logo
Taco Bell's New Menu Items Include Baja Blast Midnight Flavor, Queso Shells, and Birthday Cake Churros

Taco Bell's New Menu Items Include Baja Blast Midnight Flavor, Queso Shells, and Birthday Cake Churros

Yahoo18-03-2025

If there's one thing that unifies all mankind, it's the eternal quest to get even more cheese into food. At least Taco Bell seems to think so. The fast food chain recently unveiled its new slate of menu items for 2025, and one of the most intriguing options coming to restaurants is the Quesocrisp Taco. It's a shell made entirely out of crispy cheese. And after you're done washing down yours with the new MTN DEW Baja Blast Midnight Flavor, you can end your meal with a Milk Bar Birthday Cake Churro.
Earlier this month during its latest Live Más event, Taco Bell gave customers a look at 30 new foodstuffs it's working on. While there was a whole lot of revelations, including new collaborations and merchandise for 2025, the most important was the announcement of options coming to Taco Bell locations everywhere. Those include new Caliente Cantina Chicken options, the return of Cool Ranch Doritos Locos Tacos and Double Decker Taco via the Decades Menu, Toasted Cheddar Street Chalupa, the return of Crispy Chicken Nuggets, Mike's Hot Honey Diablo Sauce, a new Flamin' Hot Burrito, Steak and Queso Crunchwrap Sliders, and Rolled Poblano Quesadilla.
Yup. All of them. Give us all of them. But the three new items coming in 2025 that really caught our eye/stomach provide an entire meal. They include:
Milk Bar Birthday Cake Churros: '…warm and crispy churros filled with Milk Bar's iconic birthday cake frosting and topped with festive sprinkles and sugar'
MOUNTAIN DEW BAJA MIDNIGHT: 'a sweet and refreshing blast of passionfruit flavor combined with the familiar tropical lime flavor of Baja Blast'
Quesocrisp Taco: 'an all-new taco with a shell made out of crispy cheese'
Yuuuup. That's a whole delicious night right there.
Taco Bell also provided a look at foods that could one day join the 2025. The live experience started with the latest innovations the chain's Test Kitchen has developed. While not all of these 'dream' items will make it to customers, we'd eat literally all of them. These experimental ideas include:
Weak Knees Fire: 'combines the iconic Fire sauce with Bushwick Kitchen's Weak Knees Gochujang Sriracha'
Zab's Hot Ranch: 'takes the flavors that Zab's [Hot Sauce is known for and adding Taco Bell's Spicy Ranch sauce'
Purple Chile Sauce: 'a rich purple sauce featuring three unique chiles: Ají Panca, Habanero and Ghost Pepper'
Crispy Fajitas: 'tempura battered crispy bell pepper, onions and jalapeños paired with white habanero ranch for dipping'
Queso Fundido Rolled Chicken Taquitos: 'crispy taquitos stuffed with chicken with a green chili queso fundido for dipping'
Short Rib Chile Relleno Burrito: 'Anaheim green chile stuffed with melted cheese and short rib beef'
Brisket Taco: 'featuring slow-roasted brisket, shredded cheese and purple cabbage'
Poutine Fries: 'seasoned fries topped with slow-roasted pork, savory gravy and cheese curds'
Ube Strawberry Cookie: 'a crisp and chewy sugar cookie stuffed with rich vanilla ube cream featuring strawberry pieces in the cookie and filling plus a flurry of sprinkles'
Mexican Pizza Empanada: 'the cult classic Mexican Pizza inside of a flakey crispy empanada'
Mini Taco Salad: 'a bite-sized version of the taco salad that was on Taco Bell menus from 1984 to 2017 with added salsa verde and lime'
Tacodilla: 'an oversized taco shell made with a corn flour tortilla filled with carne asada, melted cheese, guajillo pepper sauce and grilled to perfection'
Salted Caramel & Toffee Cream Empanada Bite: 'a twist on the beloved Caramel Apple Empanada featuring salted caramel and toffee cream'
Test Kitchen? Great! We volunteer as test subject.
You can read all about merch drops, celebrity partnerships, and new menu deals at Taco Bell's official Live Más roundup. But we're mostly just focused on those crispy cheese taco shells. Not out of selfishness or anything. But because they could truly unite all of us.

