The Fan-Favorite Costco Frozen Breakfast Item That Comes From A Popular San Francisco Bakery

There is nothing like a good Costco freezer find, especially when it's a delicious breakfast item that can be whipped up on a dime with minimal effort involved. If that sounds up your alley, it might be time to hunt down a box of La Boulangerie Smoked Ham & Swiss Cheese Pockets at your local store.

The fan-favorite readymade pastries feature a layer of thinly-sliced smoked ham and aged Swiss cheese encased in croissant dough made using American-milled flour and lots of butter. They may not taste exactly like a homemade ham and cheese pastry but the pockets are produced by a San Francisco-based bakery that's incredibly popular across the city.

La Boulangerie was founded by French baker Pascal Rigo in 1996. From the original Fillmore Street location, Rigo and his team focused on creating traditional French viennoiserie with premium local ingredients and pure, top-quality butter. They were so successful that there are now five bakeries dotted around the Bay Area, as well as a catering business and retail operation that delivers to grocery stores around the country — like Costco.

The Smoked Ham & Swiss Cheese Pockets come individually wrapped in packs of eight and are already cooked, so the only prep required is heating up the oven. Priced at $1.72 per serving at Costco, they offer some pretty good value — they even featured on Tasting Table's list of 10 satisfying frozen Costco meals that spare your wallet.

Our expert isn't the only person who recommends the pockets, if online reviews are anything to go by. One Reddit user said, "These things are phenomenal. I would pick these over a hot pocket 10 times out of 10 times. You can cook them in a toaster oven for 15 minutes or you can use an air fryer for six minutes and they all come out crispy, buttery, and delicious." Another wrote, "I eat them every day for breakfast now. I've never been excited about 'warming up breakfast' before, but they are perfect!"

Some people like to air fry the pastries for over 10 minutes to make them extra crispy, while others opt for the oven for approximately eight minutes. Thawing in the microwave before baking is another method that seems to work before air frying for six minutes. One small issue some people have is with the amount of filling, but one Reddit user recommended cutting the pastry in half toward the end of cooking to "stuff more ham and cheese inside." If that sounds like too much, here are a few more Costco breakfast items to try.