For my first post on this blog, I am going to tackle probably the most important product that Costco offers. The famous Kirkland Signature Rotisserie Chicken.
The stories are legendary around these chickens. Along with the Food Court Pizza and the Hot Dog, the Rotisserie Chicken clearly sits in the hall of fame of all of Costco’s products. It’s what draws people into the store and you know then the treasure hunt begins.
Costco will literally cook thousands of chickens a day in a busy store. It is not unheard of for people to go in and buy 20, 30, or more chickens at a time. Why not, where else can you get a fully cooked chicken for $4.99? Nowhere that’s where. You can only get it at Costco. When I worked there the story went that Costco would never lose money on a product, even if they only made a penny (except for gasoline because market prices are out of their control).
It is estimated that in 2022, Costco sold 117 million rotisserie chickens and the demand keeps going up every year. When I worked there they started to work with farmers directly to grow a special-sized chicken (they have to be smaller than regular chickens you cook yourself) with their own processing plant to save on costs so they could keep the price at $4.99. Even when I was an employee there we didn’t know if it was a loss leader product or not (a product that the store loses money on to attract more people to the warehouse). That information was a tightly held secret but many people find it hard to believe that Costco can make a profit on those birds at that price.
Cost
There is something magical about rotisserie chicken, or any chicken that is roasted properly. The dark golden, crispy skin. The moist tenderness of the meat. It all comes together in a perfect melange of flavors and aromas. But to be honest, it’s the price. In the USA, the Rotisserie Chicken costs $4.99. In Canada, they are $7.99. In the UK – £3.99 (£4.48 inc. VAT).
Costco Chickens are cheap. As I mentioned above, you simply cannot get a raw or cooked chicken anywhere else for that price. A whole, raw chicken might set you back $12-15 and then you have to cook it. That is a savings of probably of at least $7 a chicken. If you simply bought a chicken a week for 52 weeks and added up the cost savings over a raw chicken, you would save $7 x 52 weeks = $364 a year. More than enough to pay for your Costco membership. So, is it any wonder why you see families grabbing several chickens? It’s cheap protein…
BTW, if you go to Safeway or Albertsons or wherever near you, their rotisserie chickens are double the price and many times not nearly as good. At about $1 a pound cooked on a rotisserie, you are not going to find a better protein value almost anywhere.
But we are here to talk about how the rotisserie chicken actually tastes.
Taste
The first time I had a rotisserie chicken was when I was traveling in Germany a long time ago. I was at a beer festival and they had these long spits of chicken just spinning away we ordered a couple for our table and it was astounding how good they were. This was before every grocery store in the world decided to put in a rotisserie chicken station. It wasn’t until years later that rotisserie chickens started popping up everywhere. I was hooked and when they started showing up in grocery stores around the USA, I started eating more and more of them.
When you look at the ingredients list on these rotisserie chickens, it’s pretty simple but there are a couple of things that make you wonder. Like what are Tetrapotassium Pyrophosphate and Sodium Triphosphate? Fortunately, they are common food additives that serve a variety of purposes but are most likely used in the brining solution.
That’s how they keep Costco’s Rotisserie Chickens so moist, is injecting a brine solution into the birds. If you’ve ever brined and baked a chicken yourself, you know how much of a difference it makes in the final product.
As for the “spices” that Costco puts on the birds, we’ll probably never know what that is. I’m sure it’s a closely guarded secret in a vault in Issaquah (at the Corporate headquarters.) but whatever it is, it is very subtle. Costco probably doesn’t want to overpower your average consumer with flavor and frankly, it costs more money to put more seasoning into these birds.
For me, there isn’t enough flavor. I like rotisserie chicken for the moistness and the skin but if I were doing one, I would turn up the volume on the flavors a bit. But, they are going for the lowest common denominator for millions of people, so they keep it simple.
My favorite part of the chicken is the skin. I love freshly baked chicken skin. Although not the healthiest part of the chicken, it does have the most flavor.
Your Kirkland Signature Rotisserie chicken should be almost falling off the bone when you get it home. There should also be quite a bit of juice at the bottom of the container which I save and use in stock or just pour over the chicken pieces when I serve it for a flavor boost. The next best part for me is the wings because they have a lot of flavor too.
I like to carve up the chicken and serve it on a plate to the family. If we get it and put it in the fridge, a couple of minutes in the microwave warms it up nicely.
If you have the time, the bones and skin make a great chicken stock.
Many people complain that the chicken is a bit salty and I agree that it can lean towards the salty end of the spectrum I think that is because of the brine solution but that is what also keeps it so moist.
The uses for a rotisserie chicken other than just eating it straight out of the container are so numerous, that there are whole blogs dedicated to just the chicken.
Final Verdict
We have to weigh several things to come up with a score. At Costco, price is never a concern because they always have the lowest prices you’ll likely find anywhere and the rotisserie chicken is a classic example of their low prices. That weighs heavily on the score, so the value for your money is probably one of the highest values you will ever find.
There is convenience, which is also very high. Just pick one up on your next trip to Costco and stick it in the microwave before dinner and you have instant dinner. Then there is flavor. I have to be honest Costco rotisserie chicken is not my favorite rotisserie chicken out there. It is quite bland compared to a couple of my local grocery chains and there is a local restaurant that has rotisserie chicken that will blow your socks off. Even I can make a better rotisserie chicken on my Weber grill, but when you add it all up, it adds up to a pretty high score.
I am going to give Costco’s Kirkland Signature Rotisserie Chicken a solid 8 Stars out of 10. Mainly for convenience and cost with lower marks for flavor.
INGREDIENTS:
Whole chickens, water, seasoning [salt, sodium phosphate, modified food starch (potato, tapioca) and potato dextrin, carrageenan, sugar, dextrose, spice extractives].
Reheating instructions:
FULLY COOKED ON SITE AT COSTCO
Microwave: Leave chicken in tray and place in microwave. Heat on medium until internal temperature reaches 165 degrees. Heating times will vary based on the microwave.
Oven: Preheat oven to 350°F. Remove chicken from the original packaging. Place on an oven safe pan and and cover with foil. Bake at 350° until the internal temperature reaches 165° (approximately 60 minutes). Heating times will vary on individual ovens.