- Costco's Kirkland Signature rotisserie chicken has celebrity fans and a page with 19,000 followers.
- The $5
chicken was tricky to get because shoppers scooped it up as soon as it hit shelves. - The rotisserie chicken was big, juicy, and tender - I'd buy it every week.
For many card-holding members, a trip to Costco isn't complete without snagging a Kirkland Signature rotisserie chicken.
It's such a draw for customers that, in 2015, Costco's chief financial advisor reportedly said they were willing to lose "$30 to $40 million a year in gross margin" on the birds by selling them for only $4.99.
In 2019, Costco opened a $450 million poultry complex in Nebraska just to keep up with the demand.
I've been a Costco shopper for as long as I can remember, but I've never bought the famed rotisserie chicken until now.
Read on to see if it lived up to its reputation.
Finding the rotisserie chicken was easy, but buying one was not
I found the chicken at the back of the store in the Kirkland Signature rotisserie section. I immediately saw people standing around the shelves waiting for the next batch of birds to hit the shelves.
It only took me a few moments to realize that right in front of me was the most competitive rotisserie-bird hand-off I'd ever seen.
The Facebook fan page's photo shows shelves full of of golden-brown chickens waiting to be scooped up. In real life, Costco customers didn't even give employees a chance to set them down.
Almost like clockwork, as soon as an employee put down a chicken, someone would grab it.
Some more aggressive shoppers were positioned in front of the display, ready to grab the bird as soon as it came off the spit.
After a few awkward maneuvers where I didn't react quickly enough, I finally grabbed my bird and put it in the cart with a sense of relief.
The $4.99 price tag and the chicken's delicious aroma wafting through the plastic clamshell made me eager to get home and taste it.
Upon first glance, the chicken looked huge and moist
At first glance, the chicken looked significantly bigger than comparable grocery-store birds. Its skin was a golden brown, although it was more soggy than crispy.
As I cut into the chicken, I could tell how juicy it was as the meat easily fell off the bone and there seemed to be a lot of retained moisture despite the roasting process.
This might be because the bird is apparently brined by being injected with a saline solution pre-roast.
After a few bites, my boyfriend and I agreed this was easily the best grocery-store rotisserie chicken we've ever eaten
The chicken only contains about 10 ingredients, but it was loaded with flavor. The skin wasn't as crisp as I'd normally like, but it had a good balance of sweet and salty seasoning.
It's hard to say if owes its flavor and texture to the brining process or some other ingredients.
The chicken itself had a buttery taste and tender texture throughout the whole bird, even in the breast meat.
I've never been the biggest fan of rotisserie chicken, but I couldn't resist popping delicious morsel after morsel in my mouth until I was completely stuffed.
We ate a lot and there was still plenty of leftover meat - I estimated I could get 4 meals out of a single chicken
After one meal for two people, there was still so much meat left.
This felt like a wallet-friendly purchase - I estimated that the chicken could probably last me four meals, making it just $1.25 per portion.
The next day, I put some in a salad and in a bowl of chili for some added protein. I was pleasantly surprised by how well the chicken warmed up and retained its juiciness after multiple trips to the oven and stovetop.
This is a Costco offering I could see myself getting once a week.
Unfortunately, this rotisserie chicken would be hard to replicate at home because the ingredients merely list "spice extractives" for the seasoning blend.
But based on the flavor and texture alone, I think it would be worth it to trek to Costco and battle it out with the other rotisserie-chicken fans.
Plus, at just $4.99 per bird, it's hard to imagine finding a tastier and easier meal than this.