Taco Bell Crispy Chicken Burrito And Taco Review: Ditch The Tortilla And Just Eat The Chicken

While the fast food chicken sandwich wars may currently be in a state of uneasy detente, this summer is quickly heating up with a whole new battle. The chicken wrap wars are emerging with a fusillade of new offers at multiple chains. 

After long teasing fans with the return of this eagerly awaited menu item, McDonald's finally has a release date for its chicken Snack Wraps, reportedly set to arrive in July. However, Popeyes already beat McDonald's to the punch with its new chicken wraps, providing a tasty Cajun-fried take on the handheld meal. Not wanting to sit on the sidelines (like it did in the chicken sandwich wars, having no buns to compete with), Taco Bell is going long with its new Crispy Chicken Nuggets to create Crispy Chicken Strips made with the same tortilla-infused breading — and since Taco Bell knows how to house all kinds of things in a tortilla, these strips will find a home wrapped up in a new Crispy Chicken Taco and Burrito menu. 

So, is Taco Bell's foray into the chicken wrap wars worthy of a medal, or should the chain wave the white flag and retreat? The Takeout hit up the strips club to see where the truth lies in the following chew and review.

Recommendations are based on firsthand impressions of promotional materials and products provided by the manufacturer.

This summer, Taco Bell is releasing a limited-time offer — Crispy Chicken Tacos and Burritos, made with elongated versions of its recent offering, Crispy Chicken Nuggets. Like the nuggets, the chain's new Crispy Chicken Strips are comprised of all-white-meat chicken, and are marinated with jalapeño-buttermilk flavor before being coated with breadcrumbs and bits of crispy tortilla chips. 

The strips can be ordered as is, or in the more handy forms of a taco or burrito. The Crispy Chicken Taco is outfitted with a single strip, and surrounded by purple cabbage, crisp lettuce, pico de gallo, and shredded cheddar cheese. The Crispy Chicken Burrito has essentially the same ingredients, except that it features two strips in its larger tortilla. Both items can be slathered with one of Taco Bell's suggested sauces: the new Spicy Ranchero Sauce (a creamy condiment made with Anaheim and jalapeño chilies, tomatoes, garlic, and onion), or the chain's palate-soothing Avocado Ranch Sauce. 

These offers form the basis of Taco Bell's entry into the chicken wrap wars. The chain's management recognizes that fast food menu items featuring crispy chicken will be occupying a lot of territory in the bellies of customers for the foreseeable future, and Taco Bell wants to claim a beachhead before it's too late. 

Crispy Chicken menu items became available nationwide at participating locations of Taco Bell on June 17. They will remain on the menu for a limited time only, while supplies last.

The menu items include Crispy Chicken Strips, a Crispy Chicken Taco, and the Crispy Chicken Burrito. The strips come in either two- or four-piece servings, and they are being sold for $3.99 and $6.99, respectively. The taco retails for $2.79, and the burrito for $5.49. The two sauces highlighted for this Crispy Chicken menu include the newcomer Spicy Ranchero Sauce, and current roster member Avocado Ranch Sauce. These sauces can be added to any menu item for 30 cents, or ordered as an à la carte dip for 60 cents. Prices and availability may vary by location, and costs may increase when food is ordered for delivery. 

These Crispy Chicken menu items may be a limited-time offer, but Taco Bell management has announced that some form of Crispy Chicken offering is set to become permanently available by 2026. For now, there are multiple ways to order the current Crispy Chicken offers — in-store at the counter, kiosk, or drive-thru, in addition to the possibility to order for dine-in, pick-up, and delivery through Taco Bell's app or website. 

A Crispy Chicken Burrito with Avocado Ranch Sauce nets an eater 660 calories, 36 grams of fat (including 9 grams of saturated fat), 65 milligrams of cholesterol, 1,500 milligrams of sodium, 59 grams of total carbohydrates, 6 grams of dietary fiber, 4 grams of sugars, and 24 grams of protein. A Crispy Chicken Burrito with Spicy Ranchero Sauce packs 500 calories, 20 grams of fat (with 6 grams of saturated fat), 50 milligrams of cholesterol, 1,310 milligrams of sodium, 58 grams of total carbohydrates, 5 grams of dietary fiber, 3 grams of sugars, and 23 grams of protein. 

