Costco Takes A Swing At Fried Chicken With New 3.5-Lb Trays

Costco has this uncanny way of turning everyday items into cult classics. Just think about the food court hot dog (which we ranked fairly high on our list of every Costco food court item). It's a standard hot dog, but the Costco name attached to it makes people go berserk. It's time to brush up on the rules for adding people to your Costco membership because everyone is going to want to get their hands on the new fried chicken and mashed potatoes tray before it turns into yet another beloved Costco staple.

The fried chicken and mashed potatoes tray is slowly rolling out at Costcos across the country; it's recently been spotted in both Massachusetts and Illinois. The trays weigh about 3.5 pounds and are stuffed with around five large, grade-A chicken thighs and a serving of Yukon Gold mashed potatoes topped with Kirkland Signature butter and shredded parsley. At $4.99 per pound, most of these trays come out to between $15-$18 and can be found in the prepared foods section of the store.

So far, reactions to the new Costco fried chicken and mashed potatoes tray have been mixed. "This package is all thighs, so that's a huge bonus," said one Reddit user referring to the debatable price per pound, while another Redditor argued that "mashed potatoes per pound is crazy work." A customerwho recently tried the tray said that the food is "pretty fire" in their opinion, but someone else who tried Costco's other fried chicken in the past said that they "weren't too thrilled" with it.

This isn't Costco's first venture into the prepared foods world. We tasted 11 popular Costco prepared meals to see if they lived up to their hype and were fairly pleased with what the big-name warehouse had to offer, and we're not the only ones. While discussing the fried chicken and mashed potatoes tray, a Reddit user suggested "Imagine if Costco started doing individual meal prep meals," to which someone else replied, "They definitely have healthy pre-made stuff." While labeling Costco's new fried chicken and mashed potatoes tray as "healthy" may not necessarily be the way experts would describe it, plenty of customers agree  it's worth a try.