The perfect that's part beef and part science experiment.
There's a lot more stuffed inside Taco Bell's soft tacos than you might think!
If you had visited the first Taco Bell when the restaurant originally opened in 1962,
you would have only found five items on the menu: Frijoles, tostados, chili burgers,
burritos, and tacos. However, the original tacos at Taco Bell were crunchy, not soft.
The crunchy taco was the top item on the menu before Taco Bell added the soft taco. However,
fans were rather intrigued with the soft taco as an alternate offering. During its
first two years — 1970 and 1971 — the soft taco became the best-selling menu item at Taco Bell.
The basic soft taco is comprised of just a flour tortilla, ground beef, lettuce, and shredded
cheese. It was simple, but fast-food-goers were impressed. Nobody was offering wraps yet,
so nothing quite like the soft taco was available from major fast food chains at the time.
You may think "real" Mexican tacos consist of a soft corn tortilla. However,
Mexico has a variety of regional cuisines, so tacos from each area are different based on
the immigrants who settled there and the ingredients that were available to them.
According to the Mexican author Gustavo Arellano, Mexicans have been consuming
tacos for a long time, particularly in terms of stuffing food into tacos. Additionally,
according to Arellano, some people assume that flour tortillas are a recent invention,
but their origin is older and more surprising than you might think.
Corn tortillas have been around for centuries in Mexico, but flour tortillas are common in
the Northern part of Mexico. There's a possibility that Jews who moved to
the New World in the 1500s may have created flour tortillas as a kosher,
lard-free alternative to corn tortillas. Although, Arellano says it's also a
possibility that flour tortillas came to Northern Mexico and the Borderlands
with the Spanish Moors, who were Muslims of Middle Eastern and North African descent.
Whatever way flour-based tacos came to Northern Mexico, contemporary Northern Mexicans still use
flour tortillas in their cuisine, so flour-based tacos are still very much authentically Mexican.
Most people wouldn't be too surprised to learn that Taco Bell's top seller is their original
crunchy taco, and while the soft taco was the most popular item for the first two years it was on the
menu, the novelty wore off eventually, demoting the soft taco to second place.
The popularity of crunchy tacos over soft tacos may have everything to do with their
delightful crunch factor. Smell and taste researcher doctor Alan Hirsch told Mental
Floss that people often enjoy the crunchiness of hard tacos, and that hearing the sound of
crunchy foods can actually make us want to eat more. This may also be because we assume foods
are fresher when they are crunchier. For example, items such as apples and celery,
which are crunchy, contain several vitamins and nutrients, especially when they are fresh.
So, even when we're eating junk food like chips, our brain is convinced we're eating
uber-healthy food and urges us to eat more. The same goes for tacos. People may simply buy
more crunchy tacos than soft tacos because their brain convinces them they need more,
pushing soft tacos into the second most popular position on the Taco Bell menu.
The truth about Taco Bell's
"seasoned meat" is that around 12% of the ingredients aren't really any
meat at all. But don't just take our word for it.
"Our seasoned beef is 88% premium ground beef!"
"And 12% signature recipe."
Sure, 88% of the "seasoned beef" is real cow meat. But it's the other 12% that gives people pause.
If you make taco meat in your own kitchen, you're likely to add many of the ingredients
Taco Bell puts in its seasoned beef. These ingredients include salt, chili pepper,
tomato powder, sugar, onion powder, smoke flavor, and even cocoa. You might even add
oats to your ground beef as Taco Bell does, since they help lean meat stick together.
However, there are a few other ingredients in the "seasoned meat" that makes it sound more
like a chemistry project than something you want to put in your mouth. As it contains cellulose,
maltodextrin, soy lecithin, disodium inosinate & guanylate, and sodium phosphates. It also
contains more familiar ingredients like yeast, citric acid, dextrose,
lactic acid, and cornstarch. Luckily, all of these are safe ingredients in small amounts.
When people try to make a healthier choice at Taco Bell they often go for the soft taco,
most likely because, unlike the crunchy taco's shell, the flour tortilla isn't fried. However,
the truth about Taco Bell's soft taco is that it has more calories,
sugar, and sodium than Taco Bell's crunchy taco.
