Sweet & convenient orange chicken!
Please note that this review was not paid for or sponsored by any third party. The opinions in this review are strictly my own. I am not affiliated with Costco or any of its suppliers. I am just a fan of the company. I write these honest reviews to help my fellow shoppers.
Frozen food at Costco is something I absolutely love to review. Quick and convenient meals are my jam. Quite a while ago I reviewed the Costco Ready Cuisine Honey Garlic Pork . I recently found this new Ready Cuisine Orange Chicken at Costco in the freezer section that I’ll be reviewing today. The item number is 1481750.
Taste
Both Sean and I kind of enjoyed this but I’ll point out two main things about the orange chicken. There’s a ton of breading and the sauce is way too sweet. The Costco Ready Cuisine Orange Chicken is little bites of white chicken that are heavily coated in breading, kind of like a “popcorn chicken” but without much chicken.
The chicken gets brown and crispy when heated in the oven, without the sauce the chicken bites taste just like plain pieces of breaded chicken. I didn’t notice any bits of gristle or gross chicken but there was a few small pieces that were just crunchy breading and had no chicken in the middle.
The flavor is all in the orange sauce that comes with the chicken! The sauce is very sweet, sticky and has a bold candy-tasting orange flavor. Similar to an orange lollipop. You can control the sweetness of the orange chicken by adding less or more sauce, I smothered Sean’s in sauce and he commented he’d prefer less next time. I put only a small amount on mine to lightly coat my chicken and didn’t find it outrageously sweet.
I served the orange chicken on top of the Costco Lotus Foods Organic Ramen and also cooked up some purple onion and green pepper that I had in the fridge to add a little bit of veg to the dish.
Cost
This 1.5kg box of Orange Chicken cost $14.99 Canadian at Costco. This is enough for two meals for two adults with a bit of leftovers.
Convenience
To cook this I spread my chicken pieces on a piece of parchment paper-lined cookie sheet and baked for about 35 minutes at 400 degrees Fahrenheit to get the chicken golden brown and crispy how I like it. I definitely think it needs more than the 15-20 minutes in the oven the box says.
In my opinion, kids would absolutely love this! It makes a quick and easy lunch or dinner and you can eat it just as it comes or add some vegetables like I did. I recommend serving this with some rice or noodles!
Nutrition
10 pieces is 380 calories, 14 grams of fat, 41 grams of carbohydrates, 22 grams of sugar, zero grams of fibre, 21 grams of protein and 560 mg of sodium. This is definitely not the healthiest meal on the planet. There’s a decent amount of protein which I like but I consider this more like a “treat meal”. The ingredients list is pretty much as I expected it to be.
I wish there was more chicken in the Costco Ready Cuisine Orange Chicken. It’s convenient and tasty enough, I think kids would really love to try this for lunch or dinner.
Taste: 6.5/10
Cost: 7/10
Convenience: 9/10
Nutrition: 3/10
Leave a comment if this review was helpful and also share what your thoughts are on this product!
Loved the chicken. Now we have it stocked in our fridge all the time. As good as take out. I don’t understand the negative reviews. Such a big hit at my daughter’s birthday party. $13 fed close to 8 teen girls. Try it at least once and then decide.
Thanks for saving me wasting my time. I appreciate you keeping it real. I will just go to Trader Joe’s and get their Mandarin Orange Chicken. That I know is worth getting. Shame on you Costco. People expect better from you!
Ugh, ugh, and ugh. Tried some tonight. The rest is in the garbage. This product is not up to Costco’s reputation and standards. I was very disappointed – all breading, no chicken that I could detect.
Thoroughly enjoyed this orange chicken and really liked the orange flavour of the sauce.
This is the worst orange chicken it is all crumbs
I have bought orange chicke at the Costco in the USA & tit like the picture on the box
You should be ashamed for even selling this garbage
Terrible product. Very little actual chicken and mostly breaded crumbs. The sauce makes up about 1/3 of 1.5kg package and you likely won’t need that much for all those crumbs.
What a shit product!
I open the bag and it is nothing but bread/breading crumbs.
Threw out the open bag and was so disgusted with the second bag that I returned it to Costco.
What is displayed on the packaging is not what is inside.
This is nothing more than deceptive and fraudulent advertising designed to exploit the consumer.
The recipe has been changed and this new version is absolute garbage. Have bought this for years and it was always delicious now it is disgusting.
Please DONOT buy it ,Better called chicken skin than other things .after 20 years shopping in Costco this is the worse product i have ever buy.I will return it today even the cooked one .
Disappoint customer.
This is so disappointing and don’t buy it! The quality of the chicken they used are more of discarded breast tips that good for garbage. Not worth it!!
To whom it may concern ,Your Classic Bake and Serve Orange Chicken packaging in my opinion is deceiving ,the product inside the box is certainly not something that I would serve to my family/friends for a meal.It was in my experience very difficult to find a piece of chicken larger then a cooked POPCORN Kernel
I would make a very strong suggestion that you add the word Popcorn to the out side packaging then people wouldn’t be deceived or disappointed in the product..
Same experience! It’s more of breading than chicken breast. Might be better as dog food instead.
I’m pretty sure they used a single chicken wings worth of chicken for the entire box. Just little bread chunks covered in orange flavoured syrup.
Hello, we had these yesterday for dinner & we generally agree with your comments except for the one about the cooking time & how you used 35 minutes to get them crunchy. Yes, the box says 15 – 20 minutes but, it also goes on to say that if you want them more runchy to, cook them for an extra 5 – 10 minutes, which we did to get them crunchy. You should have mentioned that in your review.
Also, although the orange sauce is quite sweet, it has a phenomenal orange flavour compared to many other boxed orange sauces.
Overall a great review. Will tag your website for other product reviews. Thank you.
the worst crap I ever had Orange , not even close Bread not chicken
You know nothing best chicken ever