14 Best Costco Prepared Meals To Try in 2025
Dinner is served in a convenient and delicious fashion whenever the best Costco prepared meals are included. To most, Costco is a place to stock up on bulk items: staple ingredients, household necessities and of course, a wide variety of snacks. But you’ll also find a selection of robust prepared foods for sale. Ranging from versatile basics to full-blown spreads, the best prepared meals at Costco are possibly its most underrated items.
However, like most things at Costco, there are a dizzying number of ready-to-eat foods for sale. So, in a sea of options, which stand out as the most highly rated? The 14 best Costco prepared meals in this guide are our favorite picks for your next low-stress weeknight dinner or convenient on-the-go lunch.
Jump to Section
Best Prepared Meals at Costco: 14 Top Picks
1. Beef-Stuffed Bell Peppers
The best Costco prepared meals are all about bang for your buck, and nutritionally, it’s hard to beat this one. Filled with ground beef, rice and tomato sauce, and topped with cheese, the Beef-Stuffed Bell Peppers are a no-sweat way to get your vegetables and your protein in. All you have to do is throw the whole tray in the oven, and you have a complete meal with nearly every food group represented.
In addition to being one of the healthier dinner food ideas at Costco, Beef-Stuffed Bell Peppers are one of the most delicious: the tomato sauce and cheese keep the rest of the ingredients moist and elevate their flavor profile. Plus, this flavorful but nutritious dinner is also one of the best Costco prepared meals for families with kids who might otherwise be reluctant to eat their vegetables.
2. Meatballs With Pasta and Sauce
Continuing the beef theme, this Costco meal makes use of both beef and pork to ensure a succulent meatball. And a huge one, for that matter: although the meal comes with pasta, you might be so full that you don’t even need it after eating a meatball or two! But you’ll most likely want to — nothing goes better with a juicy meatball than a hearty dish of pasta topped with all the cheese you could possibly want.
This protein-packed dish is one of the best Costco prepared meals for a filling family dinner — or even a weekly meal prep for one; there’s more than enough food here to last you a few days!
3. Chicken Street Tacos
Okay, so this one does require some prep on your end. But it’s so minimal that this definitely still counts as one of the best Costco prepared meals. All you have to do is heat up the chicken and assemble the tacos to your liking, and you have an unbeatable lunch food idea or weeknight dinner.
The kit comes with 12 tortillas, chicken and slaw, together with cheese, lime and salsa — everything you need to make the perfect taco. If you’re getting a little tired of always taking a sandwich to work for lunch, Costco’s Chicken Street Tacos meal kit might make an enticing alternative.
4. Rotisserie Chicken
It might be less of a meal than a versatile base for another dish, but Rotisserie Chicken is still considered to be one of the best Costco prepared meals. Chickens are continually roasted throughout the day (per FDA regulations, they can’t be left out for more than two hours), so you’re guaranteed to get a fresh purchase no matter when you shop. And the things you can do with that freshly-roasted meat are absolutely endless.
Whether you’re planning on using it in a soup or salad, or shredding it directly off the bird to eat by itself (and we wouldn't blame you), there’s no Costco staple more versatile than Rotisserie Chicken. Another reason why this is one of the best Costco prepared meals is that it hardly needs seasoning, as the delectable flavors have already been added for your convenience.
Finally, if you need even more convincing, this high-protein option has 21g per serving (according to Open Food Facts), so it's an excellent choice for those keeping an eye on the essential macronutrient.
5. Macaroni and Cheese
Costco’s Mac and Cheese has no pretensions whatsoever of being healthy, but that’s not the point. The title of the article is “Best Costco Prepared Meals,” not “Lightest”! And by that metric, this tray of pasta in rich cheese sauce is up there with the most popular picks.
One of the things that the wholesale corporation does best as a retailer is cheese, so it makes sense that a dish like this would be considered one of the best Costco prepared meals. With a blend of cheeses for an exceptionally creamy sauce, it requires no further prep than popping the whole tray in the oven.
6. Salmon Milano
If your taste preferences are a little bit lighter, Costco has a dinner option for that, too. Salmon Milano is a pretty simple meal: it’s essentially just a couple of salmon filets topped with basil pesto butter and fresh sprigs of dill. However, the addition of that butter is what takes this from a dish with a pretty good source of protein to one of the best Costco prepared meals.
Butter makes for tender, moist and flavorful fish, and that’s precisely what you’ll get when you bake this no-prep Costco meal. It usually takes time and effort to prepare a tasty seafood dinner, but what makes this one of the best Costco prepared meals is that there's no need for freezing and thawing or complicated cooking techniques.
7. Grain and Celery Salad
Most of Costco’s pre-made salads, it must be said, are not among the best Costco prepared meals. Lettuce tends to wilt quickly, so unless you buy it when it's just been prepared and plan on serving it the same day, a salad quickly becomes unappetizing. But when lettuce isn’t the base, all the bets are off.
This salad is one of the best Costco prepared meals for health-conscious shoppers because it avoids the pitfalls of a lettuce base and instead includes grains, as well as kale, cabbage and other vegetables that don’t wilt. It has chickpeas for protein, cranberries for sweetness, celery for crunch and dressing for some kick — what more could you ask for?
