REVIEW: Taco Bell XXL Steak Nachos

Taco Bell XXL Steak Nachos

XXL may be the shirt size you’ll wear if you eat Taco Bell’s new XXL Steak Nachos everyday. Also, the colors your bowels will release after eating one will probably rival a Dario Argento horror classic.

XXL is an appropriate description for these steak nachos. The damn box it comes in is a foot long! The thing weighs almost a pound!! When the drive-thru lady handed the nachos over to me, she had to bend her arm slightly!!! I have penis envy looking at the length of this container!!!!! How many exclamation points can I stuff in this paragraph?!!!!

Taco Bell XXL Steak Nachos Box

I felt like I was buying a box of cereal from Taco Bell, that’s how mammoth the plastic container was. I know I’m supposed to talk about the food but I was obsessed how large this was. I felt like Dr. Michio Kaku pointing out, “Here’s our sun and now here’s our sun compared to a red giant!” My wife and I were stunned at the size of it as it sat imposingly on our coffee table.

Some of the promotion materials urge you to “Dig in.”

With what? A shovel?

I’m going to describe this as eloquently as I can because I’m guessing the photos cannot do any better than my words. The blobs of sour cream and guacamole look small because they are dwarfed by the amount of tortilla chips you get.

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First, you have a heap (imagine Linus jumping in a pile of raked leaves kinda-heap) of warm tortilla chips. Then a plop of refried beans mixed in, followed by another larger plop of Velveeta-like nacho cheese, then an ice cream scoop plop of suspiciously bright green guacamole, followed by another plop of low-fat sour cream (Low fat? Does it really matter now, Taco Bell?), then a modest amount of pico de gallo, a conservative dash of shredded cheese, and a paltry amount of steak. It’s sort of like a food bell curve or an edible example of diminishing returns.

Nachos are one of the comfiest foods I can think of, right up there with cheese fries. They taste awesome when you’re sitting on the couch alone. They work just as well as communal food when you’re watching a game with your friends at a wing house. And I suppose…perfect for a party, if you’re throwing a nachos kind of party, which I never do. I feel nachos are a sacred dish and while the preparation is simple, it’s just as easy to fuck up.

I hate to say this folks, but what we have here is a gigantic pile of fuck up.

First, I’m not a fan of this nacho Velveeta-like cheese, but even with that, the consistency should be velvety and smooth. Like most things fun and dirty, the right viscosity is important. My cheese was dribbly and wet. The chips soon drooped as the cheese engulfed them slowly. I’m not even sure why there are little flecks of real cheese except to cheese-tease me with what this could have been. The sprinkling of the cheese was sparse; I think I only got two of the supposed three cheese blend.

Taco Bell XXL Steak Nachos Closeup

However, I’m enamored with Taco Bell’s sour cream. I could write whole sonnets and monologues on this stuff or as I’ve declared before, brush my teeth with it. Yet, the consistency of the sour cream on my nachos were also too wet. The guacamole tasted slightly off, almost metallic, like the tub of green stuff you buy in the supermarket because you’re too impatient to wait for that Hass avocado to ripen.

Taco Bell XXL Steak Nachos Guac Closeup

The duo of these wet globs weighed on the nachos so much that it transformed into a piss poor cheese soup. Honestly, the flavors were just okay but they overwhelmed the pico de gallo which was easy to do since the amount of pico had no chance in the guac and sour cream storm. Oh, but I haven’t even gotten to the star of the XXL nachos, the steak.

I love red meat. I love steak. I will eat the hell out of a rare steak. I’ve drunkenly eaten a raw NY strip out of the fridge twice. I dream of those cartoons where they would tantalize a rabid dog with those oversized T-bone steaks. I’m also a realist, and I know the steak you’re going to get at Taco Bell is not one you would even get at a Perkins diner.

Even with my expectations lower than my father’s credibility, I was floored. You know those beef nuggets you can buy in that slick pouch by the beef jerky section? The steak had the texture and tasted just like it. It was as if the Taco Bell guy back there shook the remaining amount out of his bag he was eating from. There was an artificial smokiness, which I guess supplanted the grilled flavor. Also, thankfully in this case, there were so few of these nuggets. Or maybe they got lost in the condiments. It seems XXL does not mean the quantity of beef on these extra extra large nachos.

All the flavors together did not mesh well either. The artificial smoke from the steak and subpar guacamole ruined it. It was like sucking on pennies and chewing on Slim Jims. I’m all for fast food that is bad for you, but not fast food that tastes bad.