A Crispy Chicken Taco with Avocado Ranch Sauce contains 260 calories, 13 grams of fat (with 3.5 grams of saturated fat), 30 milligrams of cholesterol, 630 milligrams of sodium, 26 grams of total carbohydrates, 2 grams of dietary fiber, 2 grams of sugars, and 11 grams of protein. A Crispy Chicken Taco with Spicy Ranchero Sauce has 240 calories, 10 grams of fat (including 3 grams of saturated fat), 25 milligrams of cholesterol, 640 milligrams of sodium, 26 grams of total carbohydrates, 3 grams of dietary fiber, 2 grams of sugars, and 11 grams of protein. The tacos and burritos contain the allergens gluten, milk, and wheat, and those with Avocado Ranch Sauce also include eggs. 

When eaten dry, a two-piece order of Crispy Chicken Strips delivers 470 calories. The Spicy Ranch sauce that it's served with contains 210 calories. 

I ordered both two- and four-piece portions of the Crispy Chicken Strips, which are such lengthy items that each strip jutted out of the paper sleeve in which they were housed. The strips came in all kinds of shapes and sizes, with no two looking the same, including a few thin ones mixed amongst its plumper siblings. 

The strips looked a little like granola bars in the shape of chicken tenders, with various shades of brown decorating them from tip to tail. They were slightly greasy to the touch, but perhaps that had to do more with the lightly moist texture of the exterior than the juices that may reside within. Taking a whiff, a strip mainly had a grainy bread smell, with a light hint of chicken.

Taking a bite, the promised "crispy" aspect of the strips made itself well-known, and then gave way to the succulent and thick piece of white meat within. When hot, the crusty skin and the meat were loosely attached to one another, but as it cooled down, the two eventually meshed better. These strips are made with quality ingredients. The chicken meat wasn't overly seasoned nor salted, allowing the breading's crackling tortilla chip bits to provide most of the flavor, while providing a fun texture to encounter. Things only improved when dips came into play. 

With the launch of these strips comes a new sauce in town — Spicy Ranchero. If you thought no Taco Bell sauce could be more oddly alluringly orange than its nacho cheese, then wait until you set your eyes on this condiment. It looks like an inflamed orange glue, with a few green flakes of seasoning to break up its bright appearance. Moving a fork within it reveals a creamy texture that isn't too runny, nor overly thick. It has a real winning smell, like milky Flamin' Hot Doritos. 

Before I bothered using this as intended — for dipping strips, or slathering into a taco or burrito — I wanted to try it alone. Perhaps for a nanosecond, there was a tinge of ranch flavor to this sauce, but then the fire kicked in. This Spicy Ranchero Sauce did not hold back whatsoever, becoming a flavor flamethrower to anything it touched. Within a minute, sweat started to form around my nose, and a sip of soda was required to reset my palate and cool things down a bit.

Since tacos are open-faced by nature, and can get cold quite quickly, I figured that it was best to try them before the burrito. As I pull back the paper pocket in which the Crispy Chicken Taco sits, the pico de gallo looks like it was heaped into the tortilla, as chunks of it spill all over the table. The soft tortilla shell was the usual one you've always seen from Taco Bell — dull white, with a few browned marks here and there, but it's super-flexible and soft.

As I spread apart the tortilla, I saw a healthy sea of veggies, from the diced bits of tomatoes and onions of the pico de gallo to the shredded cabbage and lettuce. Thin strands of cheese and the included sauce are spread thoroughly across the interior. What I didn't really see is the chicken strip, which was concealed by its accoutrements.

My first bite was all tortilla and veggies, with no chicken. When the chicken finally did appear in a bite, the crispy crunch announced its presence, but this was more of a slight tap on the shoulder than a high five. I'm not sure how damp veggies could get in the way of the strip's business, but alas, it detracted from its strengths rather than enhancing them. The Avocado Ranch Sauce didn't help add flavor to the taco containing it, but the Spicy Ranchero Sauce spiced things up, at least. 

