Taco Bell's Cheesy Street Chalupas Are All Bread And No Bite

Taco Bell released its new Cheesy Street Chalupas today (July 18). These new limited-time chalupas are composed of small chalupa shells stuffed with melted mozzarella and pepperjack cheeses and folded over your choice of protein: chicken or steak. They're also topped with a chopped onion and fresh cilantro mix, along with some jalapeño ranch sauce, and come two to an order.

The Cheesy Street Chalupas are, in Taco Bell's words, "an ode to the street taco and street food culture." The Cheesy Street Chalupa's shell itself is a throwback to the Quesalupa that was originally released in 2016. The Quesalupa featured a cheese-stuffed chalupa shell and was filled with ground beef, cheddar cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, and sour cream.

I reviewed the Quesalupa for our site in 2016 back when I was still a wee freelancer. I thought it was pretty good at the time, though a bit greasy. I wanted to see if the diminutive throwback to the Quesalupa, the Cheesy Street Chalupa, would do its predecessor any justice, so I visited my local Taco Bell location to find out if the new menu item was any good.

A pair of the chicken version of the Cheesy Street Chalupas costs $6.99 at my local Taco Bell. Before you freak out at that price, I always have to mention that I live in Chicago, and the Taco Bell by me tends to be quite expensive. Taco Bell's own suggested price for the Cheesy Street Chalupas is $5.49, but as with any fast food item, the price varies by location. 

The first detail you'll likely notice about these things is that they're small. They're small enough that even eating a pair of them wouldn't quite be filling enough for a proper meal. And second, calling this a singular chalupa "shell" feels like a bit of a misnomer, because in reality, it's more like one miniature hard-fried chalupa shell that's tucked into a second softer one, with some crunchy cheese layered in between. 

If you can't tell by looking at the photo above, it's a lot of shell in comparison to the quantity of filling, which means nearly every single bite involves much carbohydrate-laden chewing. The sheer volume of the oily chalupa shell takes over most of the other flavors in this thing, which means the chicken, which isn't all that flavorful to begin with, gets lost in the mix. That also means the onions and cilantro don't have enough room to brighten up each bite (the cilantro gets particularly lost), and the jalapeño ranch simply keeps the whole thing from being too dry to eat.

A pair of the steak version of the Cheesy Street Chalupas go for $7.19 by me, and I like this one marginally better than the chicken, mostly because the red meat is just a little more naturally robust in flavor. But again, no matter what you stuff into this double chalupa shell, good luck tasting it through all that bread. A double serving of meat might make this thing better, but then it makes me wonder why Taco Bell didn't opt to serve it this way to begin with. 

The other detail that I haven't mentioned yet is that layer of crispy cheese in between the chalupa layers. It does provide a bit of crunchy texture, but that's about it. I'm actually pretty curious as to why the company's culinary department didn't opt for something sharper, like cheddar, because neither mozzarella nor pepperjack cheeses are particularly flavorful on their own. I mean, the chain has even done something similar before — Taco Bell previously released a Toasted Cheddar Chalupa in 2019 with cheddar cheese crusted to the exterior, and we absolutely loved it. Why not stick with that?

I think in the end, Taco Bell's new Cheesy Street Chalupas are one of those things that just seems good on paper but doesn't turn out that well in execution. After all, a cheese-stuffed chalupa shell sounds pretty wonderful, but when the total package is this tiny and the shell is practically the whole thing, it just falls flat on its face.

And though the whole onion and cilantro combination is supposed to be a nod to traditional taco stands, I'm not so sure it belongs at Taco Bell, at least in this format. We don't go to Taco Bell for its realistic takes on Mexican food — we want it as ridiculous and as inauthentically sauce-drenched as possible. Plus, what's the point of the onions and cilantro if you can taste neither?

This one's a swing and a miss, so I say just hold off on this and get your usual favorite Taco Bell items, or save your cash until the next limited-time novelty comes out. We're still waiting for the crispy chicken nuggets, MTN DEW Baja Blast gelato, and Tajín menu, so there's more to come this year. I'm holding out hope that at least one of those things is better than the Cheesy Street Chalupas.