I Made 5 Taco Bell Favorites at Home

Skip the drive-thru because these Taco Bell favorites are cheaper, bigger, better, and just as nostalgic. We're gonna recreate some of the most popular and my favorite items on the menu. First things first, you gotta know how to make the taco meat. The difference is, when we make it at home, there's nothing mysterious about it. We know exactly what's in it. Yes, you can buy this seasoning, but I'm not convinced that this is all there is to know about the Taco Bell taco meat. I've got a few tricks up my sleeve to get it just like they have it. Starts with chili powder, onion powder, and garlic powder. Cumin and paprika. Paprika gives it that dark red color. Now we need a little bit of cayenne and a little bit of sugar. Those two are gonna balance each other out. See, when you look on the back of the ingredients, it's pretty vague. Salt, maltodextrin, spice, onions, paprika, sugar. The number one ingredient is wheat flour, which means there's more of that than anything else in this packet. We are gonna put a little flour. That is what helps it get a little bit thick and saucy when you add water to it. Another thing in our recipe is beef bouillon granules. This is going to elevate the flavor, the beefiness of the beef. You gotta have some salt. And then the flour. And if you want taco seasoning that is gluten-free, you can just leave the flour out altogether or you can sub in oat flour or something like that. Taco seasoning made. Now let's make the famous taco meat. Be prepared. The cooking of this meat is about to trigger some people. But let's talk about it. So you know, taco bell meat is super finely ground. I'm gonna show you what I learned as the easiest way to get that. Start by getting your skillet hot. Give it a little head start. Potato masher's the way to go here. And in goes the water. Yes, you have to boil the meat first. I know, feels so wrong. This is going to help break it up and then it's just going to cook and we're going to let some of that water evaporate out. But there's still nothing to be scared of. The only ingredient right here is beef. You might want to look away. See, see how we're doing? Those little finely ground pieces of beef. This is going to be some good taco meat. Now I didn't use a super fatty beef to start with. If you do, you might want to drain some of that off. I used a sirloin and a lean. So that's why you don't see a ton of fat in here. Now the liquid has reduced. So you would normally add some water anyway when you cook your taco meat. So all that's in there. This is going to thicken it up and make it really saucy. I've done all my research for this. Not that I really don't know what some of the things taste like. Some of the things I'm recreating today, I really just had for the first time yesterday. Cause I'm a creature of habit. I just get my same things, but I had to create some of the fan favorites. Making a lot of the taco meat because we're going to use it in just about all of our recipes. It's going to simmer for a few more minutes and get a little thicker, but I mean, come on. It's looking pretty good. I'd say we nailed it. Now I'm going to serve it up on my go-to order I get every single time. I mean, I know it's not the most attractive thing, but if we are trying to create copycats, you know I go all in. That's a pretty good copy. 10 out of 10 times if I got a Taco Bell, there is a crunchy taco in my order. I don't know what it is, but Taco Bell has gotten a little bit stingy with their fillings. The good thing about making them at home is you can control it. And I mean, like the prices have gone way up, but the portions have gotten smaller. Cannot be having that. Contrary to what I'd normally do, they put the cheese on last. Order up, two tacos, one crunchy, one soft. You want to make it supreme, you add on sour cream and tomatoes. Don't find me on the best sauce at Taco Bell. It's just the simple hot sauce. And this is the appropriate amount for two tacos. Maybe not this many, but you want at least three packs per taco. And when I say, hey, can I get a lot of hot sauce? And they go, it's not a lot. Good thing they make it in a bottle now. I know you're like, oh, it's just a taco. It's not just a taco. That is a perfect copycat. Taco Bell's seasoning, meat, and taco. And right off the bat, this is a three for one special. Ready to move on to the item that I've never had until yesterday. This menu item made a comeback recently, the Enchirito. Why have I never had an Enchirito? Tasted it yesterday, it was delicious. It's like a bean and beef burrito meets an enchilada. That might've been one of the better things I had. So let's recreate it, because I