The 5 Best Holiday Appetizers at Costco (And One To Skip)

I recently achieved an adulthood milestone: buying my own Costco membership. Even though I don’t have a particularly large pantry or lots of freezer space, there are plenty of Costco items that have made my membership worth the cost, especially as I’m careening toward another adult milestone—hosting my family for the holidays.

As a first-time holiday host, I’m trying to balance my desire to cook absolutely everything and wow the family with the reality that preparing multiple meals (plus appetizers and desserts) with a house full of guests is a lot to manage. I’ve recently become intimately familiar with Costco’s frozen appetizer lineup in an effort to lessen the cooking load somewhat, and so that I can focus my time on a few standout holiday dishes.

Costco’s freezer aisles, happily, are filled with some stellar options. I tested them and found good options to set out for guests or keep on hand as a backup if one of my own recipes goes awry.

Bibigo Chicken and Cilantro Mini Wontons

Frozen dumplings are usually a last-minute dinner in my house, but for an appetizer, I love the size of these mini wontons. I appreciated that they could be microwaved or quickly pan-fried.

While the microwave method didn’t impress me, if you’re able to set aside a few minutes to toss them in a skillet with some oil, these mini wontons are well worth it. They develop a crunchy exterior after a quick five minutes in a skillet, and I was impressed by the herbaceousness of the filling, which I find doesn’t always translate well in frozen items. 

Bibigo Vegetable Spring Rolls With Soy Ginger Sauce

I’ve been served many a freezer spring roll over the years, so perhaps nostalgia played a factor, but I found these spring rolls lived up to my memories. While they can be air-fried if you have an air fryer, they got sufficiently browned and crisp in my conventional oven.

The spring roll sheet was super crisp and provided a great contrast to the soft filling. The flavors inside the rolls were light and delicate, but the included sauce was punchy enough that I found the overall bite to be pretty satisfying.

Phillips Crab Cake Minis

I love crab cakes, but I’ve had enough bad ones that I was initially wary of these. For me, a bad crab cake is tough, a bit chewy, and lacking in actual crab meat. These crab cakes were delicate, soft, buttery, and chock full of crab. They got great color where there was contact with the hot pan.

Though the packaging recommends lightly buttering your sheet pan before baking, I tried them both with and without buttering the pan first and didn’t find it made a real difference. I paid about $20 for 36 mini crab cakes, the price is on the steep side, but that’s not too surprising given the ingredients.

Cuisine Adventures Puff Pastry Bites

These puff pastry bites impressed me for a few reasons: There are a variety of flavors in the box, they’re packaged conveniently, they look impressive, and they’re tasty. They also don’t require flipping halfway through cooking, so they’re even more hands-off than some of the other items in this list that do recommend a quick flip. There’s a good ratio of filling to pastry, and the variety of flavors makes me confident everyone in my family will like them.

Kirkland Signature Breaded Panko Shrimp

Costco carries a few different frozen shrimp options, including this panko breaded one. These frozen shrimp were robust in size and tender in texture, and the panko breading properly coated each shrimp without being too thick. Though the price of this item is close to $20, there are 40 to 50 shrimp per bag, and you’re saved all the effort of deveining and cooking the shrimp.

The Costco Frozen App You Can Skip

On the flip side, I didn’t find the tempura shrimp worth purchasing. Like the panko shrimp, the cost is about $20, but there are fewer shrimp included in this package. I also found the shrimp to be smaller and less tender than in the panko appetizer, and there was too much tempura batter for my liking—my first bite was all batter, no shrimp.

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