Costco Food Platters, Ranked From Worst To Best

You may already know that Costco is a great spot to stock up on goods like paper plates and single-use utensils before a party or get-together. However, did you know that the warehouse is also the perfect place to find large food platters that are perfect for sharing? If you're getting ready to host an event, you can take care of your food and serving needs with just one stop. That being said, some are better than others when it comes to the trays and platters. Taste was top priority, but value and storage potential were also important, as well as appeal to a wide range of guests. Whether you want something ready to go or prefer a bit of assembly, there are great options for members to pick up whether you want something that makes prep easy or a delicious item sure to be a hit.

When you first enter the massive warehouse, make your way back to the produce and prepared foods sections to peruse the party trays. They're kept refrigerated for freshness and to keep items like meat and cheese from spoiling. Like other items at Costco, these items are quite a bit larger than you'd see from other grocery chains. However, that makes them ideal for events like neighborhood block parties, family reunions, and birthday cookouts. We've even picked them up to take the classroom celebrations, where elementary aged kids swarmed the hit food until everything was completely polished off. 

Unless you really love veggies, the vegetable tray is just okay and will likely get relegated to the back of the buffet table. The ranch dip isn't the best and you can't customize your veggie options. This tray is comparable to ones you'd see at other grocery chains — just bigger, which is expected given that Costco stocks bulk items. It does include five different kinds of vegetables: cauliflower, broccoli, baby carrots, small peppers, and snap peas. If you're planning to pick up a couple of trays from another store, Costco might have a slightly more budget-friendly price.

If the dressing was more unique, we'd probably be more enthusiastic about this tray. Costco stocks plenty of fantastic dips nearby in the gourmet refrigerated foods section, so consider adding an extra to your cart for some variety. Tzatziki and hummus are our favorites, but keep in mind that this adds to the cost of the overall dish if you serve them alongside the tray. This might eliminate any savings you enjoy by shopping in bulk at Costco and requires navigating more aisles at Costco, which can lead to impulse purchases.

Another Costco food platter that is pretty predictable is the bowl of assorted fresh fruit. It comes with pineapple, cantaloupe, honeydew, strawberries, and purple grapes. The bowl contains a whopping 3 pounds of fruit but each piece is also pretty large as well. The strawberries, in particular, are big enough that we consider cutting them before serving to make them more enjoyable. This adds extra prep work to the tray, which we don't like when we're looking for something that is already prepared and ready to serve.

It doesn't include any dip, but the fruit is consistently high quality and fresh. Because it comes in a deep sectioned bowl, the bottom pieces in each part can get a little waterlogged and soggy, however. If you're serving the fruit right away, this isn't an issue and you won't see a difference in quality. If you end up storing leftovers, move them to a smaller container to make sure they stay fresh and crisp.

While the taste of the Kirkland Signature shrimp salad is bright and fresh, the dish can be a bit difficult to eat. It contains full size shrimp, although without tails, that are not bite-sized. If you're expecting to eat this salad in small bites, you may need to get a knife and fork first. It also has a creamy dressing, which tastes good, but limits the life of the salad and makes it hard to freeze. Make sure that you eat it within the recommended three to four days and throw away an extra after that to avoid the potential for foodborne illness.

It has bits of chopped celery in the salad, which gives the salad a little extra crunch. Overall, it's like a coastal cousin to the rotisserie chicken salad, although a bit harder to spread over a sandwich thanks to the larger pieces of shrimp compared to the shredded chicken. This is a tasty option to serve on Costco's giant croissants, which you can find in the bakery, but it also works over a bed of greens. When considered for taste alone, this would rank much higher on the list, but when you add in the inconvenience of cutting large shrimp before eating, it moves lower down.

It doesn't get much easier than the Caesar salad food platter, which includes everything you need to create a nice large salad to share. The romaine is crispy and fresh, which is a must-have base for a good Caesar salad. There are also plenty of croutons to add crunch, which are kept in a sealed bag and added to the salad when it's time to serve. This keeps them from getting soggy as they come into prolonged contact with the fresh lettuce. There are two packets of Caesar dressing, but we recommend adding one, shaking the salad to coat it, and then adjusting with more dressing as needed. Costco is not stingy with the dressings they include in their salad kits and we typically end up using less than what they provide.