8. Meatball Sandwich
We’ve already talked about the meatballs and established that they’re a solid choice. So, it makes sense that the Meatball Sandwich might be considered one of the best Costco prepared meals. Even so, you would think that a meal like this would fall into some common traps: maybe the bread gets soggy, the meatballs dry out or there’s just too much cheese.
But it soundly refutes all of those worries: the ciabatta bread holds up well, the meatballs are as moist as you’d hope and there really isn’t any such thing as too much cheese. It’s easily one of the best Costco prepared meals, serving needs from a family dinner or a workday lunch to a prep-free party entrée.
9. Chili
No need to wait for football season tailgating parties to try a batch of chili that you didn’t have to make. Costco’s version includes beef, tomatoes and onions, as well as peppers, beans and cheese, which makes for a hearty and superbly reheatable dish. As such, it’s one of the best Costco prepared meals to include in a weekly meal prep rotation.
It’s also one of the more nutritious options. Beans are full of fiber and vitamins, beef is an excellent source of protein and you’ll get a solid dose of vitamin C from the tomato base, too — one of the best Costco prepared meals for warding off those wintertime bugs.
10. Yakisoba Stir Fry
You might not think that Costco’s (loose) take on Asian takeout would be one of its better meals, but you ought to give the organization the benefit of the doubt. It's considered one of the best Costco prepared meals for its flavor variety: this meal kit includes yakisoba noodles, chicken, vegetables and sauce for you to stir-fry.
So no, it’s not the lowest-prep option on this list. But the stir-fry sauce pulls it all together perfectly, and it’s a welcome departure from the heavy beef or cream-based meals that have been a fixture on this list. We think that makes it one of the best Costco prepared meals, even with a little bit of extra prep time.
11. Meatloaf and Mashed Potatoes
You may have had dreaded meatloaf nights as a kid, but nowadays, you might have to reconsider its merits as a filling dinner. Costco’s version is nothing like the dry, flavorless affair you may have had to suffer through in your childhood. The meatloaf is moist and tender, the flavorful ketchup-based sauce makes sure it stays that way and, the mashed potatoes, which are always a win, round it off as one of the best Costco prepared meals.
12. Enchilada Bake
We’ve already talked about the chicken taco kit, but that’s not the only Mexican-inspired hit that deserves to be ranked among the best Costco prepared meals. Using Costco’s rotisserie chicken as a base, this dish is a smoky, cheesy, flavorful revelation on a weeknight when you just can’t be bothered to throw something together.
As a bonus, this is an absolutely massive tray of food. Once you’ve baked it, you’ll easily have a main dish for a small party, two nights’ dinners for a family of four or a week’s worth of meals for your own enjoyment. Like all the best Costco prepared meals, the Enchilada Bake offers unbeatable value for both your time and your money.
13. Pizza
Okay, so this is kind of cheating. But Costco’s food court meals are the stuff of legend, and we absolutely think that a takeout pizza from the food court is one of the best Costco prepared meals. Not only does the corporation offer some of the cheapest pizza pound for pound that you’ll find anywhere, but it’s also unbelievably high-quality for the price.
Costco’s pizza has it all: a fluffy, tender crust, sweet but tangy sauce, and abundant and incredibly flavorful cheese. Pizza is near-universally known as the one meal that almost no one dislikes — apologies here to the lactose intolerant crowd — and Costco happens to make an incredible slice.
So, is it exactly what you pictured when you clicked on an article about the best Costco prepared meals? Probably not. But is it one of the best Costco prepared foods all the same? We think the answer is indisputably “yes.”
14. Tandoori Chicken Wrap
One of the first things that may pop into your mind when thinking of the best Costco prepared meals is its enormous trays of wraps. We’ve all found ourselves at a meeting or party where turkey pinwheels were served. But not all of Costco’s wraps are created equal — this is one of the few that avoids sogginess or a lack of flavor.
Instead, Indian-inspired flavors keep this one interesting. Coconut, garlic and peppers make the flavor of tender tandoori chicken stand out even more, and it’s all served with mint yogurt sauce that cools the spice of the meat. And you don’t even have to heat them up: you’re free to throw a wrap in your lunch bag and head out. For both flavor and convenience, these wraps get our vote for one of the best Costco prepared meals.
Costco is more than just a bulk-goods store, and the best Costco prepared foods provide ample evidence of that. Though there are overarching trends (cheese is almost omnipresent), there’s something for every taste preference in Costco’s pre-made section.
Plus, as with most things found in the brand's stores, the best Costco prepared meals offer almost unbeatable value for money. The more grocery prices rise, the more you have to appreciate the value you get at Costco — a consistent feature of its wallet-friendly pre-made foods. And all of that means that when you need a dish to bring to a party, or dinner on the table in an hour, one of the best Costco prepared meals is bound to fit the bill.
For even more ways to explore your favorite foods, check out other experiences happening on Cozymeal.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT?
Join the conversation.