This New $22 Costco Deli Kit Is Getting Some Mixed Reactions — 'You Have To Cook It Urself?!'

Costco is known for selling relatively inexpensive, ready-to-eat meals, and some of its biggest hits include the easy-to-assemble chicken taco kits and the recently-returned Greek pasta salad. One item that's unlikely to make the list of best new Costco deli items of 2026, however, is the $22 Honey Sesame Chicken Stir-Fry, despite the enthusiastic efforts of one Costco influencer determined to promote it.

The item consists of breaded chicken nuggets, a couple sauce packets, some precooked noodles, and a vegetable assortment that includes broccoli florets, sliced carrots, and snap peas. The Costco Hot Finds account enthuses, "Kid friendly and SO much food!! My son loved it!" But commenters didn't seem in a hurry to run out and buy it. In fact, many wouldn't even shuffle slowly to the deli counter if this was all Costco had on offer.

One issue is that the vegetables aren't cooked, which means this meal is hardly ready to eat. The influencer shows themselves pouring oil (not included) into a pan and frying up the ingredients, but this requires both time and effort (sugar snap peas need about four minutes to cook, while broccoli and carrots can take up to seven). This prompted one incredulous commenter to remark, "$22 dollars and you have to cook it urself?! Madness!" Not everyone was sold on the item's overall quality, either. Another person objected, "As a Chinese person, seeing all the noodles completely broken up before they were even poured out breaks me." A third commenter said, "I got some and it taste like a $1.25 frozen dollar tree meal. Absolutely disguisting [sic]."

One point the influencer tried to make was that at $22 this was a budget-friendly meal that would feed five people. Viewers did not agree. Echoing a common sentiment, one commenter said, "5 people? I could eat that all on my own." Someone else commented, "Dang what a rip off. You can make twice that amount at half the price if you bought the stuff to make it." Another person provided more concrete instructions: "For the same price by [sic] their orange chicken and a bag of stir fry veggies in the freezer section. Pair that with soba noodles and get 3-4 meals out of it."

Curious to see if this was true, we performed a little virtual Costco trip and found that we could purchase a 66-ounce bag of Crazy Cuizine Mandarin Orange Chicken for $18.52. Add a packet of Ajinomoto Yakisoba with Vegetables (six 9-ounce packets, or 54 ounces in all) for $18.15 and you'd have 7½ pounds of vegetables, sauce, noodles, and chicken for $36.67. We don't know how much the Honey Sesame Chicken Stir-Fry weighs as the video whizzed by too fast to show this detail, but many Costco prepared meals range between three and four pounds, so it appears our easy-to-portion option is slightly less expensive. Needless to say, purchasing your own vegetables, adding a packet of ramen noodles, and going with chunks of fresh chicken (Costco sells thighs for $1.69 per pound) would make your meal even cheaper.