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Taco Bell Red Sauce
Read moreThe famous flavor of Taco Bell’s bean burrito, Burrito Supreme, Enchirito, Grilled Cheese Dipping Taco, and a few other popular menu items has a lot to do with the secret mild red sauce added to each of them. You might also call it “enchilada sauce” since it tastes very similar to the stuff you can buy in cans labeled “enchilada sauce.”
Whatever you call it, this red sauce is a simple combination of tomato purée, vinegar, and spices, and you can clone it with minimal effort. Follow my easy Taco Bell Red Sauce copycat recipe below, and you’ll get one cup of versatile sauce that you can use to enhance all your homemade south-of-the-border dishes.
If you're a fan of green sauce, check out my Taco Bell Green Sauce copycat recipe in my book "Top Secret Recipes Unleashed".
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Taco Bell Grilled Cheese Dipping Taco
Read moreTaco Bell chefs worked for two years perfecting the birria-inspired shredded beef introduced nationwide in the summer of 2023 for the chain’s new Grilled Cheese Dipping Taco. According to a company press release, the new beef is slow-braised in spices, then it’s loaded into a white corn tortilla that’s freshly fried each day, with melted cheese inside the taco and more cheese grilled onto the outside.
For my Taco Bell Grilled Cheese Dipping Taco copycat recipe, you’ll slow-braise the beef like they do at the restaurant, but with a slimmed-down formula that won’t require you to chop vegetables as is called for in most birria recipes. One 2-pound chuck roast is all you’ll need to make enough tender shredded beef for at least 18 tacos. I’ve also got a great copycat formula here for the creamy jalapeno sauce that’s drizzled over the beef once it’s loaded into a freshly fried white corn tortilla.
After adding the sauce, a 3-cheese blend is added to the taco, more cheese is grilled onto one side of the shell in a hot pan, then it’s served with two sauces for dipping: nacho cheese sauce and the chain’s signature red sauce, which you can make from scratch with the easy recipe I’m including as well so you can get the full flavor effect of the real deal.
If shredded chicken is your thing, check out my Taco Bell Shredded Chicken Soft Taco copycat recipe here.
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Taco Bell Green Tomatillo Sauce
Read moreTaco Bell has two green sauces mentioned on its website. One is a green chili sauce, which isn’t served at any Taco Bell I’ve been to. The other is a green tomatillo sauce, the most popular of the two, which can be ordered on any Taco Bell item or will be provided a la carte for you to pour on as you see fit. The tomatillo sauce, with its mild heat and bright tomatillo flavor, is the one we’re hacking here.
It appears that Taco Bell uses canned peppers and tomatillos for their recipe, which is great because canned ingredients are ready to use, they add additional flavors and the acidity we need, and they simplify the recipe. Fresh produce would certainly require much more wrangling.
My Taco Bell Green Tomatillo sauce recipe is easy. Just pop everything into a blender in the order prescribed and blend away, but don’t blend so much that the seeds get pulverized. You want a sauce that isn’t completely pureed, with visible small pieces of peppers and seeds. You’ll end up with 1½ cups of the tasty green stuff to use on tacos, burritos, salads, eggs, and more.
Be sure to warm up the sauce a little before you use it (they keep it in a warmer at Taco Bell). The flavor of the real thing is fairly mild, so if you want your version hotter than that, just add more jalapeños to the blender.
Get the recipe in my book "Top Secret Recipes Unleashed" only on Amazon here.
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Taco Bell Avocado Verde Salsa
Read moreIn March 2024, Taco Bell debuted the Cantina Chicken menu, featuring 2 types of tacos, a burrito, a quesadilla, and a chicken bowl, each starring the chain’s new slow-roasted chicken. The Mexican chain also introduced avocado salsa made with peppers, tomatillos, lime, cilantro, and avocado as a companion to the latest items. But unlike all the other hot sauces, extra packets of the new sauce cost 20 cents each. And the 2½ teaspoons of salsa they hold doesn’t go very far. But 3½ cups sure does.
For my Taco Bell Avocado Verde Salsa copycat recipe, I found there was no need to go through the extra time-consuming step of roasting fresh tomatillos and peppers when canned ingredients worked so great. The avocado, lime juice, and cilantro will be fresh, and the dry ingredients, namely the onion and garlic, will rehydrate nicely as the salsa rests.
The first ingredient in Taco Bell’s version is oil, but for our purposes, we can reduce the ratio. Taco Bell chefs most likely add all that oil to their salsa to prevent the avocado from oxidizing and turning brown, thereby extending its shelf life. The oil has the same function in my version, but I call for ½ cup, which is much less percentage-wise than the real thing. The oil will indeed extend the life of your salsa, but feel free to reduce the amount substantially if you plan to eat the salsa within a couple of days and prefer to avoid the added fat.