hear it is just a fan favorite. And now I see why. The key ingredient, and an ingredient that is on a lot of things, it's on the Mexican pizza, it's on the Pintos and cheese, it's the red sauce, okay? The red sauce is not the same thing as taco sauce. And because my research is so thorough, I brought a little red sauce home. You can also order a side of red sauce for 30 cents, okay? It is basically like an enchilada sauce. Don't know the ingredients in here, but I did see some other little copycat recipes, and I think I know the trick. Because all the ingredients, ironically, have the same thing as the taco seasoning. Starts with a can of tomato sauce. It's a pretty thin sauce, but you can tell it's been thickened to kind of gloss. And then I've got some water, because you want it to be like a really pourable sauce here. We can adjust the consistency as we cook. Also has vinegar in it. What I'll figure out is I need to get to that deep red color. If this doesn't do that, then I might have to add more chili powder. Our flavor is really good on this red sauce. I am gonna deepen it just a little bit. I feel like the Taco Bell one has a little more of a chili flavor. So I'm just gonna add in a little more chili powder, and I think we have this one in the bag. The other ingredient that goes in the enchirito besides the taco meat are the pintos, the refried beans, which they call pintos and cheese. For a while, this was my daughter's self-proclaimed favorite food. Like about eight years old. Hey, what's your favorite food? She'd say pintos and cheese from Taco Bell. Listen, raise them right, that's all I can say. I think it just starts with refried beans. I don't know that they're sitting there making them from scratch. The thing is, they're very loose. What I learned is I think that they just add water and heat them up till they're runny. So that's what we're gonna do. Not the most attractive thing, I know. I think actually what I learned in my research was that their pintos come in dried, and they just reconstitute them with water. Time to build the masterpiece. There's not much to this one. I think we could take this simple idea and turn it into a whole casserole. It is just refried beans, plus some of our famous taco meat, and a little bit of onion that I'm here for. I'm here for that right there. Kind of made it for me. Then you just roll them up down into a dish, sauce over the top, and then cheese. You know, we can't be too generous to Taco Bell. And then they put it under whatever the thing is that makes the cheese melt. We're gonna pop it in the oven for a few minutes. I'm gonna make a couple more of these because I think everybody's gonna want one. This is an easy dinner, guys. I mean, you could make an enchirito casserole all the time. Another thing they don't do, now, the enchirito used to come with a few sliced black olives on top. My first enchirito at home. It's all the same ingredients served up in a different package, but the red sauce, I mean, the red sauce makes it. And those little, just those little bits of crunchy onion. Sort of feel like you don't even need this sauce on it afterwards, but I'll try a bite with it. Skip the drive-thru on this one. I don't remember how much the enchirito was, but you can make a whole bunch for not a lot of money. A plus. This menu item, to me, I think, stands out definitely in the top five Taco Bell items. Happens to be my brother's favorite, the Mexican pizza. They took this away for a while, and that was a mistake, or it was very smart of them because then it just made people demand it more. Two crispy tortillas with beans and meat in the middle, cheese on top, some tomatoes, some of the red sauce. So you do need to deep fry these. This one, you know, was one of the harder ones to develop to make sure you got that same texture that you do in the Mexican pizza because that is what makes it so special. It's like crispy but not crunchy. And then creamy also. Yeah, this is a good one. I mean, like, I loved a Mexican pizza, and I would order a Mexican pizza when I felt like I was being extra indulgent, okay? What I got the other day is not what I remember. It didn't taste the same. It wasn't nearly as good as the way I remember it. So I need to bring back what I remember. I think the trick is you want your oil to be pretty hot so that this happens fast. The eight-inch size is what you want. It shrinks up a little bit when you fry it, and then it's gonna be the perfect Mexican pizza size. It's the sound you want. So it'll be really toasty, a little bit soft on the inside, not like a tostada shell. Now we build the perfect Mexican pizza, like they used to. I did pop them in the oven for a couple