My family paid $180 to have Costco handle Thanksgiving dinner. The prep was easy, and each dish tasted homemade.

• The $180 meal for eight people included a turkey breast, rolls, six sides, and two pies.
• Our super tasty dinner required little work to reheat, giving us more time to spend with family.

One year, I purchased a heat-and-serve Thanksgiving dinner for eight from the food-distribution company Fortune Fish & Gourmet through Costco.

Perks such as it being shipped right to my front door and coming with easy-to-follow reheating instructions especially caught my eye. The total came to $180, after a $50-off deal for Costco members.

Here’s what it was like to let Costco handle our early Thanksgiving dinner, which we planned for when my mother-in-law would be in town.

The Thanksgiving meal included everything my family needed, from rolls to pie.

Our Thanksgiving meal was easy to order online. At checkout, I chose a delivery date a few days before we planned to eat it.

I was emailed easy-to-follow instructions for reheating the meal in advance, and it later arrived on my doorstep in a cooler box.

The box contained a 5-pound turkey breast, 24 ounces of turkey gravy, 2 pounds of mashed potatoes, green-bean casserole, mac and cheese, sweet corn, cornbread stuffing, 12 dinner rolls, a 20-ounce container of cranberry sauce, a pumpkin pie, and an apple cobbler.

The turkey breast turned out moist and delicious.

We thawed our turkey in advance, followed the cooking instructions on the package, and were rewarded with 5 pounds of tender, juicy breast meat.

While the turkey cooked, all that was left to do was reheat each side dish in the oven-safe container it came in, thaw and serve the cranberry sauce, heat the gravy on the stovetop in a pan, and warm our rolls.

We spent no more than 30 minutes in the kitchen preparing the meal, as everything but the turkey came precooked. My oven truly did all the work.

The side dishes were tasty, and one of our favorites was the green-bean casserole.

Fortunately, the green-bean casserole in this meal kit was perfectly creamy and savory, with well-cooked green beans and a nice flavor. It was so delicious that I didn’t miss my home-cooked version, nor did the rest of my family.

There were plenty of essential Thanksgiving carbs, such as rolls and mac and cheese.

We thoroughly enjoyed the dinner rolls that came with this meal, especially when paired with butter. Easy to heat through and serve, they were crispy on the outside and soft and pillowy on the inside.

Since there were only six of us eating a meal intended for eight, we had plenty of leftovers — and carby options such as mac and cheese and dinner rolls were delicious in the days after our feast.

The meal even included two desserts.

Once we cleared the table and went for an after-dinner walk, it was time for dessert.

I made only two extra purchases for the dessert course: canned whipped cream for the pumpkin pie and vanilla ice cream for the apple crumble.

It was also fun to focus on setting my table instead of cooking.

I love setting a holiday table as much as I love cooking a meal, so it was fun to focus on creating a beautiful tablescape this year instead of spending most of the day (and the day before) in the kitchen.

I was able to pull out my great-grandmother’s china, set a gorgeous table, and top it off with silly crafts for my family to do as we ate.

Having a bit of extra time to set the table allowed me to facilitate some great Thanksgiving memories for my family, such as laughing until we cried about how difficult the “kids craft” turkeys I bought were for four adults and two teenagers to assemble.

The meal felt pretty complete to us, though some might wish for sweet potatoes.

The meal we ordered from Costco truly included everything our family would normally cook for Thanksgiving dinner, down to the turkey gravy and the cranberry sauce.

I would definitely order this Thanksgiving dinner through Costco again.

Based on our experience ordering the Fortune Gourmet Thanksgiving meal from Costco, I’d absolutely order this again or a similar meal package.

It was delicious, and the dishes tasted remarkably close to many of my usual recipes.

I loved not having to spend several days in the kitchen making things from scratch, and the cleanup was incredibly easy since so many of the dishes came in oven-safe containers for reheating.

This year, the same company is offering a near-identical Thanksgiving dinner through Costco for $270, or discounted to $200 for Costco members.

I’m interested in trying this again — and my fingers are crossed that the warehouse chain will sell something similar for Christmas dinner, too.

This story was originally published on November 19, 2024, and most recently updated on November 6, 2026.

Read the original article on Business Insider