-have on your Christmas treats list, Costco’s are decent. If you care about what you put in your body, try to ignore the ingredients list.
Have you ever had a Nanaimo bar? What do 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).
I agree with Marion above comment. I was disappointed in these Kirkland Nanaimo Bars. The base is very crumbly and the top is gooey making the bar very difficult to eat. I doubt I will purchase them again. I have looked forward to them every year but no more.
I was disappointed in these. The base did not stay together, fell allover the place, there was more left in the box then on the square! Tasted good though lol.
Marian