If you’re convinced nothing can ever match the taste of homemade basil pesto, the Kirkland Signature Basil Pesto from Costco might make you rethink that. It’s made with Genovese basil imported straight from Italy, and blended with savory Parmesan, sharp Pecorino Romano, and rich, buttery pine nuts.
Location in Store
This is located in the refrigerated deli section at Costco, near the fresh pasta like the Kirkland Signature Five Cheese Tortelloni and the Kirkland Signature Organic Spinach & Cheese Ravioli. The item number is 99051.
Taste
This pesto from Costco is delicious and surprisingly versatile. It has a rich, cheesy flavor from the Parmesan and Pecorino Romano that’s very pleasant. You’ll also notice the fresh, herby, slightly sweet taste of basil, along with a subtle nutty richness from the pine nuts.
I notice an almost buttery flavor in the pesto, even though it doesn’t actually contain butter, just olive oil and sunflower oil. The garlic is definitely noticeable, but it isn’t overpowering.
Cost
The 630-milliliter jar of pesto costs $13.99 Canadian at Costco, which is a pretty good deal. Buying all the ingredients individually would cost much more — especially the pine nuts, which are notoriously expensive. In 2018, the same jar of pesto cost $10.99 Canadian, so it hasn’t increased in price that much!
Convenience
The pesto needs to be kept refrigerated and has a best-before date of about five weeks from the time of purchase. If you don’t plan to use it all before then, you can freeze it in an ice cube tray and simply thaw a portion whenever you need it.
The container notes that the pesto shouldn’t be heated. That said, it’s incredibly versatile — you can enjoy it on pizza, pasta, salmon or chicken, sandwiches, eggs, or even as a dip. My favorite way to use it is in a pasta salad made with chickpea pasta!
Nutrition
Calories
A quarter cup of Kirkland Signature Basil Pesto contains 330 calories, 30 grams of fat, nine grams of carbohydrates, four grams of fiber, zero grams of sugar, six grams of protein, and 630 milligrams of sodium. That’s quite high in calories and fat, which mainly come from the oil, cheese, and pine nuts.
Ingredients
I appreciate the relatively short ingredient list. The basil used in the pesto comes from the Genoa region of Italy, which is known for its complex, sweet flavor. The pesto contains milk and pine nuts and may also contain almonds. On the plus side, it’s gluten-free and soy-free.
Scoring
Taste: 9/10
Cost: 8.5/10
Convenience: 10/10
Nutrition: 6/10
Overall
Must buy if you like pesto!
This pesto is delicious, well-priced, and far more convenient than making your own!
Have you tried the Costco Kirkland Signature Basil Pesto? What did you think of them?
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).
You have mentioned that this product is vegetrian, but is it truly? This product contains cheese that has been processed using rennet, which is derived from intestines of Sheep or Calves that are killed for meat. That fact makes this product not suitable for vegetarians at all. Please can you remove this misguiding information from your post or at least issue a disclaimer that it contains rennet and vegetarians who are sensitive about this, should consider other options?
That’s a correct information. It’s important to be accurate about whether a product is vegetarian friendly or not. If it contains animal rennet, it cannot be called vegetarian
Yes it can. Vegetarians eat cheese and drink milk. It is from sheeps milk. The rennet made from animals bones is not vegetarian. You gotta kill the animal to get the bones. Milk is OK to many vegetarians
Just tasted this pesto for first time and l think it’s delicious. Period.
I freeze my Kirkland Basil-Pesto in ice cube trays and this way it’s avail whenever I want it! After it’s frozen I put the cubes in a baggie!
I should add that I myself have no problem with the oil quality or quantity, or the pecorino quality.
If you do what they do at Costco sampler endstands, you can add 50% oil or so and make it much more palatable.
I do that and add garlic too, raw or slightly cooked (in good oil).
The result ain’t superb but is pretty good and in any case quite a bit improved, not like this concentrated green cheese flavoring from the jar direct.
I was afraid I would find this level of review for this strange product. It is a green cheese sauce, period. V salty, v nice (as in overwhelming) pecorino sauce, no basil taste to speak of, and certainly no garlic. Wild and weird. We use it all the time, but it has almost nothing in common w actual basil-based pesto.
Would just like to say that since it has rennet as one of the ingredients (and it isn’t stated as vegetarian rennet) it is most likely not a vegetarian friendly pesto! So unfortunately cannot be advertised as safe for vegetarians.!
Disappointing to see their website still showing a photo of the original ingredient list including EVOO. At some point they moved to Sunflower oil, an unhealthy PUFA that I can’t recommend.
THIS. 100%. It’s instructive that sites praising the merits of good eating rant and rave about Costco’s “EVOO Basil-pesto sauce” — when Sunflower oil is by far (per ingredient listing, and formulation breakdowns done by wiser folks than I) in higher quantity here than the EVOO. Sunflower oil is the second ingredient in the first ingredient (Basil blend), and then also the overall second ingredient. A shame.
