The Popular Item Sold At Costco That José Andrés Thinks Everyone Should Have At Home

Even professional chefs — with their wide-ranging and refined palates — have favorite foods. Michelin-starred chef and humanitarian activist José Andrés is a longtime fan of jamón Ibérico. Andrés even opened a cocktail bar dedicated to jamón Ibérico in Chicago. Now, he's sharing his love for the often pricey ham variety in the upcoming season of Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex's Netflix series, "With Love, Meghan." In an Instagram trailer for the upcoming season, chef Andrés states that everyone should have a jamón Ibérico leg in their home. 

The trailer depicts a clip of the Duchess joined by chef Andrés, admiring a jamón Ibérico bellota ham leg perched atop a kitchen counter. While carving strips of ham off the leg with a knife, the chef remarks, "Everybody should have one of those at home." Eyeing the gargantuan pork leg, a somewhat skeptical Duchess replies, "You think so?" Indeed, this meaty beauty is lacking nothing in the size department. 

While jamón Ibérico isn't the cheapest type of ham, by any means, Costo offers a cost-effective option to its customers. The warehouse grocer's jamón Ibérico leg, which comes with a slicing knife and a wooden stand, features a full cured pork leg clocking in at 15.4 pounds. The product has emerged as something of a cult-favorite among Costco shoppers since its release. Customer reviews on its website claim it's "worth every penny," noting how difficult it is to find real, high-quality jamón Ibérico in the U.S.

For uninitiated foodies, jamón Ibérico is a type of dry-cured pork leg, and a traditional regional delicacy across Spain, Portugal, and the Iberian Peninsula. This ultra-flavorful culinary treasure is rich, deeply nutty, and porky, with an inimitable fatty melt-in-your-mouth texture, carved off the leg and ready to eat.

When it comes to Costco's three-year-aged ham, each pig freely roams on a minimum of 2.5 acres per individual pig, in the Valle De Los Pedroches of Southern Spain. Following the production guidelines for traditional jamón ibérico de bellota, Costco's ham is made from 100% pure-bred Iberian pigs (aka bellotas in Spanish), which eat a strict vegetarian diet of acorns, free-range grass, and native plants – factors which all contribute to the meat's famously steep price tag.

Costco's jamón Ibérico bellota ham leg set retails for $649.99 – which might feel like sticker-shock before realizing that shakes out to about $42.20 per pound. At the time of publication, at José Andrés' own 4- to 6-pound acorn-fed ibérico ham from Jabugo runs for $1,599 — roughly ⅓ the size of Costco's 15.4-pound leg for more than double the price.