Followed as written, this recipe makes 3 1/2 cups of salsa or the equivalent of 67 Taco Bell blister packs.
Try more of my Taco Bell copycat recipes here.
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Taco Bell Shredded Chicken Soft Taco
Read moreIn November 2020, Taco Bell said “adios” to several classic items from their menu including Mexican Pizza—one of my long-time favorites—and anything with shredded chicken in it, including the chicken soft taco. But teary goodbyes from fans of the tasty spiced chicken can be avoided if we have a good (and easy) recipe to craft a duplicate at home. Since the fast Mexican chain announced the changes several months in advance, I had time to work up a good hack before the tacos were gone forever.
After cooking the chicken several ways, I settled on poaching the fillets in chicken broth, which kept them moist and added great umami flavor. When the chicken cooled, I shredded it, and added it to a sauce seasoned with spices and lime juice, and flavored with Knorr tomato chicken bouillon.
As the sauce thickens it will reduce and infuse the chicken with flavor, just like the original Taco Bell shredded chicken, then it’s ready for you to use on tacos, burritos, salads, or whatever. And don't forget the hot sauce!
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Taco Bell Cinnamon Twists
Read moreTaco Bell’s popular Cinnamon Twists are inspired by a traditional Mexican treat made by frying duros de harina until puffy, then sprinkling the crunchy spirals with cinnamon/sugar. Duros, or duritos, is a special pasta made with wheat flour and cornmeal or cornstarch that swells up in seconds in hot oil, transforming it into a light and crispy snack.
You can find duros in many shapes at Latin markets or online, but for this hack you want spirals that look like rotini. Most duros you find will likely be saltier and denser than what Taco Bell uses since the chain created a custom recipe for American palates.
It takes just 10 to 15 seconds for the pasta to puff up in the oil—it will be sudden and dramatic and the duros crisps will float to the top. When they do, gently poke at them, and stir them around in the hot oil until they are evenly cooked. It only takes about a minute to fry each batch.
Watch me make Taco Bell Cinnamon Twists in this new video!
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Taco Bell Nacho Fries
Read moreThis limited-time-only new product from the country’s biggest Mexican fast food chain is easy to make with bagged fries found in the freezer section of your food store, and you can make as many or as few as you want at one time since there is enough seasoning and cheese sauce for one 2-pound bag. Get Ore-Ida Golden Fries if you can find them, and if you want the best copy of Taco Bell Nacho Fries, you really should fry them, although baking works too.
The secret spicy ingredient in the Taco Bell nacho cheese sauce is brine from the bottled jalapeño nacho slices, plus a little cayenne for extra boom.
Try my Taco Bell Nacho Fries copycat recipe below, and find more Taco Bell copycat recipes here.
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Taco Bell Diablo Sauce
Read moreThe hottest of Taco Bell’s five hot sauces cranks up the heat meter with a special blend of peppers for true chili heads. Diablo Sauce was introduced on Cinco de Mayo in 2015 as a limited-time-only product and was soon discontinued. But demanding fans pleaded for the chain to bring the sauce back, and on May 5 of the following year, Diablo Sauce got a permanent spot in the Taco Bell hot-sauce lineup.
According to Taco Bell, the sauce contains aji panca, a sweet Peruvian red pepper, and chipotle, which is smoked red jalapeño. Since aji panca can be hard to find, we'll use ground ancho instead, which has a similar taste. There are other peppers in Diablo Sauce which remain a mystery, but it's easy to tell that at least one of them comes packing big heat. I added habanero and cayenne and the sauce had a perfect kick.
Purée all the ingredients in a blender, then cook it for 10 minutes. Once it’s cooled, you’ll have an easy home copy of Taco Bell Diablo sauce, with great flavor and heat that’ll turn your face red, just like the real one.
Find more killer Taco Bell copycat recipes here.
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Taco Bell Chalupa Supreme
Read moreI’m not sure when it happened, but it appears Taco Bell recently changed its seasoned beef recipe. I hacked the recipe several years ago for the book TSR Step-by-Step, and I recall the recipe had much more oat filler, so that’s how I cloned it. Taco Bell came under fire in 2011 for the significant amount of oats in the recipe that the chain was listing as “spices,” and after that, Taco Bell was more transparent about ingredients. But somewhere along the way it appears the company tweaked the recipe to include less filler and more flavor, so I decided I had to create a new Taco Bell seasoned beef copycat recipe.
You can use my recipe below to make the famous Chalupa—which the restaurant makes by deep-frying the flatbread used for Gorditas. You can also use this new, improved Taco Bell seasoned beef recipe for anything you’re copying, whether it's tacos, burritos, Enchiritos, Mexican Pizzas, or a big pile of nachos.
