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Costco Thanksgiving Pies, Ranked


Costco Thanksgiving Pies, Ranked

To quote cooking icon Ina Garten: Store-bought is fine—and we think that’s especially the case on the biggest cooking holiday of the year, when your oven is loaded with a 16-pound bird and everyone’s favorite sides. If you’re entertaining a crowd on Thanksgiving (or tasked with delivering dessert to a Friendsgiving), you’ll be tempted by Costco’s giant Kirkland Signature Pies, which weigh over three pounds each.

To help you figure out which one deserves a spot on your holiday dessert table, we at the Food & Wine office sampled the retailer’s three most popular Thanksgiving pies — apple pie, pecan pie, and pumpkin pie. While Costco recommends a serving size of 12 slices, we found that these giant pies can be cut into squares to make at least 16 servings. That’s a whole lot of cake! Read on for our reviews of all three Thanksgiving cakes and maybe invest in some extra Tupperware.

Each Costco cake serves at least 12 people.

Food & Wine / Photo by Audrey Morgan


3. Kirkland Signature Pumpkin Pie

This single crust pumpkin pie was undeniably the bargain of the bunch, at just $5.99 for 68 ounces. (If you’re feeding 12 people, that’s just over 50 cents per person.) However, we found the filling to be bland and slightly watery, with one taster describing the consistency as “baby food-like.” The crust wasn’t exceptional, but our biggest issue with this pumpkin pie was the lack of pumpkin pie spice in the filling. “Where are the spices? Where is the love?” asked one taster. “I love a regular pumpkin pie but this one was tasteless,” another added. “I never wished for some pumpkin spice to be added, but it would have been welcome here.”

If you like a clean slice, it’s worth noting that this pie held its shape much better when cut than the apple and pecan, which both turned into a cobbler-like situation after splitting.

2. Kirkland Signature Double Crust Apple Pie

At $12.99 for a whopping four pounds, 11 ounces, this double-crust cake was filled with cinnamon-spiced apples and decorated with eye-catching openings in the shape of a flower. Thanks to the crunchy sugar topping that gave it a sparkling shine, he had the crust he liked best of all three pies, and there wasn’t a soggy bottom in sight; One taster noted the pleasant “short” texture. What stopped this cake from taking top honors? Although we found the apple filling to have a nice tartness that balanced the sweetness of the dessert, we didn’t like the sticky, syrupy texture.

Because of its size, this apple pie didn’t really have a chance of holding up, but there were no points deducted for this failure. “I’m honestly more wary of an apple pie that doesn’t fall apart when you cut it,” said one taster.

Our favorite: Kirkland Signature Pecan Pie

Weighing in at four pounds and six ounces, this decadent cake was the most expensive of the three at $16.99, but we thought it was worth every penny. The crumbly crust was filled with a thick filling and a crown of sugary toasted pecans. Tasters noted the generous amount of pecans on the cake, which were perfectly toasted and buttery (pecans are actually the second ingredient listed after corn syrup). “I’m usually wary of pecan pie because it’s like eating sugar sludge sprinkled with pecan. “This wasn’t a sugar bomb and the pecans had a nice texture,” noted one taster. We also liked the crumbliness of the crust with the gooey filling, which another compared to “graham crackers on pudding.”

The only disadvantage: most tasters found the consistency to be too good thick, and one taster even called it “sticky.” Another was disappointed that the pecans weren’t evenly distributed throughout the filling.

So is this the perfect pecan pie? No, but at less than $2 a serving, it’s a steal no matter how you slice it.

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