The large pieces of shredded Parmesan cheese make this a nice option that tastes and looks much more expensive than it is. This was our favorite aspect of this particular salad, although you can also get shaved Parmesan from the gourmet foods section nearby if you want to add even more salty bite to your salad. The only things that we found unnecessary about this salad were the lemon wedges. Some people may like that extra burst of brightness, however, so it's worth keeping them in as an option to customize the dish.

Most Costco customers already know about the store's famous rotisserie chicken, which is a great value that the warehouse actually loses money on the sale of each bird (although its ability to get customers into the store nets the chain big bucks in the end) — but did you know that they use that chicken to also make their deliciously creamy chicken salad? It's another budget-friendly option from the prepared foods section that comes in a size perfect for sharing or meal prepping for the week. We pick up a single pack for $18, plus a Costco tray of croissants from the bakery, and have lunches for the entire week.

The main thing to consider before buying chicken salad from Costco in bulk is whether or not you're going to get through the entire 2.5-pound tray before it goes bad. Between three and four days is the recommended time to keep chicken salad in the fridge before tossing it due to the mayo used in the dressing. Unfortunately, it doesn't freeze well, so consider how much chicken salad you plan to use and determine if this is still a good value per meal. Another strategy is to share the purchase with a chicken salad-loving friend and splitting the cost. While you can't split your membership unless you are in the same household, you can always let friends have some of the chicken salad for their lunch rather than throwing it out.

Costco really hits it out of the park with chicken sandwiches and the sprouted grain bread adds a delicious texture and taste to this platter. It has roasted chicken along with cheese, lettuce, and tomato. The tray comes with two large tubs of mayo-mustard blend, which you add to your sandwich yourself. This allows each person to customize their condiments or choose to leave it off entirely. We've found that there was more than enough included to spread over four sandwiches and we even had extra leftover to use as a dipping sauce with chicken nuggets.

The sandwich ingredients are good, but it's the sprouted grain bread that really turns it into something unique, rather than a plain old deli sandwich. Not only is it super tender and delicious, but it also has health benefits that other breads do not. The only thing to remember with this tray is that it's a bit harder to share among a crowd. As-is, the platter comes with four large sandwiches. We've cut them down into smaller portions to work for a bigger group or a buffet spread, but that adds extra work. It is also harder to keep the sandwiches intact when we try to do it ourselves rather than get them precut.

This is one of Costco's most popular food trays, making appearances at baby showers, birthday parties, and even the occasional giant lunch. These rollups are made with roasted chicken and Swiss cheese, plus sliced tomatoes and green leaf lettuce. However, it's the addition of cranberry cream cheese in place of a traditional condiment like mustard or mayo that earns these wraps the top spot on our list. In fact, we've made more than one special trip to Costco and braved the long weekend lines just to get these wraps. Everytime we've taken to them a shared event like a barbecue or class party, we've always come back with an empty tray. Expect most people to eat at least one, unless they are specifically avoiding one of the ingredients, such as meat or dairy. Even people who are a bit skeptical about wraps have enjoyed these and ended up eating more than one.

Each clamshell comes with 12 individual portions. They are made with soft, pliable Lahvash flatbread. They are very uniform and stay together, which is unusual for a wrap in our experience. They are also very tightly constructed and have generous amounts of cream cheese that help all of the other ingredients stick together with the bread.

With years of Costco experience under our belts, we've tested all of these options in multiple scenarios and settled on our all-time favorites. As expected, some of the trays and platters we've been putting in our carts for years still rose to the top, but new favorites also emerged thanks to delicious flavors and textures. 

We also considered the upfront cost of each option as well as the value. Some of the dishes that had higher price tags at the store were actually better deals because we could freeze the leftovers or would be able to share them with a crowd. Others were less expensive to purchase but didn't keep well and we ended up throwing out a good portion of the tray.

We also looked at which platters were unique to Costco, prioritizing those that we liked that we couldn't find elsewhere. Even some of the good choices were available in smaller quantities at our local grocery store, which ultimately moved them lower on our list.