6 Costco Bakery Items That Are Worth It And 3 You Should Skip

The Costco bakery section is a wonderland of carbs. Part boulangerie, part patisserie, here you can find all the breads, cakes, cookies, muffins, and any other sweet or savory baked goods you desire. Since it's Costco, you can be sure that the portions are generous, and the prices are right. There are so many Kirkland Signature bakery options that you could fill an entire shopping cart and still not get them all.

Some of Costco's bakery items are made completely from scratch in house, while some travel to the store in various stages of preparation. The chain doesn't advertise which are which, but in the end what it comes down to is taste. Which of Costco's bakery items should you reach for every time, and which should you pass by?  To find out, I took on the monumental challenge of trying nine of the store's popular baked goods and analyzing them based on taste, texture, quality, and value. Read on to discover which ones I'd skip and which items I'd go back for again in a heartbeat. Before you head out to your local warehouse to score these goods, make sure to bone up on Costco's bakery secrets to make the most of your shopping trip.

Costco's Kirkland Signature ciabatta-style artisan rolls come in a pack of 12, and the day after I brought them home, half of them were already gone. Their size and versatility would make these rolls a great buy even if they were just mediocre quality, but thankfully, that's not the case. They have a light, airy texture with a pleasantly chewy, structurally sound exterior. The springy interior gives these rolls a vibrancy and bounciness so they don't feel in the least bit heavy, stodgy, or dry.

While they're perfectly fine straight out of the bag, these rolls really start to sing when you heat them up and start adding accoutrements. First, I heated them up in the oven for just a few minutes and tasted them warm but plain. I found the flavor and texture really popped. A spread of butter and a sprinkle of sea salt turned them heavenly. They were also a hit topped with peanut butter or avocado or used as the base of a simple chicken sandwich. As dinner rolls, they did a masterful job of soaking up all of the flavorful leftover juices and sauces on the plate. Ciabatta is one of the best styles for garlic bread, and these rolls did not disappoint when spread with some homemade garlic butter. At 50 cents a roll, these golden beauties are a steal. 

You won't often find me recommending anyone skip purchasing cookies, but Kirkland Signature's variety pack left me somewhat underwhelmed. This package comes with 24 cookies total, equal amounts of oatmeal raisin, chocolate chunk, and double nut with white chocolate. All three varieties have a soft, chewy texture, which I have no problem with, but I found them a little too soft, almost like they were underbaked. The texture was uniform across all cookie varieties and within each cookie itself. I longed for a little bit of crispiness to break up the doughy monotony.

The oatmeal cookies had a chewy, almost gummy texture, though the vibrant warm spice notes, mainly cinnamon, were a welcome burst of flavor. As an unapologetic white chocolate fan, I wanted to love the double nut cookies, but the choice of cashew and macadamia nut along with the soft white chocolate chips melded together in a pretty bland, textureless fashion. The chocolate chunk cookies were my favorite of the three, jam-packed with big morsels of deeply flavorful chocolate that melts in your mouth. The chocolate is the star here, though, with the rest of the cookie something of an afterthought. If I were in the mood for something like this, I'd probably just reach for a chocolate bar.

When it comes to types of baked goods, the majestic croissant sits near the apex for me. Part pastry, part roll, part bread, equally at home in sweet or savory preparations, this intricately layered celebration of the magical alchemy of butter, yeast, and flour is one of humanity's greatest creations. Now, generally speaking and including Kirkland Signature's offerings, croissants are not among the healthiest baked goods you can find, particularly when it comes to sodium and, of course, fat, thanks to the high butter content. That means it's not necessarily worth it to indulge in a croissant unless it's a really good one.

Costco's butter croissants are delightfully good, especially for the price — 12 for just under $6. These aren't baby croissants, either. They're large enough to make a full-sized sandwich, should you wish to use them for that purpose. The flavor is rich and buttery, while the texture is flaky and airy with a gorgeously golden-brown exterior. The layers and pockets inside are perfect for filling with jam, various sweet and savory spreads, or even more butter, if you feel like going over the top. These crisp up beautifully in the oven, broiler, or air fryer, too.

My taste buds are screaming at me to not call this item a skip, but my brain simply can't imagine putting Kirkland Signature's blueberries and cream muffins into regular rotation. These muffins are so dense, so rich, and so unbelievably moist that after the first bite I felt like I'd had enough. They are packed with juicy blueberries, which is great, but the muffins themselves eat much more like a decadent dessert than any kind of breakfast, meal, or snack.

The moistness of these muffins verges on the edge of unpleasantness to my palate, almost like an oversaturated sponge. Don't get me wrong. The flavors are tasty, if a bit on the sweet side, and the muffins certainly don't skimp on the blueberries. There's a streusel topping that seems unnecessary, too, like a hat on a hat — it does add a tiny bit of texture, but not enough to balance out the dense, almost soggy nature of the rest of the muffin. I can't imagine eating one of these for breakfast without having to take a nap right afterward.

When I picked up Kirkland Signature's rustic Italian loaf, I let out a little squeal of excitement because the bag was toasty warm to the touch. Perhaps it's the freshness that makes this bread seem so exceptional, but I don't think that's the sole reason it stood out. Even the next day, it was still in fabulous shape, and just as tasty as it was when I first brought it home. That's good because this is a massive 32-ounce loaf, so unless you're serving it to a crowd, it'll have to last a while.

