Man Grills 15 Pounds of Costco’s Wagyu Burger Against Two Cheaper Options. He Explains Which One He Would Never Choose Again
Costco has several frozen burger options, but picking one isn’t as simple as it might seem. Regular, grass-fed, and Wagyu patties are all sold at similar prices. So, which one actually tastes the best?
Buying a big pack also means shoppers probably want to get their choice right. No one wants to bring home 15 burgers only to find out they don’t really like them. And a fancier label doesn’t always mean a better burger.
TikToker Bob Diff (@bobdiff) decided to compare three Kirkland Signature burgers himself. In a video with more than 975,000 views, he grills Costco’s regular, grass-fed, and Wagyu patties and ranks them. But the juiciest burger surprisingly wasn’t his favorite.
Wait, the juiciest burger didn’t win?
Bob starts by pointing out that all three options are close in price at his Costco, although shoppers don’t get the same number of patties. The regular bag contains 18 burgers, while the Wagyu and grass-fed packages contain 15 each. Costco lists its regular 1/3-pound patties as 75% lean and 25% fat, while the grass-fed version is 80% lean and 20% fat.
He thaws the patties before putting them on a very hot grill. Once they are cooked, the regular burger turns out to be the driest, although Bob makes clear that he still wouldn’t call it dry. Surprisingly, the 80/20 grass-fed burger is the juiciest of the three, with the Wagyu coming in behind it.
Taste produces a very different order. Bob finds the regular patty mild and decent, but also a little greasy. The grass-fed burger has what he describes as a “very strong and bitter flavor,” and he isn’t convinced he likes it.
The Wagyu is his clear winner. According to Bob, it has the softest texture of the three, along with a mild flavor without the greasy taste he noticed in the regular burger. He concludes that he would spend extra for the Wagyu, while still choosing the regular patties over the grass-fed option.
Wagyu has already prompted plenty of questions among Costco shoppers. When a woman recently bought $300 worth of Wagyu from Costco, commenters questioned whether the beef was authentic at all. Costco does sell imported Japanese Wagyu, along with other Wagyu products, although the term can cover products with different origins and standards.
Some viewers had the same doubts under Bob’s comparison. “ground Wagyu is so dumb,” one person commented, while another claimed, “100% they are not wagyu.” Someone else wrote, “WAYGU ground beef defeats the sole purpose of WAYGU.”
Others weren’t convinced the grass-fed burger got a fair shot. One commenter argued that the bitterness could have come from the char rather than the meat, noting that the leaner patty may have cooked faster. “If you cooked it to the same doneness as the others instead of the same time, it wouldn’t taste that way. Try it again,” they wrote.
Some commenters were more interested in Kirkland burgers Costco no longer carries. “They used to have a sirloin burger that was a little more expensive than their regular. I always liked that one better,” one viewer recalled. Another asked why the ground sirloin patties were discontinued, calling them “amazing.”
Costco’s prepared and frozen foods also regularly attract attention for their value, including products shoppers believe are the same foods served at restaurants. But Bob’s test shows that getting more choices at roughly similar prices can create a different problem: deciding which bag is actually worth making room for.
For him, that’s the Wagyu. The regular patties still beat the grass-fed version, despite being drier, while the juiciest burger ends up being the one he is least interested in buying again.
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