One of Taco Bell’s most popular menu items is going vegan
Move over, Taco Tuesday: Meatless Monday is coming for your crown.
On June 7, Taco Bell, home of such meaty masterpieces as the Mexican Pizza, Beefy Crunch Burrito and Enchirito, announced it was testing a new, vegan version of the Crunchwrap Supreme.
The original version, which features seasoned beef, nacho cheese sauce, lettuce, tomatoes and in a crunchy tostada shell, will now have a vegan counterpart, swapping the beef for a plant-based protein.
“True Taco Bell fans have long been in the know on the extensive vegan and vegetarian options available through its customizable menu,” Taco Bell wrote in a news release. “After years of testing and tasting, the creative chefs behind the Taco Bell Test Kitchen unlocked the perfect recipe for its first fully vegan entree item: the Vegan Crunchwrap.”
The Vegan Crunchwrap will be the first Taco Bell item to feature a proprietary, “boldly seasoned” vegan "beef" that the fast-food chain says has been in the works for years.
The plant-based Crunchwrap will be topped with a vegan blanco sauce and a vegan nacho sauce, two new vegan sauces that have also long been in development, according to the company. The menu item is then finished with shredded lettuce, diced tomatoes and a crunchy tostada shell.
For now, Taco Bell says the new Vegan Crunchwrap will only be available in cities with “notable vegan populations,” which means Los Angeles, California, New York City and Orlando, Florida, in this instance. You might be a little surprised at the last one, but Orlando is indeed known as a vegan-friendly city. The new menu item will drop on June 8, appearing for a limited time, while supplies last.
“Such a large part of our fandom is vegan or vegetarian, and we’re as committed to them as they are to us and our menu,” said Liz Matthews, Taco Bell’s global chief food innovation officer. “That’s why we took so long, months and years, to release something this special; we wanted and needed to get it exactly right, to get it mouth-watering. Because let’s admit it, we’ve all eaten plenty of products on today’s market that don’t taste great and certainly aren’t craveable.”
All Vegan Crunchwrap ingredients are certified vegan by the American Vegetarian Association, though interested customers should note that in some restaurants, Taco Bell says they use the same frying oil to prepare menu items that may or may not contain animal ingredients.
Taco Bell says since the product was crafted as the “perfectly complementary combination,” the proprietary plant-based ingredients will be unavailable for individual orders, so don’t back in the pickup truck expecting to score a cargo-load of vegan blanco sauce.
Taco Bell says affordable vegan and vegetarian options have long been important to the company, and in the past tested other meat alternatives, including Beyond Meat, before settling on this new, secret recipe.
According to Taco Bell, vegetarian options make up over 23% of the products it sold in 2022, utilizing 30 vegetarian ingredients that can be combined for nearly 1 million combinations. That’s a lot of options for folks to customize most of its orders to be vegetarian or vegan, like swapping meat for refried beans, black beans or potatoes. It's no wonder Taco Bell is a favorite among South Asian Americans who grew up vegetarian.
With affordability in mind, Taco Bell says the Vegan Crunchwrap will be offered at the same price as the original Crunchwrap during this limited time run, noting that Crunchwrap prices always vary from store to store.
Taco Bell says it’ll be using the this three-city rollout as a product test to gauge customer feedback and “inform future menu developments,” which means if Los Angeles, New York City and Orlando sell out, we just might see the Vegan Crunchwrap or other vegan options roll out nationwide.
This article was originally published on TODAY.com
