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

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, stuffing, 12 dinner rolls, a 20-ounce container of cranberry sauce, and two 2-pound pies (one apple and one pumpkin).

According to the instructions, we could cook the turkey from frozen or thawed, and instructions were included for each method.

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.

Green-bean casserole is one of my favorite holiday side dishes, so I'm always nervous about ordering premade versions of it.

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

Other sides, such as cranberry sauce and mashed potatoes, were just as good as my homemade versions, too.

We thoroughly enjoyed the 12 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.

We also loved the cornbread stuffing, even though we normally make homemade stuffing from cubed white bread on Turkey Day.

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

The only popular Thanksgiving dish that I noticed was missing was yams or sweet potatoes, but my family isn't big on them anyway — we didn't miss them.

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

The pumpkin pie was really good and tasted like something I'd bake at home myself. The apple pie felt more like an apple-crumble-style dish, but it was delicious as well.

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

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 and set a gorgeous table, then 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.

Based on our experience ordering this shipped Thanksgiving meal from Costco, I'd absolutely order a similar meal package again.

It was delicious, and the dishes tasted remarkably close to many of my homemade recipes, so I didn't miss a thing.

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

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

I'm definitely 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 3, 2025.