5 Costco Frozen Items To Skip In 2026

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.

Costco customers put a lot of trust into their favorite bulk-buy store, which is why it can feel like a nasty shock when some purchases prove to be disasters. The frozen aisle is particularly perilous, as the products are often packed in opaque bags or boxes, meaning there's no way to judge the taste, smell, or texture before you buy. However, you can look at fellow shoppers' opinions to see which items to try or avoid, and that's exactly what we did to find out which Costco frozen food flops you should skip in 2026.

While some Costco frozen foods could pass for homemade, the items on this list embody the worst stereotypes about freezer aisle products: bland, lackluster flavors; strangely dry or soggy textures; and an overall lack of freshness that makes them not worth your cash. We looked at detailed product reviews, as well as social media commentary from Costco fans, to see which items from the freezer aisle get the most consistently negative feedback. Sadly, some of our no-buy products used to be well-liked before they nosedived in quality over the past few years. Next time you visit your local warehouse, pass up on these five duds and go for the best Costco freezer items of the year instead.

With so many superior chicken products to buy at Costco, there's no reason to waste money on the Tyson Crispy Chicken Strips, which have received a flood of negative reviews from customers. Scores of angry shoppers complain that rather than chicken strips, these are more like chicken crumbs that mostly consist of breading with barely any meat. One customer on Reddit posted photo evidence, showing a pitiful pile of bready bits at the bottom of the bag. Even customers who bought this Tyson product on sale feel like they were completely ripped off.

What's worse, these chicken strips fall flat in the taste department, even if you get decent portions. "It's so processed and stuck together with meat glue, all you taste is breading and tendon," reads one review on Costco's website. A customer on Reddit called them the "Worst chicken strips EVER ... like chewing on a tire. A shark would struggle eating these things. Will never buy again." Another Redditor wrote, "it's been the only food item I've straight up thrown away the entire bag of after trying it."

In place of these Tyson disasters, Costco regulars highly recommend the brand Just Bare, which is also available in the chain's freezer section. Just Bare's Lightly Breaded Chicken Breast Strips won first place in our ranking of frozen chicken tender brands thanks to their delicious, crunchy coating and juicy meat. The brand's Lightly Breaded Chicken Breast Chunks also get rave reviews.

Any frequent visitor to Costco's food court knows that the chain can make a passable pepperoni pizza, so it's baffling that the frozen Kirkland Signature Pepperoni Pizza fails so miserably. Due to its majorly disappointing taste and texture, this Costco item has shockingly negative reviews, leading to a rating of just 2.6 stars out of five on the chain's website. In fact, some reviewers say this is the worst frozen pizza they've ever had.

While no one expects a frozen pie to rival a freshly-made one, this Kirkland product has flavorless toppings and a low-quality crust, with some customers saying the base is too hard, while others found the opposite. "Cheese has a strange bitter off-flavor to it and a plastic texture, crust is both thin and floppy, and even though in the oven for plenty of time and the outside edge was crunchy, the central part of the pizza crust seemed underbaked," wrote one reviewer on Costco's website. Multiple customers compare this pie to cardboard, though one Redditor went further and said, "I think the cardboard box they came in might have had more flavor than the actual pizza."

Other critics say this pepperoni pizza does have a bit of flavor, but not a good one. One Costco reviewer compared it to "Spaghetti O's with hot dogs on a piece of stale bread." What's tragic is that Kirkland pepperoni pizzas used to be decent, according to shoppers, but took a turn for the worse. Costco fans instead recommend buying the Kirkland Signature plain Cheese Pizza – which has much better feedback — and adding pepperoni yourself, or just going for better frozen pizza brands.

Kirkland Signature Breakfast Sandwiches are yet another Costco staple that members used to love, before a sudden dip in quality sent it to a lower spot in the store's frozen food lineup. With an egg patty, cheddar cheese, and applewood-smoked bacon stuffed in a halved butter croissant, this product sounds like a simple but perfect breakfast sandwich. How did Costco screw it up? By shorting customers on the amount and quality of the ingredients.

"These WERE an incredible buy, but it seems that shrinkflation has struck," wrote a customer on Costco's website. "The croissant is now significantly smaller and the bacon is extra thin with a smaller portion." Several more reviews from the past year also complain of paper-thin bacon and fewer slices, and the egg in the sandwich has also allegedly shrunk. "I used to buy 3-4 boxes of these a month ... [now] you get hardly any bacon, instead of a thick egg patty you now get a thin sheet of egg, and weird textured cheese," said one disappointed Costco reviewer.

To be fair, the Kirkland Signature Breakfast Sandwiches don't taste bad. If you had never bought them before, you might find them tasty enough, as some Costco customers still do. But with so many people complaining about a downgrade, it can't be a fluke, and these sandwiches are a gamble at best in 2026.

​​Junior's New York cheesecake is a famously delicious NYC icon, and Costco's selection of frozen Junior's Mini Cheesecakes seems like a great way to taste the hype at home. With original, strawberry, and cinnamon apple flavors, they look like an easy, charming thaw-and-serve treat. However, Costco shoppers aren't sweet on this frozen dessert, calling it a letdown that shames the Junior's name.

These mini cheesecakes have been called bizarrely artificial-tasting with chemical or plastic-like overtones, especially the apple cinnamon variety, which is customers' least favorite by far. A previous version of this Junior's variety pack had a chocolate cheesecake in place of apple, and former fans are seriously miffed by the change. One Reddit user wrote, "The cheesecakes had an off texture, as well as everything tasting like the supposed apple cinnamon flavor, which didn't really taste like apple or cinnamon. When tasting the mystery flavor with the strawberry variation, it was especially gag-inducing." Another Costco shopper agreed, saying they could smell an unpleasant, odd apple stench before they even opened the box, and were disappointed that it permeated the other cheesecakes.

On the other hand, some Costco members actually enjoy Junior's Mini Cheesecakes and say they've never encountered any chemical flavors. Some shoppers suspect that the quality issues are regional, and some Costcos in certain areas may carry the better version. It's up to you if you want to take the chance, but we would save our money for the Costco bakery's awesome Kirkland Signature cheesecake and add fruity toppings ourselves.

Love the Costco food court's chicken bakes and want to make a fast and easy version at home? We wish we could recommend the frozen version of Kirkland Signature Chicken Bakes, but they bear surprisingly little resemblance to the food court version – to be frank, they're inferior in every way. As one Reddit user put it, "Notably they are much smaller ... and the chicken is super sketchy and gray." 

Customers also complain about the stingy amount of flavorless filling inside a crust that's too thick, yet also limp and not at all crisp. A reviewer on Facebook said, "I would not recommend these, I found them pretty disappointing. They're very dough heavy and the crust on the outside is nice and crispy and the inside is soggy/raw. The chicken is also very processed and rubbery tasting." Another Redditor simply said, "I bought a box and could not even finish it."

When we compared Costco's frozen chicken bakes to the food court version, we didn't have quite as poor an experience, but found that the frozen product definitely contained less filling, while the crust didn't crisp up well and lacked both cheese and flavor. It wasn't awful, but we wouldn't buy it again. Some chicken bake fans feel outright misled by the promise that this product is anywhere close to the original, and we can't blame them. We may never know why Costco has changed one of its own signature dishes so radically for the freezer aisle adaptation.