Costco Spice Mantra Tandoori Chicken Review

If you want to enjoy tandoori chicken from the comfort of your own home but don’t make it yourself or want take-out this Costco Spice Mantra Tandori Chicken may be a suitable option! It’s conveniently ready in just five minutes but is it worth skipping homemade or restaurant tandoori chicken for this Costco version?

I don’t review a lot of Indian foods but I find it fun to try all different kinds of food from Costco. I always enjoy reviewing convenient dinner items from Costco like this Spice Mantra Tandori Chicken because then I can use it to feed my husband and it means I get out of cooking!

Other Indian foods from Costco are the Costco KFI Coconut Curry Sauce, KFI Butter Chicken Sauce, Costco Mayura Cuisine Tikka Masala Sauce, Costco Panaji Original Naan Minis and the Costco Byblos Tandori Naan Bread.

Location in Store

You can find this product in the refrigerated deli section, near the fresh pasta and refrigerated pulled pork. The item number is 1661666.

Taste

The dish is quite spicy, mango chutney helps cool but this is still really hot! It leaves an afterburn on the tongue that doesn’t disappear right away. The tandoori chicken is noticeably aromatic when cooking, the house smelled like tandoori chicken for about a day and a half after cooking this.

I cooked this on the stove and noticed some of the seasonings cooked off in the water so I feel like in the microwave or oven it might be even spicier if the seasoning doesn’t cook off. The chicken isn’t the best quality, on the first bite I notice the chicken is gristly and noted that it also looked gristly prior to cooking it.

I served this with rice but you could also eat it just on its own to reduce the carbs, I find the rice helps buffer the spiciness. The main flavor is salt and spice, I really enjoy the mango chutney that comes with the tandoori chicken, it’s very similar to a plum sauce.

Cost

The one kilogram package that has two separate 500-gram containers of tandoori chicken costs $18.99 Canadian. This seems expensive to me, it’s very convenient but I think I’d rather put my money towards take-out. A 500-gram container isn’t that much also, you can stretch it by adding rice but I feel it would be difficult to feed a family of four.

Convenience

This Costco tandoori chicken dish needs to be kept refrigerated and the best before date is about five weeks from the date we purchased it. It comes with two trays of tandoori chicken and two mango chutney sauce packets.

The package states it’s ready in five minutes and that’s true if you use the stovetop or microwave method to cook it. We used the stove top method and the chicken seemed to turn out fine.

I think this would be awesome for a single person or a couple who have busy lives and just want a really easy and convenient main dish from Costco. It pairs well with rice and I only wish I had some naan bread to go with it when I had it.

I would also add some steamed vegetables as a side because the dish is lacking any veggies which I always like to have at every meal!

Nutrition

Calories

I have no idea why the nutrition facts has “one piece” as a serving size. That makes me think that one small piece of chicken is 200 calories but that’s not right. A 100-gram serving or one-fifth of the 500-gram tray is 200 calories, eight grams of fat, three grams of carbohydrates, two grams of fibre, one gram of sugar, 29 grams of protein and 360 mg of sodium.

I really appreciate how much protein one serving size has for only 200 calories and eight grams of fat. The amount of sodium isn’t outrageous either.

Ingredients

I really appreciate that the ingredients list is straightforward without a bunch of chemical additives. This tandoori chicken from Costco is also a great option for individuals who are following a gluten-free diet!

Scoring

Taste: 6/10

Cost: 5/10

Convenience: 9/10

Nutrition: 8.5/10

Overall

Walk on by!

6/10

Definitely avoid this if you don’t like spicy food if you do it’s not bad but it’s not amazing. You’re better off getting take-out or making homemade tandori chicken.

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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).