Yep, the green mush with rennet is tasty, and goes great on a wide variety of stuff. But it ain’t basil-pesto — And it’s nowhere near as healthy as the real thing, sadly, due to the seed oil dominance within. Enjoy yer inflammatory response! 😉
Just tried it. Tastes horrible (and it looks worse than it tastes). The #1 ingredient is deceivingly listed as “Basil blend”, which consists of basil, sunflower oil, and sea salt. The #2 ingredient is listed as “Sunflower oil”. Had they listed ingredients without misleadingly combinining them into something else, the #1 ingredient would actually be sunflower oil — by far.
Straight in garbage after tasting it.
I recommend De Cecco. Now that tastes like basil!
I agree. Costco’s is increasingly oily, way too much oil of a low quality, way too much salt. It’s convenient but nasty. Has gone downhill for years, now I can’t buy it anymore.
I love this Pesto!
The Basil tastes fresh.
It’s so nice and salty. I really love that. I eat it right out if the jar.
Unfortunately I don’t eat it enough so I threw away 1/2 of my first jar. It’s a big jar. But I was craving it so I bought another jar.
I don’t like wasting food but I can’t see myself going without this yummy pesto.
This is a great review! A bag of pine nuts over here is almost the cost of this jar, lol. I find this very convenient and I love this pesto with pasta!
I agree with Grace778. The Kirkland Basil Pesto is not only very salty, it is very oily and there is too much cheese. You can hardly taste the basil! I decided to make a double batch of my pesto recipe using fresh basil from Safeway and put it in those small portion containers which hold about one ounce and freeze them. I was able to make about 15 containers. I fill them full so there is very little freezer burn even after a couple of months. Mine is MUCH BETTER than this product even after freezing and thawing. We have mine with Lamb Loin Chops which I cook on our grill and it is great.
Our family is down with stomach flu because of this pesto from Costco. I highly recommend for Costco not to sell this product any more
a stomach flu is a virus, so doubt if you got it from pesto. if you mean more like food poisoning it probably came from contamination on your end
I have been buying the pesto from Costco for years. I love it, but of course I can make a better one at home :o)
of course yours would be better. Costco pesto uses sunflower oil, no EVOO,
and there is no substitution for fresh basil
Clearly this reviewer is a shill for Co$tco.
The Kirkland brand basil pesto is vile in every way.
The sequence of tastes : oil, salt parmesan and finally a hint of pesto.
bad stuff
I am in no way affiliated with Costco, I’m simply a fan of Costco and enjoy trying new products and reviewing them. Sorry you don’t enjoy the pesto!
Clearly you could have been kinder in your comments. If you don’t care for this product, that’s your opinion, to which you are entitled. But that does not give you the right to bad mouth the blogger.
FWIW, I like the pesto!
I had to agree with you 100%. I love this stuff & usually buy a few jars at a time. I divide them into smaller portions & keep them in the freezer until needed. It doesn’t take a lot of pesto per serving to make a very delicious meal.
Keep up the good work. Ovo-lacto vegetarian, I guess :))
Thank you for this article! I find the basil pesto from Costco to be quite delicious, and not too salty. When it’s warm, it is so aromatic! I’m a fan.
Also a fan! Thanks for reading!
this pesto is so delicious…what is wrong with these people? they probably grew up on fast food & have no idea how good REAL FOOD can be.
Absolutely not, it’s people who eat real food who can yell this is a cheap excuse for real pesto!
Costco pesto uses sunflower oil, no EVOO,
and there is no substitution for fresh basil, not basil that is at least 2 months old
Costco pesto also uses pine nuts from China, which is an entirely different species of tree from the Mediterranean nuts
I tried the Costco Kirkland Signature Basil Pesto and it was disgustingly salty. It has 680 mg of sodium per serving. Costco used to carry the CIBO brand of pesto. I looked CIBO’s website and their pesto has 230 mg of sodium per serving. I was so pissed off about how bad the new Kirkland brand was, that I returned it to Costco and got my money back. I used to always make my own pesto because the commercial brands tasted too much like lemon juice (which they use as a preservative), but when Costco started selling the CIBO brand, I was very happy. But now, their Kirkland brand has replaced it. Whoever the pesto food buyer is for Costco must not have any tastebuds because their new pesto is horrible.
This pesto is not for everyone! Some love it, some hate it. It’s mostly oil and cheesy salty. Gives you a stomach ache compared to the real stuff, but it’s not bad if you like that salty flavor, it’s just not like real pesto.
Agree with AVani and was about to ask the same question. Are you sure the rennet is from vegetarian microbial sources?
does it matter when the milk from the cheeses come from cow and sheep?
I got this to give it a try, but ended up wasting most of it. I found we didn’t eat nearly enough things that pesto can be paired with to use up the whole container. I didn’t mind the taste, but it wasn’t amazing.
Hi Jenny-Lee,
We talk half out and freeze it which keeps it from being wasted.
Please do your research before calling this product Vegetarian. It contains Rennet, an animal product which is why it is not suitable for Vegetarians.
Vegetarians eat cheese hahahaha, vegans don’t. Maybe you don’t know what a vegetarian diet is.
Avani is right. You have to butcher calves and shred their stomachs to get rennet. Vegetarians generally don’t eat things that require killing animals.
Another dumbass who does not know what a vegetarian diet is. Let me guess, you are another white american? Is education a crime in your country? lol
I found this pesto sauce to be disgusting. It is sooooo salty. One might as well eat a large Ms. Vickies bag of potato chips.