I Tried Every Taco at Taco Bell & the Best Was a Crunchy Classic

While they won't win any culinary awards, the tacos at Taco Bell do hit the spot when you're looking for a fast and cheap bite, and probably—no,  definitely—a late-night snack. But what's the best taco order at the fast-food stalwart?

To find out, I tasted all of Taco Bell's tacos with a group of friends who call themselves with no irony (and all credibility) Taco Bell connoisseurs. They're restaurant owners, and Taco Bell is what's open when they leave work, so they know the menu inside and out.

Unlike my friends, I had never ventured beyond my tried-and-true orders: Mexican pizza, pintos and cheese, and occasional forays into other cheesy things. We combined my clean slate with their deep experience to bring you this ranking.

Spoiler: We didn't love any of them, but we've ranked them from worst to least bad because there is a time and a place for everything, including Taco Bell tacos.

Nacho Cheese Doritos Locos Tacos

This $2.59 creation relies on the adoration of Doritos to prop it up, but it fails. Standard Taco Bell ground beef (dripping in grease), topped with shredded lettuce and shredded cheese, isn't improved by a Doritos shell.

The look: The unnatural orange shell is crammed with finely ground beef and positively smothered in the other two toppings. My order came in standard wrapping, but the second round was delivered in a branded Doritos cardboard holder.

The taste: Regarding the packaging, "I like this piece of cardboard better than the taco," one taster said. In theory, the taco had potential, but in practice, "it's like a plate of nachos made with Doritos, in taco form," he said. I thought it tasted like a bad taco made with stale Doritos. Thumbs down all around.

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Nacho Cheese Doritos Locos Tacos Supreme

At $3.29, this taco is similar to our bottom raking, except it adds tomatoes and sour cream to the trio of ground beef, lettuce, and cheese on a Doritos shell.6254a4d1642c605c54bf1cab17d50f1e

The look: This looks like the non-supreme version of the Doritos taco but with a scattering of chopped tomatoes and sour cream squished into the ingredient base layer.

The taste: Marginally less bad than the worst taco. "It makes me realize what tomatoes bring to the party," one taster said. There was one bite where all the ingredients came together and I detected a hint of almost good flavor. We agreed that this taco needs sour cream and must be eaten immediately while hot.

Doritos Cheesy Gordita Crunch – Nacho Cheese

Spendy by Taco Bell standards, this $5.19 taco ranks third from last in the tasting, but best in the Doritos collaboration. It brings the non-supreme version of the Doritos taco but is inexplicably wrapped in flatbread. Oh, but this time, Taco Bell threw in spicy ranch sauce and a three-cheese blend.

The look: It looks like someone working at a fast-food restaurant wrapped a taco made from a Dorito shell in a piece of flatbread and stuffed it with meat and cheese and sauce. "It's just a mess," said a taster.

The taste: All anyone could taste was bread. And "some heat, I guess?" questioned one. The consensus was that "the bread kills everything. It's helped none by the shell," another taster said. "Until they fix the bread, they're wasting their time," another concluded. This one's a non-starter.

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Soft Taco

For $1.79, you get the triumvirate of beef, cheese, and lettuce in a soft tortilla shell. No fuss, no muss. But also? Nothing special.

The look: I know this isn't fine dining. And none of us expect the product to look like the ads' carefully styled and photographed tacos. But come on, Taco Bell, you could try at least. This looked like ingredients were slopped into a tortilla shell that was hastily wadded and crammed into the paper wrap. I think we can safely assume that's exactly what it was.

The taste: If you sent a sample of Taco Bell to outer space for aliens to taste, this may be as close to pure Taco Bell as it gets. It is what it is: a soft taco with too much squishy bread, tasting primarily of flour.

Soft Taco Supreme

Take a soft taco, charge $2.69, and you have the supreme version with sour cream and tomatoes.

The look: Messy even by Taco Bell standards. Ingredients were sliding out one side of the soft shell, trailing orange grease and wisps of lettuce in their wake. "Lopsided," declared one taster.

The taste: Light on protein, the tasters agreed. "It seems like the beef is a garnish," one said. Bland, like it's missing salt, said another. We're not fans of the soft shell, all of us finding it too floury and bready.

Chalupa Supreme

If the funnel cake has a savory cousin, it's this $4.59 taco made with fried flatbread. Instead of powdered sugar, you get the requisite seasoned beef and a three-cheese blend, plus the lettuce, tomato, and sour cream trio.