The secret ingredient in our hack is Knorr tomato bouillon. This flavor powder adds many ingredients found in the original recipe and provides the umami savoriness that’s required for a spot-on clone of the famous seasoned ground beef. To get the right flavor, you need to find "Knorr Tomato Bouillon with Chicken Flavor" powder, in a jar. Not the bouillon cubes.
Try my Taco Bell Chalupa Supreme recipe below, and find copycat recipes for Taco Bell mild, hot or diablo sauce here.
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Taco Bell Breakfast Crunchwrap
Read moreWhen Taco Bell introduced breakfast to America in 2014, the company had high hopes for its new Waffle Taco: a waffle shaped like a taco, filled with scrambled eggs and sausage, and served with a side of syrup. But the Waffle Taco had less-than-stellar sales and the product was eventually yanked off the breakfast menu.
But another clever morning item, the Breakfast Crunchwrap, continues to sell well at the Mexican food chain. This hexagonal grill-pressed wrap is a variation of the Crunchwrap Supreme, made by wrapping a large flour tortilla around a crispy corn tortilla, meat, cheese, sour cream, lettuce, and tomato (i hacked it in TSR Step-by-Step). When it was introduced in 2005, the Crunchwrap Supreme was Taco Bell’s most successful new product launch.
The Breakfast Crunchwrap looks exactly like a Crunchwrap Supreme from the outside—albeit slightly smaller—but the inside has been swapped out for morning food. The flour tortilla is wrapped around a crispy hash brown patty that’s been slathered with creamy jalapeño sauce and topped with cheese, eggs, and bacon (or sausage). The flour tortilla is folded over six times to make a pinwheel wrap, then the wrap is pressed on a flat grill until golden brown on both sides.
In my Taco Bell Breakfast Crunchwrap copycat recipe below, I’ll show you how to clone the creamy jalapeño sauce, build the wraps, and flat grill them until golden brown using just your stovetop, a skillet, and a saucepan half-full of water.
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Taco Bell Grilled Chicken Burrito Reduced-Fat
Read moreWhen Glen Bell opened the first Taco Bell in 1962, he probably never envisioned that one day he would see his name on more than 10,000 locations serving his special brand of Americanized Mexican fast food. He probably also didn't expect there would one day be a clone recipe for a reduced-fat version of his popular menu item.
You'll want to start this one several hours before, or even the day before you plan to eat it, so that the chicken can properly marinate.
Nutrition Facts
Serving size–1 burrito
Total servings–4
Calories per serving–157 (Original–400)
Fat per serving–5g (Original–16g)Source: Top Secret Recipes Lite by Todd Wilbur.
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Taco Bell Hot Taco Sauce
Read moreHere's a way to make plenty of hot sauce that tastes just like the stuff people are pouring over the tacos at Taco Bell. If you like it even hotter, check out my recipes for Taco Bell Diablo Sauce, Fire Border Sauce, and Lava Sauce.
Now that you've got your sauce, whatcha gonna slather it on? Find all your favorite Taco Bell copycat recipes here.
Source: More Top Secret Recipes by Todd Wilbur.
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Taco Bell Taco Seasoning Mix
Read moreThis is a simple recipe to clone the contents of the seasoning packet that bears the Taco Bell logo found in most grocery stores these days. You probably expect the seasoning mix to make meat that tastes exactly like the stuff you get at the big chain. Well, not exactly. It's more like the popular Lawry's taco seasoning mix, which still makes good spiced ground meat, and works great for a tasty bunch of tacos.
Try my Taco Bell Seasoning Mix recipe below, and find more cool Taco Bell copycat recipes here.
Source: Even More Top Secret Recipes by Todd Wilbur.
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Taco Bell Mild Border Sauce
Read moreIf you like the flavor of Taco Bell's sauce but don't like the burn, this is the sauce for you. It used to be that you could only get this sauce in the little blister packs from Taco Bell restaurants, but now the chain has partnered with Kraft Foods to sell the stuff in 7.5-ounce bottles in supermarkets. For the record, those bottles of hot sauce will set you back around $1.59 at the store, while the 6-ounce can of tomato paste required for my copycat Taco Bell mild sauce recipe is only 59 cents—and you end up with more than three times the amount of sauce.
Find more of my copycat Taco Bell sauces, tacos, and burritos here.
Sauce: Top Secret Recipes Unlocked by Todd Wilbur.