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Taco Bell announces three new menu items after crispy chicken nuggets trial run
Taco Bell announces three new menu items after crispy chicken nuggets trial run

Yahoo

time12 hours ago

  • Yahoo

Taco Bell announces three new menu items after crispy chicken nuggets trial run

Taco Bell is leaning into a crispy chicken summer with three new menu items. Following its limited release of crispy chicken nuggets, the fast-food chain will be introducing a crispy chicken taco for $2.79, a crispy chicken burrito for $5.49, and crispy chicken strips, which will include two pieces for $3.99. The new items will officially hit locations nationwide June 17. 'Crispy chicken is having a moment, but our fans made it a movement,' Taylor Montgomery, Chief Marketing Officer at Taco Bell, said in a press release. 'So, we decided to bring our sell-out Nuggets recipe to the formats that defined our brand because true innovation means elevating the icons, not replacing them. We're not like every other chicken spot out there, we're doing crispy chicken the only way we know how: full of flavor and unmistakably Taco Bell.' Each new menu item features one of Taco Bell's new crispy chicken strips, which are made from 'all-white meat chicken, marinated in fan-favorite, zesty jalapeño buttermilk flavor, and breaded with crispy tortilla chips and breadcrumbs.' The menu will also feature two sauces: a new spicy ranchero sauce, a creamy sauce made with Anaheim and jalapeño chiles, tomatoes, garlic, and onion, and an avocado ranch sauce. The announcement comes after Taco Bell re-launched its Crispy Chicken Nuggets for eight weeks in April. The move followed a December 2024 trial run where the chain sold out of the nuggets in less than one week. The return of the chicken nuggets was part of Taco Bell's 'journey to become a go-to destination for crispy chicken,' according to a press release at the time. 'We're a taco place doing chicken our own way and like all our best moments, it's a little unexpected – because we've never been about following the rules,' Montgomery said in a statement. 'The demand for our nuggets was off the charts, which is why we're looking at making crispy chicken permanent to give our fans what they are telling us they want.' When Taco Bell's Crispy Chicken Nuggets launched and subsequently sold out in December, 'roughly 5 million Americans' nationwide had bought the dish, with the nuggets included in 'almost one in six orders,' according to the press release. Taco Bell is the latest fast food restaurant to add chicken strips to its menu. Last month, McDonald's added to its line-up of McNuggets to include McCrispy Strips, which were paired with a Creamy Chili Dip.

Bake on the Run Shows Off the Global Essence of Guyanese Food
Bake on the Run Shows Off the Global Essence of Guyanese Food

