5 Costco Premade Meals That Are Cheaper Than Their Ingredients

If you’re a Costco shopper, you’ve likely seen its wide variety of premade meals in the deli area. From stick-to-your-ribs shepherd’s pie to stir fry with seasoned chicken, you can find something that everyone in your family will eat. 

These heat-and-eat meals can not only be a terrific time saver — but, in many cases, cheaper than making it yourself. The average prepared meal cost at Costco is around $20, which means that you could load your cart with these five easy and filling dinners for around $100. 

For around $20, you can pick up a Shepherd’s Pie at Costco, which is a crustless pie filled with meats and veggies and topped with a layer of creamy mashed potatoes. Shepherd’s pies like Costco’s require a lot of ingredients, including ground beef, potatoes, carrots, onions, celery, peas, garlic, chicken broth, milk tomato paste and seasonings.

Ground beef is around $4.99 per pound, and you’ll need 1.5-2 pounds to make a pie that has six servings like Costco’s version. Once you buy all of the other ingredients, you’ll likely have spent more than $20. 

A 12-count Chicken Street Taco kit at Costco is between $15-$16. Considering you’ll likely spend between $6-$7 on both the fresh salsa and lime crema sauce, you’ll only have about $9 to $10 to spend on the rest of the ingredients, including meat, tortillas, cheese, shredded cabbage and limes. A 6-pack of chicken thighs is about $7, so it’s unlikely you’ll be able to purchase the rest of the ingredients for $3 or less.

You can pick up 3.4 pounds of Costco’s prepared Yakisoba Stir Fry with Seasoned Chicken for around $20. To make this meal at home, you’ll need Chuno sauce, which you might only be able to find at specialty stores. Amazon sells it for around $9, which is almost half of the prepared meal’s cost. You can also make your own sauce with Worcestershire sauce, oyster sauce, ketchup, soy sauce and sugar. But if you don’t have those ingredients on hand, they can add up.

You’ll also need vegetables, such as yellow onion, green onion, carrots, shiitake mushrooms and cabbage. Yakisoba noodles and chicken round out the recipe. Chicken typically costs around $3-$4 per pound.

If you’re in the mood for a quick Italian meal, Costco’s Ravioli Lasagna with beef and pork Bolognese sauce is around $21. You could easily spend $20 or more on ingredients to make your own lasagna — especially if you make your own Bolognese sauce, which requires quite a few ingredients — including beef, pork, onion, garlic, chicken broth, crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, milk and white wine — and plenty of time to simmer on the stove. You’ll also need lasagna noodles and a variety of cheeses, which can run up your grocery bill. 

Believe it or not, it’s cheaper to buy Costco’s version of macaroni and cheese for $13.95 than make it at home. Although you can pick up a 16-ounce package of macaroni noodles for under $2, it’s the cheese that’s expensive. To make mac and cheese correctly, you can’t buy the pre-shredded cheese. Shredded cheese is coated with an anticaking agent to prevent shreds from sticking together and does not melt well for the creamy sauce macaroni and cheese needs. 

Instead, you’ll need to buy more expensive block cheese. For instance, one macaroni recipe calls for 4 cups of sharp cheddar, equaling a 1-pound block of cheese priced at almost $7. It also calls for half of a pound of gruyere cheese, which is about 60 cents per ounce or $4.80 for half of a pound. Including the macaroni noodles, that’s $13.80. The rest of the ingredients cost much more than the remaining 15 cents, including milk, heavy whipping cream, butter and flour — plus, any extras like bread crumbs and smoked paprika.