minutes. I think that was a pro move right there. One tortilla down, our beans on top of that. I don't think any of my kids have had a Mexican pizza before, but they would be down for this. Okay, and then your other tortilla on top. Then our famous red sauce, because that's your pizza sauce. This one has the Mexican cheese blend on it, both cheeses. Back in the day, it used to have olives on it, too. I feel like they had green onions on them at some point. Today's only has tomatoes. Now it just goes in here until that cheese melts. I mean, he's a good-looking Mexican pizza, though. Now it just gets tomatoes. Then you gotta cut it in quadrants. I feel like they're pretty aggressive when they do this. This is definitely gonna be better than Taco Bell's, and I don't say that lightly. How'd we do? My Mexican pizza versus Taco Bell's. Feels like the Mexican pizza. Oh, hold on. If I'm gonna eat it, I'm gonna eat it like I would with some of this. I mean, it is better than Taco Bell's. If they take this off the menu again, need not worry. I mean, listen to this. I might have overstuffed it a little bit. I think you can make them even smaller because this is definitely bigger and more indulgent than what you get at Taco Bell. This is another one where I'm like, why haven't I made this before? And definitely why haven't my kids had this? They are going to die over these. A plus plus plus. All right, how do you feel about a Crunchwrap? I happen to only like a Crunchwrap at home versus Taco Bell. I was uberly, is that a word? I was extremely unimpressed with the Crunchwrap that I got yesterday. It had the smallest, almost no meat in it. I mean, come on Taco Bell, do better. You start with a large tortilla and you go in with your meat. Now I'm gonna be generous. About the size of your tostada. This one has nacho cheese sauce. So of course I got the Taco Bell kind. Now really when I do these at home, I just put shredded cheese on this part. But we're gonna keep it authentic. You've heard me talk about tostadas before, but I love them because you don't have to heat them up. They stay crunchy. They make for great little snacks. Like, that's what you want. You want your Crunchwrap to be crunchy. So down it goes. Then on this layer, sour cream. And sour cream is the glue for the next two ingredients. One of which I do not agree with. The shredded lettuce. I have a problem with this because the lettuce doesn't also stay crunchy. I prefer to put the lettuce on the top at the end. So just pro tip. But we're gonna make it like Taco Bell. And some tomato. Okay, now at this point you have to top it with a little bit of a tortilla to cover that because this won't fully wrap and cover. You can just tear a bit of a larger tortilla so you don't have to buy a separate kind. But we've always got tortillas at my house. So you can put a smaller size tortilla on top and then you just start folding, folding. Now you've got it made and you're gonna place this folded side down first in your skillet. If you really wanna serve this family style, I know you've seen at least three or four times me make a casserole version of this. I've got the Crunchwrap casserole. I've got a Crunchwrap breakfast casserole. I have a chicken one. As long as you don't cook that first side too much, hopefully some of the lettuce stays cool and crunchy. I'm gonna get you a skillet hot. Remember, everything's cooked and even warmed in here. So you don't wanna go too long so those veggies don't get soggy and your tostada doesn't get soggy. I'm just going in with a little avocado oil spray here. So it only takes about 30 seconds to a minute on each side. See how we did compared to the TV. Is it crunchy? Look at that. I mean, this does not even compare to what we got yesterday. Mm. I would order these if it tasted like this. I give you my money back guarantee that the Crunchwrap is 10 times better to make at home versus going through the drive-thru. I think I forget about them because I don't ever order them, but mm, mm, mm. Baja Blast time. You know I cannot do a Taco Bell episode without doing the Baja Blast. I feel like somebody's gonna say something. I can also say I've never ordered this. I know, I know. I did die laughing when my daughter asked if we could door dash some Baja Blast. Please, who do you think you are? In this economy, we'll be making our own. And here's how you do it. Starts with blue Powerade, Mountain Dew, and then a little splash of Sprite. Or so they say. Cheers to Taco Bell. And it's pretty refreshing. But you know what I wanna do. Baja Blast, boozy or not, this is another reason why it's better to make your Taco Bell at home. My job here is done. And yo quiero Taco Bell.