Eater

time15 hours ago

  • Eater

Bake on the Run Shows Off the Global Essence of Guyanese Food

Pause in front of the Bake on the Run food cart for more than a second, and mother-and-son team Bibi and Mike Singh will greet you with a trio of steaming hot samples. Mike will ask if you've ever had their food before, point to a map of Guyana, and launch into a mini crash course on the country's cuisine. For the Singhs, this is more about making a sale. 'This is not just a food cart for me,' says Mike Singh of introducing diners to Guyanese food and culture. 'I don't have products on my menu. I have my culture, I have my history, I have my childhood.' Located among several other food carts in a Southeast Portland pod called the Heist, Bake on the Run is the only Guyanese eatery on the West Coast, and Singh says many of the cart's potential customers have never even heard of Guyana. The South American country, one of the most biodiverse areas of the world, is north of Brazil, east of Venezuela, and is considered part of the Caribbean. And according to Mike, its distinct cuisine — which is reflected in Guyanese dishes like bacalhau (Portuguese salted cod), chow mein, and chicken potato curry — is due to its diverse population. Guyana's 800,000 residents descend primarily from nine different Indigenous tribes, as well as from India, China, Portugal, and West Africa. Its Afro-Guyanese population traces its roots back to people who came primarily from West Africa as slaves, while the Indo-Guyanese population — Guyana's largest ethnic group today — is descended mainly from Indian indentured laborers who arrived starting in 1838, filling Guyana's need for workers after slavery was abolished in the British Empire. Singh left his desk job in New York City and moved to Portland to open Bake on the Run in 2018, looking to do something related to his culture. He fell in love with the idea of opening a food cart after a road trip with a friend led him to a food cart tour in Portland, where he found a thriving street food scene. Bibi, who had been enjoying retirement in Arizona, moved to Portland to take charge of the kitchen and join Mike in his mission. While many visitors come to the Heist just to eat at Bake on the Run, the pod environment allows Singh to draw from a pool of potential customers who are open to trying something new. At a brick-and-mortar restaurant, not only are profit margins slimmer, but most visitors would have to plan a visit rather than arriving by chance — a tough thing for cuisines that are less well-known. The namesake bake — a crisp and airy, slightly sweet fried bread — was the only dish on the menu when Bake on the Run first opened. 'Bake and saltfish is something we had every Sunday morning — I'd make sure I could come home on Sundays for that bake,' Singh says. 'One of my absolute favorite things on planet Earth.' Bake on the Run serves two savory versions: one stuffed with bacalhau and scrambled with egg, tomato, and scallions, making the fish extra fluffy; another that pairs the bake's sweetness with gingery, tomatoey chana aloo, a textural array of al dente chickpeas, tender potatoes, and peas. Bake also makes for an excellent dessert stuffed with jam or Nutella, while mini versions are wrapped around chocolate truffles and showered in powdered sugar. Over the years, the menu has expanded to include Guyanese chow mein, in which noodles are marinated in soy sauce and teriyaki sauce, then given a quick stir-fry with peas, carrots, and scallions. The Singhs use thick, chewy chow mein noodles imported from Guyana that can't quite be duplicated elsewhere — maybe some combination of Guyana's water, the wheat, or the people who make the noodles, Mike guesses. The chicken and potato curry over rice is Mike's favorite dish, a cozy, slow-simmered, overnight-marinated dish using Chennai-style curry powder that's, you guessed it, imported from Guyana. Everything comes with a side of pepper sauce, an essential Guyanese condiment — 'like the exclamation point on the end of the sentence,' Singh says poetically. Bibi's version, a long standing family recipe, tempers the heat of habanero with a little cucumber, making it zippy and flavorful but not punishing. As of January, the Singhs have started selling bottles of Chef Bibi's Famous Pepper Sauce at several grocery stores across Oregon, further expanding their reach in spreading Guyanese culture. And being the only Guyanese eatery for hundreds of miles, people go out of their way to eat at Bake on the Run. Singh says he gets a lot of truck drivers tweaking their routes for a quick stop in Portland, and every weekend, he gets a handful of visitors who have driven several hours. It's also a favorite for Portlanders to show off to out-of-town guests: 'It's almost, like, bragging rights for Portlanders taking people from big cities like LA or San Francisco,' Singh says. In the future, Singh wants to host more Guyanese cultural events. In 2023, the cart held its first celebration of Phagwah, the Guyanese name for Holi. Around a thousand attendees showed up, a DJ played Bollywood tunes and Guyanese chutney soca music, and the cart served pepper pot, an Indigenous meat stew with cassava syrup that can take days to make. From time to time, specials will pop up on the cart's Instagram, from cook-up rice with beans, chicken, and beef to Guyanese corned beef hash. In the background, Singh is always brainstorming what other dimensions of Guyanese culture he can introduce to his customers. 'It is not me just showing up, shutting down, and doing whatever I want when I leave,' he says. 'It is me continuously thinking about how I can best introduce my culture to the West Coast.' See More: Dining Out in Portland Local Legends

Taco Bell Reopening Previously Closed Location on June 14
Taco Bell Reopening Previously Closed Location on June 14

Yahoo

timea day ago

  • Yahoo

Taco Bell Reopening Previously Closed Location on June 14

Just last month on May 22, Taco Bell announced a new offering for customers in connection with a popular hot sauce. The restaurant revealed the "fiery" release of the new Mike's Hot Honey Diablo Sauce on the beloved chain's crispy chicken nuggets. It's the first time hot honey brand has ever collaborated to create a brand-new take on the condiment sweeping the nation. 'We didn't just drop a new sauce, we unlocked a totally new way to experience nuggets with an entirely new take on hot honey,' Liz Matthews, Taco Bell's Global Chief Food Innovation Officer said in a statement. 'Our sauces spark obsession – fans collect them, remix them and make them part of who they are. Teaming up with Mike's Hot Honey, which has a passionate following of its own, felt like the ultimate way to build on our legacies of sauce innovation. Now we've got this delicious sweet-heat experience that transforms every dip, dunk, or drizzle into something fans have never tasted from us before.' One previously closed location will be able to offer its guests the new experience in the near future. On June 10, Diversified Restaurant Group, one of the largest Taco Bell franchisees operating more than 350 restaurants, announced the grand reopening of its Lenexa, Kansas Taco Bell location. The restaurant will officially reopen on June 14 at 11 a.m. ET. The first 50 guests in line will receive a free Taco Bell-branded frisbee or bottle opener, plus a raffle ticket for a chance to win a Taco Bell-branded pickleball set or tote bag. 'Our guests can look forward to a stylish new dining experience with exceptional service,' Kara Ramirez, VP of Operations for Diversified Restaurant Group, Kansas City said in a statement. 'We are excited to introduce innovative digital features that simplify the ordering process, ensuring a smooth and enjoyable experience for everyone.' The Lenexa location offers dine-in, online ordering for pickup and delivery, and catering services for large groups. The restaurant is open every day from 7 a.m. to 1 Bell Reopening Previously Closed Location on June 14 first appeared on Men's Journal on Jun 11, 2025

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store