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Taco Bell Chicken Fajita! Seasoning Mix
Read moreA couple years ago Taco Bell and Kraft Foods got together to produce a line of products—everything from taco kits to salsas and spice mixes—all stamped with the familiar Taco Bell logo and available in supermarkets across the country. The idea was a winner, and now the Taco Bell line of products is among Kraft's top sellers.
Now, you can make my Taco Bell Chicken Fajita! Seasoning Mix recipe with a combination of common spices and cornstarch, and keep it indefinitely until your brain's fajita-craving neurons begin firing. When you're set to cook, you'll need some chicken, a bell pepper, and an onion, then follow the same prep instructions you find on the package of the real thing.
Top your fajitas off with one Taco Bell's famous sauces from my recipes here.
Source: Even More Top Secret Recipes by Todd Wilbur.
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Taco Bell Enchirito (Improved)
Read moreSince Taco Bell brought the Enchirito back from the dead a couple years ago the product's formula has changed a bit. With the exclusion of the sliced black olives on top, plus a few other minor changes, my Taco Bell Enchirito copycat recipe creates the "new" formulation of the chain's enchilada/burrito fusion product first introduced in the early 60s. The technique for preparation has also been improved from the recipe found in the first Top Secret Recipes book. So, until Taco Bell changes it again, this is the ultimate Enchirito recipe that makes enough for an entire family. With or without the olives.
If you're a fan of the new beef from Taco Bell, you can get that recipe in my Taco Bell Chalupa recipe here.
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Taco Bell Mexican Pizza
Read moreI hope your crew is hungry because my Taco Bell Mexican Pizza copycat recipe makes four pizzas like those served at the Bell: seasoned ground beef and refried beans are sandwiched between two crispy flour tortillas, topped with melted cheddar cheese, salsa, diced tomato, and chopped green onion. Slice it like a pizza and serve it with a smile. Prepare to blow your diners away with my copycat recipe if they're at all familiar with the real thing.
Make some Diablo, hot, or mild sauce for that authentic Taco Bell experience.
Source: Even More Top Secret Recipes by Todd Wilbur. -
Taco Bell Baja Sauce
Read moreThis is the spicy sauce that comes on your Gordita or Chalupa at Taco Bell. But the only way to get a significant amount of the delicious creamy sauce to use at home on tacos, fajitas, and burritos is by making some yourself. With my Taco Bell Baja Sauce recipe below, you will make enough to hold you over for a while.
You need a food processor to purée the vegetables, but don't expect to use all the purée. I've made the measurements for the purée larger than required so that your food processor will have something to grab on to. This is a mayo-based sauce, so if you want to eliminate some fat, use light mayonnaise in the recipe and make low-fat homemade Baja Sauce. You can't get that at Taco Bell.
Find more of your favorite Taco Bell sauce recipes here.
Source: Top Secret Recipes Unlocked by Todd Wilbur.
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Taco Bell Burrito Supreme
Read moreTo copy the Taco Bell Burrito Supreme at home, you first must assemble the meaty foundation of many of the chain's top-selling products: the spiced ground beef. Toss it and seven other tasty ingredients into a large flour tortilla and fold using the same technique as taught to new recruits to the chain. Add your favorite hot sauce for a bit of heat, or clone Taco Bell Mild, Hot, Fire Border, Diablo, Baja, or Lava sauce with my recipes here.
You might also want to try my improved Taco Bell beef recipe here.
Source: Even More Top Secret Recipes by Todd Wilbur. -
Taco Bell Lava Sauce
Read moreSales erupted at Taco Bell when the chain introduced the new Volcano Taco in September 2008. A red corn tortilla shell filled with standard taco ingredients including spiced ground beef, lettuce, and cheese, is topped with a super-spicy cheese-based secret ingredient called Lava Sauce that makes this product one of the chain's most successful new menu items. When the Volcano Taco was removed from stores three months after its launch, internet groups quickly formed demanding the product's hasty return. Those campaigns worked. The Volcano taco returned to Taco Bell as a permanent menu item, along with a new burrito that also features the Lava Sauce.
But there's no need to go all the way to Taco Bell and beg for extra sauce if you want to spread the same spicy joy on your homemade Mexican-style creations. Get a box of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese and use the powdered cheese inside to whip up your own Lava Sauce clone. Cayenne pepper cranks the sauce up to 800 Scoville units of heat compared to Taco Bell's Fire Sauce at 500 Scoville units, which makes this the hottest stuff you can get at the chain. Now, with this secret formula, you can adjust the heat up or down to your preference just by playing with the amount of cayenne you add. You can also make the sauce lower in fat by using reduced-fat mayo.
