Recreate Costco's French Onion Ravioli With Just 4 Ingredients

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Wander the refrigerated section of Costco, and you'll come across a variety of pasta meal kits from Giovanni Rana – among the options is a French onion-style ravioli kit with beef sauce. If you don't feel like dealing with Costco's parking lot and the long checkout lines, or you simply prefer personalizing this dish, you can make your own version with just a few packaged ingredients. All you need are pre-made raviolis, a can of French onion soup, a couple cans of beef consommé, and some shredded cheese.

The Rana ravioli dish, a Costco find perfect for pasta night, comes with an oven-ready tray in which you place the ravioli and beef sauce, stir, and bake. Add the cheese and bake some more. The end result is a casserole where the rich, salty beef stock and umami-forward grilled onions provide contrast against the slight sweetness and tang of a cheese ravioli.

The same technique comes into play when using your own ingredients. Fill the bottom of a baking dish with something like Walmart's Great Value cheese ravioli, then top with a can of French onion soup and one or two cans of beef consommé soup. Stir lightly to work the liquid under the ravioli, cover tightly with foil, and bake for 15 minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Remove the foil, cover the dish with shredded cheese, and bake until it's golden and bubbling — around 20 more minutes. Of course, one big perk of doing it this way is you can pick your favorite ravioli fillings and cheese topping to truly make this easy dish your own.

One major complaint Costco customers have with the store-bought meal is how few ravioli are included (14 or 15). And while many reviewers like the sauce, some find it unsatisfying. Making your own version allows you to double up on the pasta and customize the sauce. For example, the store-bought sauce includes chunks of beef. One easy upgrade is to dice leftover chunks of cooked steak from a previous meal, or add in cooked ground beef or sausage.

Another concern among some reviewers of the Rana meal kit is the saltiness of the dish. When recreating the recipe, canned French onion soup and beef consommé are each fairly sodium-heavy, with roughly ⅓ of your recommended daily allowance per serving, depending on the brand. You could use low-sodium beef stock instead, though you'll lose some of the gelatinous viscosity of the consommé. Or try adding one can of the consommé instead of two, adding half a soup can of water if extra moisture is needed.

If you want to get really fancy, trade the baking pan for a sauce pot and add wine: There are a number of French onion ravioli dishes made from scratch online, where the ravioli are briefly simmered in homemade French onion soup and topped with chopped bacon and Gruyère cheese. Really, the only ingredients that differ from the above hack are a ½ cup or so of dry white wine and some seasonings. Everything cooks up on the stovetop in about 30 minutes.