The Frozen Seafood Meal Costco Shoppers Think Is The Worst
Costco has inspired plenty of viral fads, from their hot dogs and pizza slices to a long list of amazing and affordable products under the signature Kirkland brand. Unfortunately, just as there is viral praise for the good, there's also viral condemnation for the products that aren't so well executed. Frozen seafood at Costco encompasses both good and bad products, but the seafood meal that Costco shoppers think is the worst is the crawfish boil from Tastee Choice.
Crawfish boils consist of whole crawfish and andouille sausage boiled in highly seasoned water alongside corn on the cob and potatoes, with extra Cajun seasoning to sprinkle over everything once it's ready to eat. Tastee Choice crawfish boil provides seasoning packets and a mix of pre-cooked and raw frozen ingredients. While you save preparation time, it's apparently at the cost of everything else. Customers aired their grievances on various platforms, including Reddit and TikTok. The overriding consensus on the Tastee Choice crawfish boil is expressed by a Reddit author who describes the contents of the frozen meal, "Incredibly salty, nasty mudbugs, and mushy corn and potatoes."
A TikTok user winced as she tasted the overly salty seasoning from Tastee Choice's more varied seafood boil, then proceeded to comment on how rubbery and flavorless the sausage tasted. As an iconic Cajun staple, many Louisianan Redditors agreed that crawfish "hinges more on 'pond to pot' freshness and is less suited for mass production and a 'shelf life.'"
Why did the Tastee Choice crawfish boil fail?
According to a Louisiana native on Reddit, freshness is the key to a successful crawfish boil, "You want them going into the pot alive, and you want them out of the shell before storing after eating." Another makes a logical point about the ease with which a fresh crawfish boil comes together, begging the question of why the product exists in the first place.
Despite the utter failure of Tastee Choice's frozen crawfish boil, frozen seafood is a common and perfectly adequate product for those of us who don't live near bodies of water. Even if you buy fresh seafood, you can still freeze it if you aren't going to cook it within a day or two. Redditors from Louisiana attested to the success they personally have with freezing crawfish, arguing that Tastee Choice's product was the result of poor execution. Their downfall was combining the crawfish, sausage, and veggies together in one bag because they all have different cooking times.
Costco has a vast frozen seafood section with plenty of positively reviewed choices from fancy ahi tuna steaks to Kirkland brand tilapia filets. Numerous frozen salmon products have been praised. Tasting Table recommends using their frozen salmon to make sashimi.