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Taco Bell Chicken Quesadilla with Creamy jalapeno Ranchero Sauce
Read moreTaco Bell takes the fast food quesadilla into new territory with three different cheeses and a creamy jalapeño Ranchero sauce, all of which you can now cheerfully re-create in the comfort of your warm kitchen. Gather up the crew, since my easy Taco Bell Chicken Quesadilla recipe will make four of the tasty tortilla treats.
How about some homemade Diablo, hot, or mild sauce to go with your quesadilla? Check out all of my Taco Bell copycat recipes here.
Source: Top Secret Recipes Unlocked by Todd Wilbur. -
Taco Bell Fire Border Sauce
Read moreFor years Taco Bell customers had only the "mild" and "hot" varieties of free taco sauce blister packs to choose from to kick up their fistful of tacos. That is, until a recent addition to the hot sauce selection bumped the heat-o-meter up a few notches. True chili heads might find this sauce mild when compared with the glut of extreme pepper sauces on the market today, but it's definitely an improvement on the Mexican fast-food chain's original hot sauce formula. Try my Taco Bell Fire Border sauce recipe below and let me know what you think.
Make those famous Taco Bell tacos, Chalupas, and more here.
Source: Even More Top Secret Recipes by Todd Wilbur.
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Taco Bell Beef Soft Taco
Read moreThe packet of Taco Bell spices you buy in grocery stores makes delicious spicy beef for tacos, but don't expect it to taste exactly the same as the beef at the giant Mexican food chain. For a better clone, use my Taco Bell Soft Taco recipe below. Once the meat is prepped, it's simple to build soft tacos the Taco Bell way using these steps. If you want crispy tacos, replace the soft flour tortillas with crunchy corn shells.
Recently, Taco Bell changed their seasoned beef recipe. I cloned that version in my recipe here.
Source: More Top Secret Recipes by Todd Wilbur. -
Taco Bell Beef Burrito Supreme Reduced-Fat
Read moreHow's this for coincidence: both McDonald's and Taco Bell got their start in San Bernardino, California, in the early '50s. Glen Bell opened a hamburger and hot dog stand called Bell's Drive-In, while the McDonald brothers, Dick and Mac, were just around the corner with their golden arches and speedy drive-up service. "The appearance of another hamburger stand worried me then," says Glen. "I just didn't think there was enough room in town for both of us." Turns out there was enough room—for a while.
In 1962 Glen decided that it was time to offer an alternative to the hamburger stands that were saturating the area, so he opened the first Taco Bell and changed his menu to Mexican food.
Ten years and hundreds of new Taco Bell openings later, the Burrito Supreme hit the menu and became an instant hit. By using my Taco Bell Beef Burrito Supreme recipe below, we can knock the fat down to less than one-fifth of the original.
Nutrition Facts
Serving size–1 burrito
Total servings–4
Calories per serving–325 (Original–503)
Fat per serving–4g (Original–22g)If you're not watching your calories, try my full-fat Taco Bell Beef Burrito Supreme recipe here.
Source: Low-Fat Top Secret Recipes by Todd Wilbur.
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Taco Bell Avocado Verde Salsa
Read moreIn March 2024, Taco Bell debuted the Cantina Chicken menu, featuring 2 types of tacos, a burrito, a quesadilla, and a chicken bowl, each starring the chain’s new slow-roasted chicken. The Mexican chain also introduced avocado salsa made with peppers, tomatillos, lime, cilantro, and avocado as a companion to the latest items. But unlike all the other hot sauces, extra packets of the new sauce cost 20 cents each. And the 2½ teaspoons of salsa they hold doesn’t go very far. But 3½ cups sure does.
For my Taco Bell Avocado Verde Salsa copycat recipe, I found there was no need to go through the extra time-consuming step of roasting fresh tomatillos and peppers when canned ingredients worked so great. The avocado, lime juice, and cilantro will be fresh, and the dry ingredients, namely the onion and garlic, will rehydrate nicely as the salsa rests.
The first ingredient in Taco Bell’s version is oil, but for our purposes, we can reduce the ratio. Taco Bell chefs most likely add all that oil to their salsa to prevent the avocado from oxidizing and turning brown, thereby extending its shelf life. The oil has the same function in my version, but I call for ½ cup, which is much less percentage-wise than the real thing. The oil will indeed extend the life of your salsa, but feel free to reduce the amount substantially if you plan to eat the salsa within a couple of days and prefer to avoid the added fat.
Followed as written, this recipe makes 3 1/2 cups of salsa or the equivalent of 67 Taco Bell blister packs.
Try more of my Taco Bell copycat recipes here.
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Taco Bell Green Tomatillo Sauce
Read moreTaco Bell has two green sauces mentioned on its website. One is a green chili sauce, which isn’t served at any Taco Bell I’ve been to. The other is a green tomatillo sauce, the most popular of the two, which can be ordered on any Taco Bell item or will be provided a la carte for you to pour on as you see fit. The tomatillo sauce, with its mild heat and bright tomatillo flavor, is the one we’re hacking here.
