I Tried Taco Bell’s New Fajita Chalupas & Nacho Fries—Here's My Review

3 min read

Key Points

Taco Bell’s new Fajita Street Chalupas are a real standout, now available nationwide for a limited time.The Chicken Fajita Nacho Fries unexpectedly won me over and may have finally changed my anti-fries-at-Taco-Bell stance.Both items bring serious fajita flavor, but I found the chicken version has way more punch than the steak.

The last time I reviewed one of Taco Bell’s limited-time drops (the chicken bacon ranch chalupas), I truly wasn’t prepared to love as much as I did. Bacon? Ranch? In this context? Not exactly traditional, yet I was taken off guard by how good they were.

That’s why I went into Taco Bell’s newest fajita-inspired menu with a weird combination of optimism and suspicion. On one hand, the chain had already proven it could pull off a surprise chalupa moment. On the other hand, I’ve said—controversially and from the heart—that fries do not belong at Taco Bell. Also, I honestly cannot remember the last time I ordered fajitas anywhere. At a Mexican restaurant, I’m more likely to go straight for a burrito or quesadilla, and at Taco Bell, my default is still a Crunchwrap Supreme. So I was curious whether these would actually deliver fajita flavor or just vaguely gesture at peppers and onions and call it a day.

Naturally, I capped off a Thursday evening stroll with Taco Bell for dinner. Not my usual 10 a.m. Taco Bell run, but something about mileage in the heat followed by a bag of fast food felt spiritually aligned.

The Taste

Sean Abrams

Let’s start with the Fajita Street Chalupas, which come two to an order and can be made with either steak or chicken. The second I unwrapped them, I did have a brief moment of panic. The grease had almost soaked through the wrapper, and I was convinced I was about to pick one up and watch my fingers disappear into a mushy, collapsing shell. But somehow, against the odds, the chalupa still had crispness on the outside. That first bite was a full-on pow of flavor. The Creamy Jalapeño sauce was doing exactly what it needed to do, the onions and peppers actually tasted like something, and the chicken was seasoned beautifully.

Sean Abrams

The steak, though? Not bad, but definitely the weaker option. It was missing that extra punch and felt like it was relying on everything around it to carry the bite. I’m usually a chicken-over-steak person anyway, so this didn’t exactly devastate me, but I would have liked the two to feel more evenly matched.

Now for the part I never thought I would say: the Chicken Fajita Nacho Fries converted me.

Sean Abrams

Taco Bell fries, against all odds, made sense to me. Between all the ingredients—the seasoned chicken, peppers and onions, nacho cheese, sour cream, shredded cheese, and that same very excellent Creamy Jalapeño sauce—the fries stopped reading as fries and started reading more like potatoes doing their due diligence.

I took one bite fully intending to remain objective, and then promptly inhaled half the tray.

The Verdict

The good news is that Taco Bell actually seems to understand what people want from fajita flavor here: not just peppers and onions tossed onto something, but creamy, sizzling-adjacent satisfaction. You aren’t getting full restaurant fajita spectacle, and nothing is arriving tableside in a cloud of smoke while half the room turns to stare, but for a limited-time fast food riff, this is a pretty delicious interpretation.