Costco Just Added A Huge Portion Of Chicken Strips To The Food Court Menu, And I Couldn't More Satisfied

There's plenty of cost-saving opportunities at Costco, but perhaps one of the very best is choosing to eat in the Costco food court for lunch or dinner. The selection of food isn't groundbreaking by any means and it's not very large, but sometimes, the Costco gods bless us with a new addition to the menu. Though it's normally big news when the warehouse unveils a new food court item, I hadn't seen any mention of particularly exciting additions. But when my family and I went shopping at the warehouse, I was surprised to find Chicken Strips on the menu. These have long been a Canadian Costco food court item American shoppers would love to see in the States, and at long last, they've arrived at my location, only a few months after popping up in another major U.S. city.

Although I still ordered my typical meal from the food court (can't go wrong with Costco's iconic hot dog), I also ordered the Chicken Strips for my family to share. Like most other items on the Costco food court menu, the Chicken Strips are à la carte and don't come with a side. They did, however, come with a dipping sauce. But the big question is whether you should choose these Chicken Strips instead of your typical Costco food court order. I was determined to find out.

I based my final thoughts on the taste and texture of the Chicken Strips and their sauce. If the flavor of the chicken was enjoyable and enhanced by the sauce, it would be an automatic win. The real trial would be texture. I needed the strips to feel like real chicken and unlike the compacted stuff you'd find in a fast food nugget.

Though the menu stated that the Chicken Strips come in five-piece portions, mine had at least six. They came with a decently sized cup of sauce that tasted somewhere between a sweet-and-spicy honey mustard and Chick-fil-A sauce. The texture was just thick enough to cling to the chicken, making this sauce-loving Costco shopper plenty pleased.

The chicken was decently tender; it wasn't mushy or like it had been compacted in a machine. Costco advertises that the Chicken Strips are made from chicken breast meat, and that's clearly evident by their look and texture. On the outside, the breading wasn't too crispy, meaning there was an enjoyable balance of chicken and breading in every bite. Granted, the breading didn't have much flavor, but since there was a tasty dipping sauce, this wasn't a letdown.

I will purchase these Chicken Strips again. The portion was huge, and there was more than enough sauce to dip to my heart's content. For $6.99, I felt like I got a decently sized meal, and the quality of the Chicken Strips was obvious. Though I serendipitously stumbled across this new menu addition, I can imagine it becoming very popular, both with my family and Costco shoppers in general.

My son is seven, so I've become something of a Chicken Strips connoisseur. These aren't the best I've ever had, but they're about as good as basic chicken strips can get. They reminded me of the kind of strips I might get at one of the quick-service spots at Disney World. And honestly, they're perfect for the Costco food court. 

Costco keeps its food court prices impressively low, and the Chicken Strips were also priced very fairly at $6.99. With a price like that, I always wonder just how long these chicken strips will stick around and if I should take the time to fall in love with them. They seem to have appeared out of thin air, and I can imagine them disappearing just as quickly. As I write this, they are listed on my local Costco food court menu as a new item, but it's hard to say how long they'll be considered new and for how long it will actually sit up there. I reached out to the Costco customer service team online, and the representative didn't have any clear idea how long the Chicken Strips would stick around.

In situations like these, popularity often has a bearing on how long foods stick around — which bodes well for these Chicken Strips. While we were enjoying our chicken strips, a fellow Costco shopper came up and asked us how they were. After the conversation, he bought his own, and as I looked around the food court, I noticed several families sharing their own order of Chicken Strips. At least in my location, they seem to be a hit, so I can imagine the Chicken Strips will be sticking around for a while.