Picture a 30-pound box landing frozen on your porch with an entire holiday meal inside. The Costco Thanksgiving dinner is available at $199.99, which is $70 off the usual $269.99 and works out to about $25 a head. The catch: there is no whole bird, and nobody gets a drumstick.
What the Costco Thanksgiving dinner actually includes
The bundle is called the Complete Gourmet Thanksgiving Dinner. It serves eight, and the listing counts 12 items. I’ll say it: that is a lot of food for the price of a decent dinner out.
The star is a 5-pound all-natural, Amish-raised, free-range turkey breast. It’s skin-on, netted and pre-brined, so it goes straight into the oven. From there, the sides do the heavy lifting.
- Classic sides: 3 pounds each of mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, mac and cheese, cornbread stuffing and sweet corn.
- Specialty sides: 2 pounds of candied yams and 12 gourmet dinner rolls.
- Extras: a 24-ounce turkey gravy and a 20-ounce cranberry relish.
- Dessert: 2 pounds each of whole pumpkin pie and apple cobbler.
Costco says it has “made Thanksgiving much easier for you and your family with this bundle,” according to Fox Business. Fair enough. After all, three pounds of mac and cheese is a love language.
The catch: no turkey leg, and it’s online only
This Costco turkey dinner is a turkey breast, period. Nexstar’s headline put it best: great deal, as long as nobody wants a turkey leg. In plenty of families, that is a deal-breaker.
You also won’t find it in the warehouse. Instead, the meal is sold only through Costco.com as a pre-order, not in the refrigerated or prepared-food sections, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. It ships frozen by FedEx with second-day delivery, so clear some freezer space (yes, all of it). Shoppers weighing a Costco holiday meal should also watch Thanksgiving travel costs, because the box needs someone home to receive it.
Is the Costco Thanksgiving bundle actually a good deal?
It depends on what you’re comparing it to. The SF Chronicle notes that other retailers sell cheaper Thanksgiving meal deals, but with far fewer sides and desserts. Meanwhile, Nexstar calls it one of the more expensive options out there.
Here’s the thing: the math changes once you count the pies, the rolls and the gravy. Buying all of that separately adds up fast, and cooking it all yourself eats a whole weekend. Also keep in mind that the “was $269.99” price is Costco’s own claim, and we haven’t checked it independently. Investors tracking the retailer can read how Costco figured in Wall Street’s Wednesday watch.
The $70 discount runs through Nov. 30 while supplies last, so there is no need to panic-buy today. Thanksgiving falls on Nov. 26, though, so check Costco.com for the exact pre-order and delivery cutoffs before you count on a frozen box arriving in time.
So the real question at your table: who spots the missing drumstick first, and who gets blamed?
