Costco Shoppers Are Divided Over This Maine Lobster Ravioli
Yesterday, Costco_doesitagain, a non-affiliated Costco finds account on Instagram, asked their followers "Lobster Ravioli anyone?!" Pictured in the post was a box of Giovani Rana's Maine Lobster Ravioli.
Annoyingly, Costco_doesitagain refrains from giving any actual information about the ravioli so we have to look for details elsewhere. Fortunately, CostcoCouple supplies. Or they did in February 2020. Each box contains two 13 ounce packets of lobster ravioli and sells at Costco for $12.99. As with other prepared pasta meals, the ravioli has a high sodium count of 570 milligrams, or 25 percent of your daily total per serving. The box's total comes to 3,990 milligrams of sodium or 175 percent of what you should consume in a day. That, though, is counting both packets.
However, the sodium count is not what has divided the fanbase. While there was a good dollop of excitement and reports of satisfaction — such as, "So good!!!!" — the negative responses stand out due to their specificity. "I really wanted to like these but they're too sweet and processed tasting," one complained. "Agree," another added, "they were not very impressive and did not taste much like lobster, mostly cheese." A third charged the product with "That brand is actually really gross and tastes highly processed / made me sick." So, many responded by wanting some lobster ravioli, but buying premade, budget lobster ravioli means losing a lot of the freshness that makes the dish so palatable in the first place.
How to improve the lobster ravioli
The way that Giovani Rana's Maine Lobster Ravioli is packed means that if the first packet displeases you, you either have to bin the second or suffer for another meal. But, surely, there has to be ways to improve the lobster ravioli.
The most obvious ways to improve a substandard ravioli is to make a butter or sauce to bring out or smother the lackluster flavor. One suggestion made in the Instagram post is to glaze the pasta with a sage brown butter sauce. There are many recipes for this and all are pretty quick and easy. The Spruce Eats, for example, requires less than ten minutes to melt some butter, add chopped garlic, stir for a minute, add sage, cook for a bit longer until the butter browns, and then add salt and black pepper.
Alternatively, if the lobster is not lobster-y-ish-ful-whatever enough for you, you can make a crab sauce to make up for the mistake. In a recipe written by Chef Jar, you need butter, garlic, chicken stock, heavy cream, parmesan cheese, crab sticks, lemon juice, salt, and pepper. While the store bought lobster ravioli cooks, melt the butter in a separate pan and add the garlic. Cook for fifty seconds. Add the stock and bring it to a simmer. Toss in heavy cream, the cheese, and crab sticks. Then season it and dump in the ravioli. This should elevate a disappointing Costco experience and may ruin future store-bought raviolis forever.