The wonderfully complex flavor of this bread comes from a combination of flours: wheat, malted barley, durum, and semolina. It's moistened with olive oil and fermented using a sour starter, both of which add extra dimensions of flavor. Texture-wise, it's pretty much perfect, with a browned and strong yet pliable exterior and a soft interior with just enough air pockets to keep things light. Right out of the bag, this bread is delicious, with a tang from the sour starter and a good level of salt that enhances its yeasty flavors. Toasted, it got even better — the texture took well to having a bit of crunch, and the interior stayed tender. I ate the toast dry, which I never do, and it was delicious. Six dollars for a loaf of bread doesn't sound cheap, but when you consider the size and high quality of this loaf, it's well worth it.

Perhaps it was inauspicious timing, but trying Kirkland Signature's baguette after the rustic Italian loaf didn't do the former any favors. Costco sells its baguettes in a two-pack for $4.99, which is a solid deal, and that's what they are: solid. The texture is enjoyable, with a classic crisp outer shell and a chewy interior with rustically irregular holes. Compared to the Italian loaf, this bread is far less flavorful. That may be a plus depending on what you're using the baguette for, of course; sometimes a neutral bread works better as a blank slate for other flavorful ingredients. 

On its own though, it didn't strike me as particularly exceptional, so I wouldn't go out of my way to buy it. If I happen to need a baguette while I'm at Costco, I'll consider throwing a two-pack in my cart, especially if I'm not in the mood to make a second stop at a different bakery. It would probably depend on how fresh they were, too. These baguettes are really a skip with an asterisk — they're perfectly fine, decently good baguettes. I just wouldn't make a special trip to seek them out. That said, if I were picking up a wheel of Kirkland Signature's French brie, I'm sure the baguettes would find their way into my cart.

The only flaw I can come up with regarding Kirkland Signature's cinnamon coffee cake is that it's so good I can't stop myself from eating way too much of it way too quickly. No, that's not really a flaw. This might be the most delicious iteration of a classic coffee cake that I've ever had. In the past, I've found them too heavily spiced, too dry and crumbly, too sweet, or simply unexciting. This one avoids every one of those pitfalls, offering a beautifully balanced cake with a moist (but not soggy) crumb, a thread of cinnamon and other baking spices, a touch of subtly bitter cocoa, and a crunchy streusel topping.

I was quite honestly shocked when I learned that Costco's coffee cake is not a fan favorite. I urge you to tune out the haters and give it a try yourself. For just under $10, you get 30 ounces of cake — it's a hefty size, but if you're anything like me, it won't last long. Warmed up, room temp, with or without coffee, I've enjoyed it equally each way. 

While I'm by no means a bagel expert, as my New Yorker friends will certainly agree, I'm fairly picky about them. I pretty much never buy bagels from grocery stores because they're almost always disappointing — too cakey, too dense, flavorless, dry. I was certainly not expecting much from Costco's bagels, and perhaps that's why I found them surprisingly good. Are they going to be mistaken for the best fresh-baked New York City bagels? Of course not. To curb that bagel craving, though, Kirkland Signature's bagels do the trick, and they're hard to pass up at $7.99 for two six-packs of whichever two flavors you'd like.

I opted for plain bagels and everything bagels to hit both extreme ends of the flavor spectrum. Starting with a plain one fresh out of the bag, I was immediately impressed by its shiny exterior and its softness as I pulled it apart. The interior had a good chewiness without being gummy or dense, and it felt springy and light on the palate. The size worked for me too, as I find so many bagels to be way too massive so that even if you cut them in half, they're too much bread. These are a good size to eat whole or sliced in half if you want to stack them high with schmears and other toppings. The everything bagel's spice mix was a little low on the garlic for my personal taste, but it still had great flavor.

Danishes are another mix-and-match offering at Costco's bakery. For $11.99, you get eight Danishes, four each of two flavors of your choice. I opted for almond and cherry. Visually, these Danishes are gorgeous. The cherry variety has a well of deep red fruit in the center of a risen ring of glazed golden-brown pastry, while the almond options are generously dusted with powdered sugar and sliced almonds, covering a marzipan-like filling. The star of both of these items is the pastry itself, beautifully layered and buttery, both rich and light as air.

You can enjoy these right out of the box, but they're magical when heated up — after 10 minutes in the oven, as the package instructs, the pastry becomes a delicate, flaky, buttery delight. My only gripe concerned the almond Danishes, which had an intense taste of almond extract that seemed heavy-handed, especially if you get a big bite of the center filling. I wished there were a few more actual almonds to give it a more natural nuttiness, but that beautifully buttery pastry made up for any nitpicks I had. These are definitely an indulgence, but one worth treating yourself to once in a while.

Costco has a massive bakery department, so the first step in this process was narrowing down the selection of items that I would include in this list. I chose to focus on more standard, everyday bakery items rather than special occasion cakes or desserts or seasonal offerings. Once the selection was complete, I tasted each item the day it was purchased in order to experience it at peak freshness. I tasted them all again the next day to see how they held up and to try them in different ways along with the addition of different common ingredients — butter on the rolls and cream cheese on the bagels, for example.

Once all of the baked goods had been tasted multiple times, I wrote down my final assessments based on flavor, texture, quality, and value. I then divided them into two categories: items I would definitely buy again and ones I wouldn't necessarily repurchase. Item availability and prices may vary based on your Costco location.