Our Favorite Costco Prepared Meal Will Have You Skipping Ingredients At The Grocery Store

When a Foodie staff writer gathered a haul of Costco prepared meals and ranked them worst to best, she wasn't ready for meatloaf and mashed potatoes to take home the gold. In fact, she purposely saved the meatloaf entree for last, precisely because she wasn't expecting to enjoy it. Who among us hasn't been burned by ready-made meatloaf? While Mom's weeknight meatloaf is succulent, tender, and rich in flavor, most store-bought meatloafs (meatloaves?) are flavorless, dry bricks. Costco, however, came in clutch, serving up a meatloaf that was second only to the Meatloaf who sang "Two Out of Three Ain't Bad."

As per our writer's taste test, Kirkland Signature Meatloaf with Yukon Gold Mashed Potatoes tastes like it was prepared with love in your very own kitchen. While there are a host of cooking mistakes that can plague mashed potatoes, the spuds in the prepared meal could be mistaken for homemade, she gushed. Furthermore, the sauce atop the meatloaf was complex and delicious, elevating the main dish. Making meatloaf and mashed potatoes at home is not only time-consuming, but involves buying a whole host of ingredients. Meatloaf needs at least one kind of protein (although many have two), eggs, a filler like breadcrumbs, and a healthy amount of spices to make it taste good. Mashed potatoes worthy of the name require at least butter and cream in addition to the 'taters. Purchasing the Costco meal saves you from stocking up on all those components and delivers big flavor in one easy-to-heat package.

Our writer wasn't the only one raving about Costco's meatloaf. People in the warehouse retailer's broader fandom have a lot of positive things to say about this meal. "It's awesome. Often, bad meatloaf gets a weird texture from too much [sic] breadcrumbs. No problem here, great ratio," one Redditor said, giving it a virtual thumbs-up. On Costco Food Database, the meatloaf and potatoes score a very respectable 4.4/5 stars, and some glowing reviews cite specifics. "So delicious, and so easy to make. Probably the best mash potatoes I've ever had," a comment elaborated. "The mashed potatoes, though? So good," a TikTok reel agreed. The latter review mentioned that the sauce atop the meatloaf itself was on the sweet side, which was a frequent theme amongst those tasting the dish. Those who liked a sweet sauce seemed to be big fans, while others would have preferred less sauce, or even none at all.

Overall, the Kirkland Signature Meatloaf with Yukon Gold Mashed Potatoes is probably a safe bet for your family dinner on a night when preparing a meal from scratch just isn't in the cards. With an average price of $20.74 for a 3.95-pound package (it's sold by weight, so cost will vary), this is a big meal that will feed the gang for less than takeout and doesn't require a lot of effort for a tasty payoff. After all, man can't live on Costco's cheap hotdogs alone!