The soft taco has 180 calories, while the crunchy taco has 170 calories.
Eating a soft taco will provide you with 500 milligrams of sodium in comparison to
the crunchy taco's 300 milligrams of sodium. The soft taco also has over 1 gram of sugar,
while you'll find less than a gram in a crunchy taco.
However, the soft taco is better if you're looking for a higher protein and lower fat
option. The soft taco has 9 grams of protein in comparison to the crunchy taco's 8 grams.
And the soft taco has 9 grams of fat, compared to the crunchy taco's 10 grams.
Taco Bell's website states that
they use Mission brand flour tortillas in the frequently asked questions about their
ingredients. It's probably only a coincidence that both companies have a bell as a logo, right?
"Well, it certainly sounds suspicious."
According to Mission, it's the top tortilla company in the United States,
and the brand prides itself on its authenticity. However, Mashed only
considered it the fourth-best tortilla brand when we ranked tortillas from worst to best,
since they don't have as strong a commitment to using healthy ingredients as some other brands.
If you want to make soft tacos at home that are similar to Taco Bell's,
Mission's Soft Taco Restaurant Style Flour Tortillas are probably your best
option if they're easily available in your area.
If you walk into a Taco Bell and use the kiosk to order, there's a magical new option called
"Veggie Mode," which allows you to instantly find all the available veggie options on the
menu. However, under the tacos section of the menu, you will likely only see
the spicy potato soft taco. Having only one soft taco option on the menu can be rather
disheartening for soft taco fans, but you're always welcome to hack the Taco Bell menu.
Anything Taco Bell has on the menu is fair game for your soft taco. However,
if you're using the online menu or kiosk to order a soft taco, you're a little more limited than if
you're ordering in person. According to Taco Bell, its tortillas are vegan. Vegan ingredients you can
add or substitute for meat include black beans, hash browns, jalapeños, onions, potato bites,
premium guacamole, red strips, seasoned refried beans, seasoned rice, and tomatoes. It also offers
several American Vegetarian Association-certified sauces, including breakfast salsa and red sauce.
All of its hot sauce packets are also vegan. In addition to the vegan ingredients,
Taco Bell says vegetarians can add eggs during breakfast hours,
reduced-fat sour cream, and the three-cheese blend. The avocado ranch, creamy chipotle,
creamy jalapeno, nacho cheese, and spicy ranch sauces are also vegetarian.
In 1995, Taco Bell
announced three new menu items featuring bacon, including a BLT soft taco. That year,
other major fast food chains like McDonald's, Wendy's, Burger King, and Arby's rolled out
sandwiches with bacon. So, it seemed like an obvious step for the booming taco chain.
The BLT soft taco was only 99 cents, but unlike burgers with bacon,
people just didn't go for tacos with bacon. Taco Bell's bacon
cheeseburger burrito and chicken club burrito also didn't do well.
It wasn't long until all three of these bacon-based menu items slipped back quietly
into obscurity. Taco Bell customers in 1995 just weren't ready to embrace bacon in their
Tex-Mex. But perhaps the fast food giant was just a little too ahead of its time, as today,
bacon is popular in everything from soap to lip balm. In 2022,
Mashed suggested that bacon jam is an ingredient you should be putting on your taco but aren't,
so maybe the world is finally ready for the BLT taco to make its triumphant return.
"We're hackin', baby!"
There are many ways to hack Taco Bell's soft taco. Do you see a new menu item that looks good,
but you prefer soft tacos? No problem. Just ask for it as a soft taco instead.
And you can always customize with upgrades and add-ons from the menu.
Are you missing the Cheesarito? According to Tasting Table, to get a Cheesarito,
you should simply order a soft taco minus lettuce, with taco sauce and scallions.
Tasting Table also explains how to get a soft taco with a kick but without added
calories from sauces. This can be done by simply ordering a soft taco with jalapeños.
An Overloaded Potato Soft Taco is a vegetarian twist on the soft taco that
doesn't rely on beans. To get it, substitute the meat in the soft taco for potatoes,
and make sure to ask to substitute romaine lettuce for iceberg lettuce.
Then, ask to add four ingredients: Premium Latin rice or seasoned rice,
guacamole, pico de gallo, and chipotle sauce.