Taco Bell's FLAMIN' HOT Mini Taco Salad underdelivers - the burrito brings heat
Taco Bell is leaning into spice this month with a pair of FLAMIN' HOT items: the brand-new Mini Taco Salad for $2.49 and the returning FLAMIN' HOT Grilled Cheese Burrito for $5.49. Both lean on Fritos FLAMIN' HOT, seasoned beef, spicy rice and Creamy Chipotle sauce, so Delish's Sean Abrams went in expecting serious heat. Only one of them actually brought it.
The burrito was the clear winner, which stung a little because Abrams missed its first run. It is stuffed with seasoned beef, spicy rice, crunchy FLAMIN' HOT Fritos, nacho cheese sauce, sour cream and Creamy Chipotle sauce, and Taco Bell grills a three-cheese blend onto the outside of the tortilla for good measure.
That nacho cheese earned a "gloriously gooey, movie-theater quality" mention, and the spice finally showed up. "There was a satisfying punch of spice, followed by that little tickle at the back of my throat that tells me something's doing its job," Abrams wrote. It was not reach-for-a-drink hot, but it was hot enough to leave him happy.
The Mini Taco Salad fizzles
The new Mini Taco Salad looked like "a pretty ordinary Taco Bell salad" and mostly tasted like one too. Seasoned beef, refried beans, lettuce, tomatoes, cheddar and Creamy Chipotle sauce sit in a crispy flour tortilla bowl, with a layer of reddish rice underneath that Taco Bell says is seasoned with FLAMIN' HOT Fritos.
The problem was that the heat barely turned up, and the Fritos were nowhere to be found. "I'm still trying to figure out where mine went," Abrams wrote after not being able to tell whether they were even in his serving. The shell is "a little bland and greasy," and the other ingredients overpowered whatever spice was hiding underneath.
The verdict is easy: the $5.49 burrito is the one he would order again. The $2.49 salad has potential, and the lingering heat from the burrito even made a second bite of it taste better. But next time, Abrams is packing "the extra hot sauce packets it should've saved me from needing."