Taco Bell Meat Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What is the ingredients in Taco Bell taco meat? ›

Taco Bell's primary meat mix consists of 88% USDA-inspected premium real beef. The remaining 12% is made up of a signature recipe that includes water, spices, and a blend of oats, starches, and other ingredients to enhance the flavor, texture, and moisture.

Taco Bell is revealing what's in its beef, and it turns out it's actually mostly beef. The fast-food chain's recipe contains 88% beef and 12% "signature recipe," according to a new webpage posted by Taco Bell. Also, addressing a widespread rumor, Taco Bell beef is not grade D beef, according to the website.

Boiling ground beef is the best way to cook it so that it comes out in small, fine crumbles. Trust me, this is the secret to all those amazing tacos and pasta sauces at your favorite restaurant! It's also a healthier option, because the boiling process helps separate the fat from the meat, and it comes out quite lean.

Those “other ingredients” include trehalose, described by the company as a naturally occurring sugar used to enhance the flavor of the meat; torula yeast, “a form of yeast that gives our seasoned beef a more savory taste”; cellulose, “a safe carbohydrate found in the cell walls of plants and helps with water and oil ...

In the process, we all learned what is actually in Taco Bell's beef. Which, it turns out, is mostly beef, but not entirely; 12% of the "beef" the chain uses is actually a blend of other ingredients and spices. And that's fine, for the record, especially because the food tastes great.

In August 2022, the brand tested a proprietary plant-based protein featured in the Crispy Melt Taco. Fast forward to today, plant-based has become a movement, and Taco Bell is here for it (and always was). *Available at participating Dayton, OH area Taco Bell locations for a limited time only.

The British Food Standards Agency said Taco Bell's products contained more than 1% (pdf) horse meat. “We apologize to our customers and take this matter very seriously as food quality is our highest priority,” a spokesman for the chain said.

Here are the facts: All of our burger patties in the U.S. are always made with 100% USDA-inspected beef. That's the only ingredient: 100% real beef. Our patties contain no preservatives or fillers, and the only thing we ever add is a touch of salt and pepper when the patties are sizzling hot on the grill.

Getting the Texture Just Right

Mixing the water (or broth) with the ground beef mixture really is the secret to getting the right texture. It makes the meat easy to break down with a spatula.

A typical 12-serving taco seasoning mix recipe uses about 1 ½ tablespoons of cornstarch. If you want to skip the cornstarch in your homemade seasoning to use it for other purposes, just sprinkle ⅓ to ½ teaspoon of cornstarch per pound of browned, spiced meat before adding ¾ cup of water and heat until thickened.

Was there horse meat in Taco Bell? ›

A Taco Bell spokesman said the company had voluntarily ordered testing of its beef products in light of the scandal affecting other European retailers and food manufacturers. “Based on that testing, we learned ingredients supplied to us from one supplier in Europe tested positive for horse meat,” he said.

Beefy Melt Burrito

The Grilled Cheese Burrito available at Taco Bell stands out as one of the least healthy selections on the menu. Packing an astonishing 38 grams of fat in each serving, this option alone covers nearly half of your daily recommended fat intake.

It then is slow-cooked and simmered with proprietary seasonings and spices to provide Taco Bell's signature taste and texture. Our seasoned beef recipe contains 88% quality USDA-inspected beef and 12% seasonings, spices, water and other ingredients that provide taste, texture and moisture.

“Pink slime” is a type of ground beef that has been treated with ammonia to keep bacteria or other pathogens like salmonella from forming. The process starts with cuttings and trim from cattle carcasses that are sliced up into little steaks and sent away to be turned into ground beef.

Is Taco Bell Meat Gluten-Free? All of the meat at Taco Bell is made without gluten ingredients, but it isn't certified gluten-free. Because all Taco Bell items are made in a shared kitchen, there's a risk that they could be contaminated with gluten ingredients.

Is Taco Bell Halal? Whilst the meat suppliers we use may be Halal registered, we do not specifically purchase halal certified meat, and are therefore unable to guarantee that meats supplied to us are halal.