REVIEW: Taco Bell Luxe Value Menu

Taco Bell has gotten expensive.

I’ve seen your comments complaining, and I completely agree with you because I hear the voices in my head yelling profanities in between statements like, “SEVEN DOLLAR DIPPING BURRITOS!? Back in my day, you could spend seven dollars at Taco Bell and eat for seven days! Now get off my lawn!”

Those days of a few dollars getting you a lot of food are long gone, but Taco Bell has heard your grumbling and my mind’s cursing because there’s now a new Luxe Value Menu that features ten items that are advertised for three dollars or less. While that’s not like the days of yore quiero Taco Bell, it’s a start.

Of those ten menu items, five are new-ish: Beefy Potato Loaded Griller, Salted Caramel Churros, Mini Taco Salad, Chips and Nacho Supreme Dip, and Avocado Ranch Chicken Stacker. The not-new-ish are the Cheesy Double Beef Burrito, Spicy Potato Soft Taco, Cheesy Bean & Rice Burrito, 3-Cheese Chicken Flatbread Melt, and Cheesy Roll Up. I’ll be reviewing the five new-ish ones here.

Avocado Ranch Chicken Stacker

Let’s start with my least favorite of the bunch, which features grilled all-white-meat chicken, avocado ranch, creamy chipotle sauce, a three-cheese blend, lettuce, and tomatoes, all wrapped in a folded tortilla.

Yeah, it’s my least favorite of the bunch, but it’s still decent. Although I’m not sure mine was made correctly, I could definitely taste the avocado ranch sauce, but not the creamy chipotle. Whatever I got, it’s pretty basic tasting with just the chicken and ranch sauce coming through. The poultry is tender, and the lettuce adds a little crunch, but the tomatoes aren’t noticeable at all, despite my order having several chunks.

The Avocado Ranch Chicken Stacker is a limited time offering, but it’s so mid that it’s okay to skip it. Also, it’s the priciest of the bunch.

Purchased Price: $2.99
Rating: 5 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: 430 calories. No other nutritional information is available at the time of publication.

Let’s follow up my least favorite of the bunch with my favorite: a grilled roll-up filled with seasoned beef, crispy potato bites, chipotle sauce, nacho cheese sauce, and reduced-fat sour cream. Those of you who edit the Taco Bell Wiki probably realize that this is awfully similar to Taco Bell’s Beefy Potato-rito from 2017. The only ingredient difference between this and that is the addition of sour cream in this one.

I gave the Beefy Potato-rito a 7 out of 10, and I’m going to give this one a slightly better score because it’s bigger, making it beefier and potato-ier. There’s a chili cheese fries vibe with these, and I love the seasoned beef and potato combo. The nacho cheese is the most noticeable of the sauces, and there’s also a slight kick that might be coming from the chipotle sauce, but it doesn’t build to anything beyond smoldering. The Beefy Potato Loaded Griller is terrific, and it makes me wonder why more Taco Bell items don’t have potatoes in them. Will definitely be repurchasing this.

Purchased Price: $2.79
Rating: 8 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: 490 calories, 25 grams of fat, 6 grams of saturated fat, 30 milligrams of cholesterol, 1120 milligrams of sodium, 54 grams of carbohydrates, 5 grams of fiber, 3 grams of sugar (including 2 grams of added sugar), and 12 grams of protein.

Mini Taco Salad

Let me start by saying this Mini Taco Salad is super adorable. That adorable mini tortilla bowl is filled with seasoned beef, chipotle sauce, cheese, tomatoes, lettuce, and refried beans. I want to call it a Taco Side Salad.

Despite having “salad” in its name, it’s more meaty than salad-y. Actually, if it didn’t have the lettuce, it looks like the dip from the chips & dip you’ll read about next. With the lettuce and tortilla bowl, it has that familiar taco salad taste. So it’s almost everything you’d taste from a regular taco salad, but in a cuter form.

However, I think the best thing about the Mini Taco Salad is the fact that I didn’t need a fork to eat it. Sure, I was given one, but I took one look at the mini tortilla bowl and thought, “Yeah, not gonna need utensils with this one.” Then I picked it up with my hands and started chomping away. Surprisingly, I didn’t make a mess. Your cleanliness may vary.

Purchased Price: $2.49
Rating: 8 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: 280 calories, 16 grams of fat, 4 grams of saturated fat, 20 milligrams of cholesterol, 490 milligrams of sodium, 26 grams of carbohydrates, 6 grams of fiber, 2 grams of sugar, and 9 grams of protein.

Chips & Nacho Supreme Dip

I’m a little surprised this wasn’t called Chips & Six-Layer Dip. Okay, “six” doesn’t EXACTLY rhyme with “chips” and “dip,” but it kind of does. Those six layers include seasoned beef, beans, nacho cheese sauce, reduced-fat sour cream, pico de gallo, and a three-cheese blend, which is served with a sleeve of tortilla chips.

As I looked at the Luxe Value Menu on my table, I had thoughts about dumping the Nacho Supreme Dip into the Mini Taco Salad’s tortilla bowl and eating them as a combined menu item. Maybe I’ll spend five dollars to do that during my next Taco Bell run.

The dip is plentiful, and there’s enough for all the chips given. Much like the Beefy Potato Loaded Griller, the nacho cheese sauce is the most noticeable condiment. With my order, there was a slight bitterness, which might’ve been from the pico de gallo. The dip overall had a familiar flavor, which isn’t surprising since it’s made with common ingredients in the Taco Bell Universe. I guess you could think of this as a burrito filling that doesn’t have a flour tortilla to go home to.

The chips and dip were enjoyable, and I would spend another $2.50 to eat them again.

Purchased Price: $2.49
Rating: 7 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: 360 calories. No other nutritional information is available at the time of publication.

Salted Caramel Churros

I ended my Luxe meal with the only dessert on the menu. An order comes with three pieces featuring a creamy filling and a crispy exterior dusted with salted caramel-flavored sugar. That crystalline substance on the crispy fried dough is definitely sweet and definitely salty, but perhaps a bit more salty than I was expecting.

The creamy filling adds a modest amount of sweetness, but I kind of question whether it was necessary if all the salted caramel flavor comes from the sugary coating. I also wondered whether the filling wanted to be involved with this dessert, because when I bit into a piece on one end, the filling would escape from the other, as if it were trying to run away from being associated with these churros.

Other than being saltier than I expected, I think these churros were worth it. For $1.99, you don’t have to fork over much.

Purchased Price: $1.99
Size: 3 pieces
Rating: 6 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: 230 calories, 16 grams of fat, 5 grams of saturated fat, 10 milligrams of cholesterol, 20 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 12 grams of sugar (including 12 grams of added sugar), and 2 grams of protein.

With Taco Bell’s Luxe Value Menu, you won’t be able to stretch five dollars as much as you could a decade or so ago. However, you can get two or three of these items for five, six, or seven dollars. I paid under $13 for all five, which isn’t enough to quiet the voices in my head. Although they’re whispering, “That’s not too bad.”