Chicken Tinga is a flavorful dish made with shredded chicken in a smoky, tomato-based sauce. It’s versatile and can be used for Mexican-style rice bowls, tacos, or even burritos. While making it from scratch requires time and a variety of ingredients, Lucia’s Mexican-Style Chicken Tinga from Costco offers a quicker and possibly more cost-effective alternative. But how does it actually taste? Is it as delicious as it looks on the box? Keep reading to find out!
Location in Store
This chicken tinga is located in the refrigerated deli section of Costco. Near the 44th Street Beef Pot Roast and Olivieri Tortellini. The item number is 1865649.
Taste
The first thing I noticed about the chicken tinga is that it definitely has some spice! The heat hits you right away, but it doesn’t linger in your mouth like some spicy dishes do. The tomato-based sauce is quite thick, with a lot of smokiness from the chipotle peppers
One thing I’d change about this chicken tinga is that I wish there were slightly less sauce and more meat. I don’t love a lot of sauce and find there’s more than needed for the amount of chicken.
he shredded chicken is tasty, and I didn’t find any fatty bits or gristle. Overall, the chicken tinga is salty and well-seasoned, with bold, smoky flavors. I think it’s convenient and fairly tasty, but not amazing. I might not buy it again, but I’ll use up the pack we have.
Cost
There are two 500-gram, vacuum-sealed packs of chicken tinga in the one-kilogram box, and it costs $15.99 Canadian at Costco. That works out to about $8 per pack. After seeing what comes in a pack, I think that’s a little on the expensive side, but not absurdly priced. Each pack contains roughly the equivalent of one large chicken breast
Convenience
The tinga needs to be kept refrigerated, and the best-before date is about eight weeks from when I purchased it. If you’re not going to use it by then, you can also freeze it.
The box recommends either heating the chicken tinga in a pan or microwaving it. I don’t love the idea of microwaving plastic, so I heated it in a non-stick pan on the stovetop, which worked fine.
You can serve the chicken tinga on corn tortillas or on rice with black beans, avocado, and maybe some cilantro. You could also make burritos, enchiladas, or quesadillas with it!
Nutrition
Calories
One half-cup serving of chicken tinga contains 120 calories, three grams of fat, five grams of carbohydrates, zero grams of fiber, two grams of sugar, 19 grams of protein, and 690 milligrams of sodium. The sodium content is pretty high, but the fat, carbohydrates, and calories are relatively low!
Ingredients
The ingredients list seems pretty long at first glance; however, most of the ingredients are familiar. The only ones I’m not a fan of are soybean oil, flavor, and sugar. The chicken tinga is gluten-free as well as dairy-free, but it may contain egg.
Scoring
Taste: 6.5/10
Cost: 6/10
Convenience: 8/10
Nutrition: 7.5/10
Overall
Give it a try!
I like this chicken tinga better than Lucia’s Pork Carnitas. It’s a convenient, protein-packed, versatile dish that can be used in tacos, enchiladas, burritos, or even quesadillas!
Have you tried the Costco Lucia’s Mexican-Style Chicken Tinga? What did you think of it?
Please note that this review was not paid for or sponsored by any third party. This product was purchased by Costcuisine for the purpose of producing this review. The opinions in this review are strictly those of Costcuisine. Costcuisine is not affiliated with Costco or any of its suppliers. In the event that Costcuisine receives compensation for a post from the manufacturer of a product or some other third party, the arrangement will be clearly disclosed (including where the manufacturer of a product provides Costcuisine with a free sample of the product).
