Skip This Classic Italian Dish From Costco Unless You Want A Watery Mess

When you buy Italian food at a grocery store, there is always the risk that it will be incredibly disappointing compared to the real deal. Homemade Italian dishes rely on the use of fresh, high-quality ingredients, and when crucial elements, like pasta, are reheated, they can end up mushy. Tasting Table tried and rated 11 Italian food products from Costco to determine which you should buy and which you should skip. Unfortunately, one classic Italian dish ended up being a watery mess.

Sabatino's Tuscan Style Chicken Piccata comes in a 32-ounce package that costs around $17. It isn't frozen, but it contains fully cooked chicken that must be kept refrigerated until use. The packaging describes the dish as containing tender chicken breasts with a creamy lemon caper sauce and sun-dried tomatoes, which sounds promising. Yet immediately upon opening the package, it was obvious that the dish was far from appetizing. The chicken is pressed together in a brick that needs to be broken apart. The instructions recommend heating the meal up on the stove top, which should have resulted in a thick, creamy sauce. Unfortunately, the sauce was actually runny and watery as well as short on flavor and ingredients.

Overall, the texture of the chicken was okay; the chicken was soft but in strange, unappealing chunks. The flavor was unimpressive, with the most obvious being tart lemon without anything else to offer balance. Although you could potentially improve the dish by adding your own seasonings or some fresh vegetables, that would defeat the purpose of buying a ready-to-eat convenience meal. In the end, this is definitely not a Costco frozen food that could pass for homemade.

Reviews for Sabatino's Tuscan Style Chicken Piccata are mixed. While some customers found it a flavorful, easy, and fast option for a weeknight dinner, others complained about overly wet chicken that was tough and far too salty. Even customers who enjoyed the dish said that they would prefer making chicken piccata from scratch rather than spending $17 for the Sabatino version. In a post on the r/Costco subreddit, a member who said they were "pleasantly surprised" by the dish claimed they would be "getting it again for quick and tasty dinners." However, none of the commenters agreed.

One Redditor complained, "The instructions said to brown the chicken on both sides, but there was no way to do that because it was so wet from soaking in the bag of chicken broth, which to us also made the chicken too salty." Another pointed out a funky smell when opening the package, saying, "Not sure if it's just us, but did the chicken smell odd when taken out of the bag and while cooking?" Another commenter agreed that the dish "Smelled like cat food."

In an honest review from Scott Cooks on YouTube, he rated the dish a miss, saying, "Don't eat this." Although Scott initially said that the meal "sounds really, really good," his overall review ended up being negative. After trying the meal, Scott found the chicken dry, and there was only a hint of lemon in the sauce. His overall opinion was that it "didn't stand up to homemade chicken piccata," and that he wouldn't buy it again, rating it a 6.5 out of 10.