It appears that Taco Bell uses canned peppers and tomatillos for their recipe, which is great because canned ingredients are ready to use, they add additional flavors and the acidity we need, and they simplify the recipe. Fresh produce would certainly require much more wrangling.
My Taco Bell Green Tomatillo sauce recipe is easy. Just pop everything into a blender in the order prescribed and blend away, but don’t blend so much that the seeds get pulverized. You want a sauce that isn’t completely pureed, with visible small pieces of peppers and seeds. You’ll end up with 1½ cups of the tasty green stuff to use on tacos, burritos, salads, eggs, and more.
Be sure to warm up the sauce a little before you use it (they keep it in a warmer at Taco Bell). The flavor of the real thing is fairly mild, so if you want your version hotter than that, just add more jalapeños to the blender.
Get the recipe in my book "Top Secret Recipes Unleashed" only on Amazon here.
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Taco Bell Grilled Cheese Dipping Taco
Read moreTaco Bell chefs worked for two years perfecting the birria-inspired shredded beef introduced nationwide in the summer of 2023 for the chain’s new Grilled Cheese Dipping Taco. According to a company press release, the new beef is slow-braised in spices, then it’s loaded into a white corn tortilla that’s freshly fried each day, with melted cheese inside the taco and more cheese grilled onto the outside.
For my Taco Bell Grilled Cheese Dipping Taco copycat recipe, you’ll slow-braise the beef like they do at the restaurant, but with a slimmed-down formula that won’t require you to chop vegetables as is called for in most birria recipes. One 2-pound chuck roast is all you’ll need to make enough tender shredded beef for at least 18 tacos. I’ve also got a great copycat formula here for the creamy jalapeno sauce that’s drizzled over the beef once it’s loaded into a freshly fried white corn tortilla.
After adding the sauce, a 3-cheese blend is added to the taco, more cheese is grilled onto one side of the shell in a hot pan, then it’s served with two sauces for dipping: nacho cheese sauce and the chain’s signature red sauce, which you can make from scratch with the easy recipe I’m including as well so you can get the full flavor effect of the real deal.
If shredded chicken is your thing, check out my Taco Bell Shredded Chicken Soft Taco copycat recipe here.
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Taco Bell Red Sauce
Read moreThe famous flavor of Taco Bell’s bean burrito, Burrito Supreme, Enchirito, Grilled Cheese Dipping Taco, and a few other popular menu items has a lot to do with the secret mild red sauce added to each of them. You might also call it “enchilada sauce” since it tastes very similar to the stuff you can buy in cans labeled “enchilada sauce.”
Whatever you call it, this red sauce is a simple combination of tomato purée, vinegar, and spices, and you can clone it with minimal effort. Follow my easy Taco Bell Red Sauce copycat recipe below, and you’ll get one cup of versatile sauce that you can use to enhance all your homemade south-of-the-border dishes.
If you're a fan of green sauce, check out my Taco Bell Green Sauce copycat recipe in my book "Top Secret Recipes Unleashed".
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Taco Bell Cinnamon Twists
Read moreTaco Bell’s popular Cinnamon Twists are inspired by a traditional Mexican treat made by frying duros de harina until puffy, then sprinkling the crunchy spirals with cinnamon/sugar. Duros, or duritos, is a special pasta made with wheat flour and cornmeal or cornstarch that swells up in seconds in hot oil, transforming it into a light and crispy snack.
You can find duros in many shapes at Latin markets or online, but for this hack you want spirals that look like rotini. Most duros you find will likely be saltier and denser than what Taco Bell uses since the chain created a custom recipe for American palates.
It takes just 10 to 15 seconds for the pasta to puff up in the oil—it will be sudden and dramatic and the duros crisps will float to the top. When they do, gently poke at them, and stir them around in the hot oil until they are evenly cooked. It only takes about a minute to fry each batch.
Watch me make Taco Bell Cinnamon Twists in this new video!
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Taco Bell Shredded Chicken Soft Taco
Read moreIn November 2020, Taco Bell said “adios” to several classic items from their menu including Mexican Pizza—one of my long-time favorites—and anything with shredded chicken in it, including the chicken soft taco. But teary goodbyes from fans of the tasty spiced chicken can be avoided if we have a good (and easy) recipe to craft a duplicate at home. Since the fast Mexican chain announced the changes several months in advance, I had time to work up a good hack before the tacos were gone forever.
