Heart Eyes, Vol. 238: The Heart Eyes Guide to Costco

Friends! Hello. Happy Friday. Happy March! The darkest days are over and done, and I won’t brag too much about the plum trees flowering in my back yard, but it seems clear we’re at least on our way to spring. Excellent job, everybody! I think we all, whether in sun or spring showers or possible pilings of snow, are doing great.

I would like to start today by saying that I, a person who lives alone in a 900-square-foot apartment with a 1940s amount of storage space, have no business shopping at Costco.

And yet. What a wonderland it is! I don’t even have a membership, but my mom does, and we’ve adopted a periodic practice of going together for a nice wander and some samples while I stock up on my favorites. There are lots of things I would love to buy at Costco but don’t have space for (flats of canned tomatoes, flats of canned beans, huge bags of flour) and there are lots of other things I have bought at Costco but probably don’t need to (peanut butter, and I’m thinking of phasing out the giant bags of chocolate chips), but overall I feel I’ve settled on a pretty good roundup of deals on staples that work well for my needs and my space. And so I present to you….

The Heart Eyes Guide to Costco

Butter: This is a no-brainer: butter is so expensive right now! I buy the Kirkland-brand salted and use it for everything except the occasional frosting; it comes in boxes of four one-pound blocks, which I then freeze, thawing each pound as I’m ready to use it. The big blocks are a little less convenient to work with than typical four-ounce sticks—that is, harder to slice a tablespoon or two off of—but they have guide lines on the wrapping to help you cut them up accurately. I find Costco butter is usually about half the price of the grocery store, per pound. They also have good prices on fancy Kerrygold, if you’re into that kind of thing.

Maple syrup: This is the rare food item where you get the same volume at Costco as everywhere else—the standard quart jug. But it’s good-quality, real maple syrup at a good price.

Vanilla: Another killer half-price-or-less deal, and you won’t have to buy vanilla for a long time. (It keeps! Thanks, alcohol!)

Tillamook cheese: I’ve become a diehard customer of Costco’s 2.5-pound blocks of Tillamook sharp cheddar; obviously Tillamook is the best grocery-store cheese, and the headline here is that these big blocks keep for an astonishingly long time. I store mine in a freezer bag in the fridge, peeling back the wrapper as I go; the last one I bought lasted me twelve weeks and was just beginning to develop the slightest, barest haze of mold in the last few days. You could also freeze half, but I’ve never needed to.

Better Than Bouillon: I keep a small library of BTB stock bases in my fridge door, and there’s nothing worse than reaching in and finding you’re out of the one you need, or just scraping the dregs out of the bottom when you’re making a huge pot of soup. The Costco-sized jar is about 2.5 times the volume of the regular one, which means this is 2.5 times less likely to happen to me. (Is that how math works?) BTB keeps forever, makes delicious broth, and is so much more economical than buying it in cans or cartons.

Olive oil: You’ve Got Mail makes a whole plot point of people buying cheap olive oil at Costco, but I have it on Samin Nosrat’s excellent authority that Kirkland-brand olive oil is the good stuff, in addition to being, yes, a great deal. Do I need two liters of olive oil at a time? Actually, you know what, yes I do.

Almonds: This is borderline a thing I should not buy at Costco—the bag is enormous. But I always have almonds, and I eat a lot of almonds!

Salmon: Those big slabs of salmon are what you might call an investment piece, but they’re also a great deal: I cut mine into filets and freeze them for quick dinners later. Future Liz is thrilled.

Toilet paper: Obviously. (A full pack requires creative storage solutions in my apartment, but I typically split it with a friend.)

Puma no-show socks: The BEST no-show socks. They’re comfy and truly low-cut and the heels stay put; you want the black/white/gray combo, which I believe is a six-pack. Or maybe eight? I also have the athletic ones (gray with coral or aqua accents), which are extremely squishy, supportive, and well-made, but not as low-cut as I’d like.

Felina sueded leggings: I wrote about these when I first bought them, and a year later, I still love them—the fabric is so soft, the fit is great (for me; I suspect the sizing is not very inclusive), and they wash beautifully. If only they had pockets! But they’re the first ones I reach for and they’re always in stock. (Look by the socks, not on the clothes tables.)

So there you have it: what to buy at Costco when you’re not feeding anyone else consistently and have nowhere to store anything and yet love a deal and never running out of olive oil. At the same time, I know there must be more of us—what am I missing? Let me know!