After the messy tacos, it was almost a relief to move onto the more securely wrapped Crispy Chicken Burritos. While I was well aware this item is essentially the same thing as the taco, but with two strips instead of one, it somehow didn't look that much bigger. It was actually similar in length to the taco, and with its contents hidden, it seemed more compact than the more free-flowing taco.

I had two burritos before me, one with a few patches of pressed grill marks, and the other completely free of them. Otherwise, the characteristics of this tortilla wrap were the same as for the tacos. I'd normally tackle a burrito by hand, but I wanted a clearer picture of what I was biting into, so I cut it into two halves. I saw the two strips, but they looked rather minuscule when compared to the strips ordered à la carte. It was also accompanied by the same sloppy toppings that overwhelmed the tacos. 

Similarly to the tacos, the burrito with Spicy Ranchero Sauce was a decisive winner over the Avocado Ranch burrito — but again the strips got lost within the sea of veggies, which seemed even wetter within the confines of the burritos. Also, while I don't have exact measurements, the burritos' tortillas seem more excessive than those used for the tacos. Since the strips are highly breaded to begin with, it's almost too much breading to swallow at once. 

Since Crispy Chicken Nuggets have already proven themselves to be an item worthy of ordering — especially with the new Taco Bell Mike's Hot Honey Diablo Sauce — the decision by management to turn nuggets into longer strips was no-brainer next move. By their lonesome, the Crispy Chicken Strips certainly held their own, packing plenty more skin in this game, and allowing for longer dipping sessions with the chain's wide array of flavorful sauce options. From a value standpoint, it seems like you might get slightly more for your dollar with the strips than with the nuggets. 

I'd say one strip is approximately equivalent to two nuggets, and my order of two strips seemed plenty filling and cost 50 cents less than a five-piece nugget order. It's a lovely new option to have — but after sampling the nuggets in this taste-test comparison, I ultimately preferred them over the strips. Their roundness somehow made for a juicer chicken interior, with more emphasis on this unique crusty crunch that encases them. You can't go wrong either way, so go with what your stomach tells you to order. 

As for the tacos and burritos, Taco Bell seemingly had no choice but to jump into this wrap battle versus Popeyes and McDonald's. While this is certainly a nice try, I'm not sure Taco Bell's wrap-entree entries will be medal of valor winners. 

I didn't really get a sense of these as being wraps; they instead came off as just more of the same kind of products Taco Bell has been making for eons. One of the main issues was the damp veggie ingredients that joined the chicken. They shifted the focus too far from the strips themselves, taking an edge off of their crispiness and taste in general. Also, the strips in the wraps seemed like miniature versions of the strips that I ordered à la carte. Try the strips for sure, but perhaps hold off on joining the wrap party.

I also think Avocado Ranch Sauce wasn't necessarily the right choice for these wraps. After I dipped my standalone strips into the chain's nacho cheese and enjoyed that combo, I believe that would have been a more apt pairing for the burrito. So, while we await the arrival of McDonald's revamped chicken wraps, Popeyes still offers the chicken wraps to gravitate toward for the time being. 

On the first day of its release, I headed to my trusty Manhattan location of Taco Bell to try all of the menu items offered in the new Crispy Chicken menu. All items were ordered, made, and tasted on-site. The items were initially sampled in the following order: Crispy Chicken Strips, Crispy Chicken Taco, and Crispy Chicken Burrito. Afterwards, I took further tastes of each for contrasting and comparing. Also sampled in conjunction with the entrees were sauces new and old — including Spicy Habanero Ranch and Avocado Ranch Sauce — as well as another pass at the Crispy Nuggets.

The items were sampled solely by myself, and this chew and review is based on my own personal tastes, as well as past experiences with Taco Bell, chicken fingers, wraps, and the present experience with Taco Bell's Crispy Chicken offerings. The criteria considered in my conclusions included flavor, aroma, appearance, texture, crispness, value, overall lovability, the likelihood that I would order any of these menu items again, and an assessment of if they are better than what Taco Bell's competitors are offering. The short answer is ... the strips are a nice menu option to have, but I'm sticking with the nuggets as my choice of Crispy Chicken.