After cooking the chicken several ways, I settled on poaching the fillets in chicken broth, which kept them moist and added great umami flavor. When the chicken cooled, I shredded it, and added it to a sauce seasoned with spices and lime juice, and flavored with Knorr tomato chicken bouillon.
As the sauce thickens it will reduce and infuse the chicken with flavor, just like the original Taco Bell shredded chicken, then it’s ready for you to use on tacos, burritos, salads, or whatever. And don't forget the hot sauce!
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Taco Bell Breakfast Crunchwrap
Read moreWhen Taco Bell introduced breakfast to America in 2014, the company had high hopes for its new Waffle Taco: a waffle shaped like a taco, filled with scrambled eggs and sausage, and served with a side of syrup. But the Waffle Taco had less-than-stellar sales and the product was eventually yanked off the breakfast menu.
But another clever morning item, the Breakfast Crunchwrap, continues to sell well at the Mexican food chain. This hexagonal grill-pressed wrap is a variation of the Crunchwrap Supreme, made by wrapping a large flour tortilla around a crispy corn tortilla, meat, cheese, sour cream, lettuce, and tomato (i hacked it in TSR Step-by-Step). When it was introduced in 2005, the Crunchwrap Supreme was Taco Bell’s most successful new product launch.
The Breakfast Crunchwrap looks exactly like a Crunchwrap Supreme from the outside—albeit slightly smaller—but the inside has been swapped out for morning food. The flour tortilla is wrapped around a crispy hash brown patty that’s been slathered with creamy jalapeño sauce and topped with cheese, eggs, and bacon (or sausage). The flour tortilla is folded over six times to make a pinwheel wrap, then the wrap is pressed on a flat grill until golden brown on both sides.
In my Taco Bell Breakfast Crunchwrap copycat recipe below, I’ll show you how to clone the creamy jalapeño sauce, build the wraps, and flat grill them until golden brown using just your stovetop, a skillet, and a saucepan half-full of water.
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Taco Bell Diablo Sauce
Read moreThe hottest of Taco Bell’s five hot sauces cranks up the heat meter with a special blend of peppers for true chili heads. Diablo Sauce was introduced on Cinco de Mayo in 2015 as a limited-time-only product and was soon discontinued. But demanding fans pleaded for the chain to bring the sauce back, and on May 5 of the following year, Diablo Sauce got a permanent spot in the Taco Bell hot-sauce lineup.
According to Taco Bell, the sauce contains aji panca, a sweet Peruvian red pepper, and chipotle, which is smoked red jalapeño. Since aji panca can be hard to find, we'll use ground ancho instead, which has a similar taste. There are other peppers in Diablo Sauce which remain a mystery, but it's easy to tell that at least one of them comes packing big heat. I added habanero and cayenne and the sauce had a perfect kick.
Purée all the ingredients in a blender, then cook it for 10 minutes. Once it’s cooled, you’ll have an easy home copy of Taco Bell Diablo sauce, with great flavor and heat that’ll turn your face red, just like the real one.
Find more killer Taco Bell copycat recipes here.
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Taco Bell Chalupa Supreme
Read moreI’m not sure when it happened, but it appears Taco Bell recently changed its seasoned beef recipe. I hacked the recipe several years ago for the book TSR Step-by-Step, and I recall the recipe had much more oat filler, so that’s how I cloned it. Taco Bell came under fire in 2011 for the significant amount of oats in the recipe that the chain was listing as “spices,” and after that, Taco Bell was more transparent about ingredients. But somewhere along the way it appears the company tweaked the recipe to include less filler and more flavor, so I decided I had to create a new Taco Bell seasoned beef copycat recipe.
You can use my recipe below to make the famous Chalupa—which the restaurant makes by deep-frying the flatbread used for Gorditas. You can also use this new, improved Taco Bell seasoned beef recipe for anything you’re copying, whether it's tacos, burritos, Enchiritos, Mexican Pizzas, or a big pile of nachos.
The secret ingredient in our hack is Knorr tomato bouillon. This flavor powder adds many ingredients found in the original recipe and provides the umami savoriness that’s required for a spot-on clone of the famous seasoned ground beef. To get the right flavor, you need to find "Knorr Tomato Bouillon with Chicken Flavor" powder, in a jar. Not the bouillon cubes.
Try my Taco Bell Chalupa Supreme recipe below, and find copycat recipes for Taco Bell mild, hot or diablo sauce here.
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Taco Bell Nacho Fries
Read moreThis limited-time-only new product from the country’s biggest Mexican fast food chain is easy to make with bagged fries found in the freezer section of your food store, and you can make as many or as few as you want at one time since there is enough seasoning and cheese sauce for one 2-pound bag. Get Ore-Ida Golden Fries if you can find them, and if you want the best copy of Taco Bell Nacho Fries, you really should fry them, although baking works too.
