5 Frozen Costco Dinners, Ranked

You'd be hard-pressed to find someone who would prefer a frozen dinner over one made fresh at home. However, freshly made dinners aren't always feasible, so it's nice to have a few frozen dinners on hand for work days that run long or when your energy is exceptionally low. Turning to a frozen meal from Costco, one of the more affordable grocery stores, is certainly less expensive than ordering from DoorDash or even heading to a restaurant.

Newly minted Costco membership in hand, I headed to my new favorite grocery store to pick up some Kirkland Signature snacks and check out some of the best frozen dinners I could find, leaving the rotisserie chicken on its warmer (for now, at least). Looking through all of the frozen meals, I selected ones that looked the most promising to bring home. I sampled each of them, following package preparation and cooking directions. Ultimately, I chose which meals tasted worthy of your precious freezer space and which ones might be better left at Costco.

Costco's Boom Boom Shrimp is the perfect example of food that tastes good for a few bites but not so great after a few more. Initially, with each bite, I was pleased with the spice level, tenderness of the shrimp, and how it all came together. After a few more bites, however, the shrimp became too moist, and the flavor was less enjoyable.

It's hard to say how this meal went sideways since it seemed rather promising. I suppose the shrimp deteriorated too quickly, or I simply ate too many bites of it. In any case, this entrée needs a little support to be an enjoyable meal. I ate it over rice, but I think veggies would have also made a nice addition. If adding other items, you'll definitely want to make sure the shrimp is the last part finished so that the sauced shrimp don't go mushy.

Living so close to Walt Disney World, I certainly have my favorite restaurants around the resort. One of my favorites is Morimoto Asia in Disney Springs. I wasn't expecting to find Morimoto Asia's lo mein noodles at Costco, but I may just have stumbled upon a dupe. The yakisoba noodles with vegetables have a sauce and texture that feel very similar to the noodles from Morimoto Asia. My son absolutely loves these noodles too, and with a little careful vegetable removal, I may just be able to get him to enjoy these.

One of the best parts about these yakisoba noodles with veggies is that the preparation process was really thorough and interesting. The directions on the package recommend that you begin by removing the labeled corner, microwave them, and then remove the rest of the top after the noodles have finished cooking. Everything is very clearly and impressively labeled, making for simple preparation. Although the flavor needed a little bit of help, and I felt more sauce was needed, as soon as I added some soy sauce, sriracha, and sesame oil, they were much better. Though the flavor wasn't quite what I hoped it to be, and other Costco dinners certainly were more enjoyable. The veggies were the worst part of these noodles, and they were very mushy. Instead of being an enjoyable part of the dish, they were even softer than the noodles. These veggies really dragged down the dish, and I found it was much better without them.

Sometimes, you just want a quick meal, and Costco has a pretty good option for such occasions. The Lilly B's Organic Bean, Rice, & Cheese Burritos cook up quickly and are very enjoyable. Each time I made one of these, I found that the burrito split open, so you'll probably not be able to enjoy them without a plate — but that's not a terribly big sacrifice, and one that you'll probably want to have in case anything falls out of the burrito. I should also note that if you are having more than one, don't be tempted to save time by cooking them together. I found that this resulted in very uneven cooking for the burritos.

Like the noodles, these could do with a little bit more sauce, and the flavor was pretty bland otherwise. The texture of the inside of the burrito was as if you took the rice, cheese, and beans on the side of your burrito from your favorite Mexican restaurant and wrapped them into a tortilla. It was a little bit on the boring side, but woke right up with a few shakes of Frank's Red Hot.

One of my favorite frozen meals I came across at Costco hopped into my cart while sampling various frozen supreme pizza brands. Admittedly, I was very skeptical about this frozen pizza made with a cauliflower crust. But since I've now re-purchased it several times, clearly, that skepticism was all for naught. Not only is it a great pizza, but it's one of the best frozen meal options you can find at Costco.

It comes as a two-pack, and for $11.99, it'll feed two people easily for a light lunch or one very hungry person for dinner. The crust is made of cauliflower, yes, but it also has a whole lot of cheese flavor in it. And while I was worried that the crust would be an odd texture, it comes out with a cracker-crispy crust. The extra flavor of cheese in there really sends this one over the edge, so if you're a supreme pizza lover, I heartily recommend giving Kirkland brand cauliflower crust pizza a try. If other flavors ever come out on cauliflower crust, I'll definitely snatch those up as well.

I've sampled my fair share of frozen lasagna brands, and Kirkland Signature frozen lasagna is one of the absolute best. Sure, it has all the flavors you would expect of a typical lasagna, but there's also Italian sausage in this one, adding a whole new level of flavor.

In addition to a great balance of flavors and all that saucy goodness you want from a lasagna, the Italian sausage in Kirkland's take on lasagna adds some impressive zest, making each bite just a little bit spicier than I expected. Following the directions, it cooks up easily in the oven with noodles that are perfectly tender and cheese that crisps up absolutely perfectly. Of all of the frozen dinners I tried, this one definitely had the longest cooking time, but I can certainly imagine picking it up over and over again. At $16.99, it's also a really great value, because for that price, you get two lasagnas. My husband and I didn't even finish a complete lasagna for dinner, so I can imagine this easily feeding three or four people. To stretch it further, you could always add a salad and even some breadsticks.

After inspecting the Costco frozen food aisles, I chose the frozen dinners that looked to be the most enjoyable. Over the course of several days, my husband and I sampled each one. I ranked them according to their flavors and textures. In both flavor and texture, I hope to find items that were enjoyable to eat and offered a texture akin to eating whatever that dish might resemble if it were freshly made, rather than warmed up in the microwave or oven.