The Food Chefs Always Buy From Costco, Sam’s Club And BJ’s

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Chefs. They’re just like us! They even shop for ingredients at the same stores to cook homemade food for their families. But they aren’t roaming warehouse aisles indiscriminately. Here are the items chefs buy over and over at your favorite big-box stores.

Baking Ingredients

On any given Friday night, you can find Molly Yeh — cookbook author, restaurant owner and host of Food Network’s Girl Meets Farm —  at her local Sam’s Club. “We call it, ‘going to da club,’ and it’s as wild as we get on a Friday night,” says Yeh, a mom of two toddlers. At da club, Yeh shops for baking ingredients in bulk, including giant tubs of coconut oil, cartons of 36 eggs, half-gallons of vanilla extract and 50-pound bags of flour. “I never want to feel like I can’t re-test something because I’m short on an ingredient or because an ingredient is too expensive, so I really appreciate things like the giant tubs.”

Ferrarini Non-GMO Butter

This butter is made with cream skimmed from the production of non-GMO Parmigiano-Reggiano, explains Casadei Massari, owner and executive chef of Lucciola Restaurant in New York City. The process is zero-waste and sustainable, ensuring the highest quality standards and generating a product made with 100 percent Italian ingredients, says Massari of his favorite Costco buy. “It’s one of the rare Italian butters made in Italy, centrifuged and crafted to perfection, embodying what true butter should be — not a derivative or byproduct.”

Salt

Yes, there’s a difference between good and not-so-good salt, and Carol Borchardt, chef and owner of A Thought for Food Personal Chef Service, finds the best salt at Costco. She signed up for her Executive Membership there at the same time she launched her personal chef business 23 years ago. Borchardt heads to Costco monthly for Himalayan pink salt, Kirkland Signature Organic Extra-Virgin Olive Oil and Kirkland balsamic vinegar.

Fresh Salmon

Jenn Segal, cookbook author and food blogger with Once Upon a Chef, has a trick up her sleeve. When she has to cook for a crowd, she swings by Costco to grab ready-made ribs, brisket and fresh salmon. “I like buying them at a warehouse store as you get a great bang for your buck,” she says.

Kerrygold Butter

James Demmin-De Lise, an author and recovering chef in South Carolina, heads to Sam’s Club weekly for Kerrygold butter (and a few other items) that he can only buy in bulk there. “That particular butter is much more flavorful than the standard ones you find,” he explains. “That said, the Member’s Mark Premium Albacore Tuna is my favorite. It’s an easy protein for weekday lunches, and shockingly, it’s significantly better than the name brand.”

Coffee

Other chefs we contacted cited a list of foods they always buy from Costco. Number one on that list is Kirkland’s Colombian roast coffee, described as a “Great everyday coffee.” But that’s not all. Other favorites include fresh fruit, cured meat, butter, eggs and baguettes.

 
Do any of you have a membership at a big-box store? Let us know in the comments below.