The secret spicy ingredient in the Taco Bell nacho cheese sauce is brine from the bottled jalapeño nacho slices, plus a little cayenne for extra boom.
Try my Taco Bell Nacho Fries copycat recipe below, and find more Taco Bell copycat recipes here.
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Taco Bell Mexican Pizza Reduced-Fat
Read moreYou may not know that the delicious "pizzas" you get from the world's largest Mexican food chain have 36 grams of fat. If you like Taco Bell's Mexican Pizza as much as I do, you'll be happy to know that you can make a home version with only 10 grams of fat, and fewer calories, too.
The secret fat savings come from baking, rather than frying, the flour tortillas. You'll also say "adios" to much of the fat by using reduced-fat Cheddar and Jack cheeses. I picked reduced-fat for these, because the fat-free stuff does not melt well when the pizza is baked.
Nutrition Facts
Serving size–1 pizza
Total servings–4
Calories per serving–427 (Original–570)
Fat per serving–10g (Original–36g)Source: Top Secret Recipes Lite by Todd Wilbur.
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Taco Bell Beef Burrito Supreme Reduced-Fat
Read moreHow's this for coincidence: both McDonald's and Taco Bell got their start in San Bernardino, California, in the early '50s. Glen Bell opened a hamburger and hot dog stand called Bell's Drive-In, while the McDonald brothers, Dick and Mac, were just around the corner with their golden arches and speedy drive-up service. "The appearance of another hamburger stand worried me then," says Glen. "I just didn't think there was enough room in town for both of us." Turns out there was enough room—for a while.
In 1962 Glen decided that it was time to offer an alternative to the hamburger stands that were saturating the area, so he opened the first Taco Bell and changed his menu to Mexican food.
Ten years and hundreds of new Taco Bell openings later, the Burrito Supreme hit the menu and became an instant hit. By using my Taco Bell Beef Burrito Supreme recipe below, we can knock the fat down to less than one-fifth of the original.
Nutrition Facts
Serving size–1 burrito
Total servings–4
Calories per serving–325 (Original–503)
Fat per serving–4g (Original–22g)If you're not watching your calories, try my full-fat Taco Bell Beef Burrito Supreme recipe here.
Source: Low-Fat Top Secret Recipes by Todd Wilbur.
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Taco Bell Chicken Soft Taco Low-Fat
Read moreTaco Bell had very little luck with light menu items over the years. In 1983 the Mexican fast-food chain introduced Taco Light, a taco with a fried flour tortilla shell. But the fried flour tortilla that replaced the traditional corn tortilla only made the taco light in weight and color; not in fat or calories. The item was quickly discontinued. In 1995, the chain tried again with Light Line, a selection of several lower-fat menu items. Those items were also quickly nixed from the menu boards due to poor sales.
When we cook at home, though, we often like to make a meal better on the waistline, especially if it takes no extra effort and the food still tastes good. In my Taco Bell Chicken Soft Taco recipe below, I'll show you how to do just that: knock the fat way down—from ten grams to just two grams—without compromising flavor. Check it out.Click here for my version of Taco Bell Shredded Chicken Soft Taco.
Nutrition Facts
Serving size–1 taco
Total servings–6
Calories per serving–172 (Original–213)
Fat per serving–2g (Original–10g)Source: Low-Fat Top Secret Recipes by Todd Wilbur.
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Taco Bell Hot Taco Sauce
Read moreHere's a way to make plenty of hot sauce that tastes just like the stuff people are pouring over the tacos at Taco Bell. If you like it even hotter, check out my recipes for Taco Bell Diablo Sauce, Fire Border Sauce, and Lava Sauce.
Now that you've got your sauce, whatcha gonna slather it on? Find all your favorite Taco Bell copycat recipes here.
Source: More Top Secret Recipes by Todd Wilbur.
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Taco Bell Mild Border Sauce
Read moreIf you like the flavor of Taco Bell's sauce but don't like the burn, this is the sauce for you. It used to be that you could only get this sauce in the little blister packs from Taco Bell restaurants, but now the chain has partnered with Kraft Foods to sell the stuff in 7.5-ounce bottles in supermarkets. For the record, those bottles of hot sauce will set you back around $1.59 at the store, while the 6-ounce can of tomato paste required for my copycat Taco Bell mild sauce recipe is only 59 cents—and you end up with more than three times the amount of sauce.
Find more of my copycat Taco Bell sauces, tacos, and burritos here.
Sauce: Top Secret Recipes Unlocked by Todd Wilbur.
For over 30 years I've been deconstructing America's most iconic brand-name foods to make the best original copycat recipes for you to use at home. Welcome to my lab.
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