I tried chicken salad from Costco, Trader Joe's, Wegmans, and Whole Foods. There's only one I'd buy again.

When I visited Wegmans, a 16-ounce tub of grilled chicken salad cost $15. Since that price seemed borderline outrageous, I hoped the chicken salad would be delicious.

However, I was disappointed. There wasn't much flavor to it at all — the prevailing taste was that of mayonnaise — and it had an oddly grainy texture that closely resembled tuna salad.

There was a good amount of chicken in the mix, which might help explain the price, but the meat lacked flavor and wasn't especially moist.

The price point, more than the chicken salad itself, earned Wegmans the bottom spot on my ranking.

Across multiple visits to three separate Trader Joe's in my area, the closest option I found to the others on this list was the Wine Country chicken salad. However, it differed slightly from the others, as it incorporated sweetened dried cranberries and pecans.

At first, I thought that might give it an unfair advantage in the ranking, since I normally enjoy a chicken salad with dried cranberries. The $5 price also seemed like a good deal for a 12-ounce container.

However, this one was way too sweet for my taste and not quite hearty enough. It seemed like there was a lot more goopy liquid than chunks of chicken, and the cranberries tasted like candy.

Overall, I thought this tasted more like a salad dressing than a deli salad.

I found the Kirkland Signature chicken salad in Costco's prepared foods section. It was priced at $6 a pound, making it the least-expensive option I tried on a per-pound basis. The container I picked up contained about 2 pounds of chicken salad.

The salad had the biggest chunks of chicken of any I tried by far, but it practically shimmered with grease.

I also thought it was bland in terms of flavor. However, since I was already familiar with the Kirkland Signature rotisserie chicken, the briny, brothy flavor of the meat was easy to pick out.

There was celery in the mix, but it added more flavor than texture; ideally, I'd prefer that reversed.

The chicken salad was fine but not especially good, and it's hard to imagine a situation in which I'd want two pounds of it.

Of the four chicken salads I tried, the version from Whole Foods was the only one that was scooped fresh at a deli counter. It was also the only one I'd consider buying again.

At $14 per pound, it was significantly more expensive than the chicken salads from Costco and Trader Joe's but slightly less expensive than the one from Wegmans. I appreciated that I could order only as much as I needed — a half-pound, in this case.

When I took a bite, I realized it was easily the best-tasting of the four salads I tried. The chicken, chopped up into bite-sized pieces, was moist and tasted fresh. Although hardly bold in flavor, the salad was nuanced with the earthy sweetness of red onions, notes of rosemary, and a touch of mustardy bite.

Unlike the others, it tasted better than anything I could easily make at home.

This story was originally published on March 19, 2025, and most recently updated on March 17, 2026.