The look: Yep, it looks like fried bread. Some cheese and lettuce are visible, but the other ingredients are visually a mystery.

The taste: "It's just flavorless fried bread," said a taster. "It tastes like salt and grease," said another, adding "no flavor."

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Double Stacked Taco

For $1.99, you get a crunchy taco shell with the basics, now with "Fiesta strips!" The whole thing is wrapped in a flour tortilla and smeared with nacho cheese sauce.

The look: A tad bit more colorful than the others, this guy has bright red tortilla strips peeking out. This was the least messy of the bunch thus far, with fillings reasonably well distributed.

The taste: The first bite was all shell and bread, but the good part is you can eat this in your car, one taster noted. That's thanks to the protective outer soft shell that allows the hard shell to "obliterate" inside. None of us understood the point of the fiesta strips, deciding that they're filler and "extra calories, for what?"

Cheesy Gordita Crunch

This $4.99 flatbread-wrapped-around-hardshell feels like some market-research survey indicated that customers really, really like carbs but also cheese. Here, Taco Bell has dropped cheese on a flatbread and dropped a crunchy taco inside—this time with spicy ranch!

The look: It looks like a whole lot of bread, with limp lettuce peeking out of the top of a tucked-away taco.

The taste: "If you're hungry and can only afford one thing at Taco Bell," this would be it, was the kindest comment. Other tasting notes included, "This is dumb." All any of us could taste was bread and cheese.

Spicy Potato Soft Taco

For a price tag of $2.40 comes a surprise new ingredient: bite-sized, seemingly fried potatoes, added to the usual suspects of lettuce and cheese, all rolled in a flour tortilla. My tasting group included many fans of the potatoes themselves and suggested that they would be great as their own stand-alone order. But, for purposes of a taco, they didn't stand up to the other offbeat ingredient, the spicy chipotle sauce.

The look: Taco Bell's description talks about the game of hot potato, but what we have here is a hot mess. The potatoes are dumped unceremoniously in the tortilla, which is slathered with spicy sauce and then covered in lettuce and cheese. It's not pretty.

The taste: The popularity of the potatoes landed this taco as high as it is on the list, but "all I taste is the sauce," one taster said, with another going further, saying, "I hate the sauce." There was a "pretty even squish" that wasn't unpleasant. All in all, maybe losing the sauce or subbing for something less overwhelming would make it more of a winner.

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Crunchy Taco

Ahh, the classic. At $1.79, you get a crunchy corn shell filled with the standard fillings of beef, lettuce, and cheese, with nary a novelty ingredient or wrapping in sight.

The look: It looks like what we would have pictured as a Taco Bell taco before things went sideways—a standard hard shell with standard fillings. Nothing special, but nothing offensive.

The taste: "So nostalgic," said one taster, who praised the cold cheese. "It's not even the meat," he said, noting that it's that first mouthful of shredded cheese melting into the grease from the beef. The fillings seemed proportionate, and the taco earns points for a shell that doesn't disintegrate.

Black Bean Chalupa Supreme

Taco Bell might use words like "iconic" to describe this $4.59 fried flatbread taco, which substitutes black beans for the beef in the chain's original taco. While I wouldn't go that far, this was about as much of a hit as anything my tasters tried.

The look: It's a hearty little monster, all tomatoes, cheese, and lettuce spilling out of the fried shell. Messy? Sure, but in a kind of abundant, appetizing way. "It actually looks like a real thing," one taster said.

The taste: "I actually like this one" from one taster is not the highest praise, but comparatively speaking, it's pretty darn good. We liked the creamy beans (I preferred them 100-to-one over the beef, and they made a big difference all around). The cool sour cream was a nice touch, but we agreed it would be better with a sauce that has more zing.

Crunchy Taco Supreme

This is the classic crunchy taco, upgraded to $2.69 with diced tomatoes and sour cream. No gimmicks, no novelty for the sale of novelty. It's a standard, perfectly acceptable taco.

The look: Not a bad-looking taco, so far as fast-food tacos go, with lettuce, tomato, and cheese nestled comfortably in our sightline over the hard taco shell.

The taste: "Pretty solid" is high praise for this taste test, and that's what this taco-that-could earned. My tasters liked the quick hit of sour cream and agreed that if you're out and need fast food, this isn't a bad option, especially for the sub-200 calorie count.