Costco is world-famous for its generous portions of convenient items. From mouthwatering and affordable A5 Japanese Waygu to criminally cheap pricing on special reserve bourbon, there really is something for everyone at the wholesale store. Costco boasts an eclectic inventory, which includes saxophones and barns, and there are just as many culinary goodies that’ll have you running to buy a Costco membership. For all the hits, however, there are some huge misses. For example, Galilean’s Kitchen Bacon Wrapped Scallops made it to the bottom of our 8 Costco Frozen Seafood Dishes ranking.
We have to admit that bacon-wrapped scallops are an ambitious and commendable frozen food offering — the various cook times, textures, and ingredients make this a tricky dish to pull off even when it’s not frozen. The packaging of Galilean’s Kitchen Bacon Wrapped Scallops promises “delicious scallops wrapped in hickory smoked bacon,” but the execution loses the “delicious” part. For starters, baking up the pre-bacon-wrapped frozen scallops on a parchment-lined baking tray (per the instructions) never yields the texture you’d want out of this dish. Instead, the bacon comes out soggy and chewy, whereas the scallops are either rubbery or too tender due to inconsistent sizing. Additionally, these scallops are in dire need of the butter bath traditionally offered to get that crispy, salty outer layer housing the airy, fishy inside. While the ingredients list is satisfyingly concise, there aren’t any scallop flavoring agents, resulting in a disappointingly bland dish.
Skip the store and make your own bacon-wrapped scallops
We tried to do a deep dive into other offerings from Galilean’s Kitchen, but aside from some poorly reviewed stuffed clams and bacon-wrapped shrimp, we couldn’t find much more about the brand — not even a website, which makes it impossible to deduce the experience, authenticity, and origins of the brand. While we’re big fans of the convenience and accessibility of frozen seafood, we wonder if bacon-wrapped scallops are best left to the professionals or, at the very least, made fresh at home.
While we recommend using fresh scallops for this temperamental dish, we think that high-quality frozen ones would work well in a pinch — and Costco sells frozen scallops that professional chefs love. One piece of unsolicited advice: Whichever scallops you do use, fresh or frozen, make sure they’re around the same size (the bigger, the better for this dish). That way, you’ll ensure an even cook through all of them. If you’re craving this simple yet delicious surf-and-turf-y dish, we have you covered: Check out our straightforward bacon-wrapped scallop recipe. It only needs 15 minutes of prep and 25 minutes of cook-time, which makes this the perfect weeknight dish for when you’re looking to do something special.