Now one good thing, besides never ordering these again, was the tortilla chips. These familiar triangles were warm, salty, and crispy until the tsunami of condiments drowned them. I’m all for slothsome gluttony, which we just experienced for Thanksgiving (unless you were the ones who stood in line to save $50 to buy a tablet so you can play Angry Birds or Fruit Ninja 3), but who likes to over-indulge if it’s mediocre?

I think the adjective Taco Bell uses, XXL, primes you for up for a good time with these nachos. It’s just too bad because these left me XXL disappointed, just like my imposing family does every Thanksgiving.

(Nutritional Facts – 1160 calories, 61 grams of fat, 10 grams of saturated fat, 0.5 grams of trans fat, 70 mg of cholesterol, 2140 mg of sodium, 115 grams of carbohydrates, 16 grams of dietary fiber, 7 grams of sugar, and 38 grams of protein.)

Item: Taco Bell XXL Steak Nachos
Purchased Price: $5.99
Size: A huge box
Purchased at: Taco Bell
Rating: 4 out of 10
Pros: The chips were warm and seasoned well. The box was amusing. Perfect viscosity. Comfort foods. Wing houses. Beef jerky nuggets, just not in my nachos. Dr. Michio Kaku and Perkins diners, together in one place.
Cons: Condiments didn’t hold up and made the chips droopy. Metallic tasting guacamole. Wrong viscosity. Tired of Black Friday updates on the news Thanksgiving night…enough already!

13 thoughts to “REVIEW: Taco Bell XXL Steak Nachos”

  1. I got the chicken ones last night. I was shocked how big this box was! I ordered without beans, sour cream or quacamole. I was given a generous helping of chicken and cheese..I actually thought the chicken was better quality than usual! I felt sick after eating most of them LOL

  2. Taco Bell’s nacho cheese sauce is my favorite thing on the planet! I didn’t know anyone disliked it!

  3. Although I like all those indgredients, I can’t stand the inevitable sogginess that results, especially since their chips are so good. I just wind up getting the cheapo nachos with the cheese cup on the side, and use the chips the mop up spilt burrito/taco inards.

  4. Don’t you hate it when that happens? I’m sorry to hear about your experience, but I didn’t expect anything much, especially when it’s being handed out to you through a drive-through window. Ah yes, the perils of Fast Food.

  5. The xxl nachos at Taco Bell…just sucked

    I don’t like fake cheese and dairy so I ordered it without ” squeeze cheese” and sour cream… I asked for a little regular cheese on top. Would have been happy with nachos topped with pico tomatos and some guac…. What I got for $6.50 was the most disgusting meal I’ve ever eaten… I spent most of it looking for the dried out crumbled bits of chicken that were supposedly in there…I counted four crumbles …the rest was dust. Without the queso you can get the full taste of the rancid oils used to make the chips…. Other than that.. Pretty tasteless! I was given an extra scoop of tomato pico and guac as even the guy who made it recognized how crappy it looked as i picked up my order. I’m not one to complain to a manager over 7 bucks….taco bell is generally a disappointment. Classic taco bell overred and under nourished Won’t be back for a while..

  6. I’m sad I wasted $6 on these and wish I would’ve read the reviews before. I typically go to places like Taco Cabana or Taco Bueno (I live in Texas where Tex-Mex is in abundance), but I didn’t feel like going out of my way to get nachos and decided to try Taco Bell’s. The review is spot on and the guac was like eating snot. Definitely not ok! At least I would’ve gotten real steak meat for the same price at Taco C or Taco Bueno…next time I won’t be lazy…

  7. All I can say is no matter what Taco Bell thinks of with new names, sizes, etc. It will never be good anymore. Ever since YUM brands took over, the days of Glen Bell quality are over. If you are old enough to remember the glory days of fresh, full, real ingredients of the 80’s? Then you know what I’m talking about.

    The days when full fat regular sour cream, black olives, green onions, refrigerated tortillas (NOT shelf stable), refried beans mixed with water and cooked w/lard on site each day, vegetables chopped on site each day, monterey jack and mild cheddar shredded on site each day, and 100% ground beef ground and cooked with spices/water on site each day.

    All that is gone, everything is shipped in stale to each location pre-made and the beef is no longer 100%, now it has fillers. That is why it is an orangey paste as opposed to years past of brown meat granules only. This new idea to save YUM money is called the “K minus kitchen” or K-minus program. Stands for minus quality. Should have been named Q-minus.

    Anyway you are better off staying away from Taco Bell, and making the entrees at HOME yourself. It will cost less, and you will taste a big difference. Old school Taco Bell was orgasmic in taste. Today all you get is pig slop. Not very healthy at all like years ago. Recipes for original Taco Bell can be found on internet. Your mouth and body will thank you.

    1. So true! I remember the bad changes all started many years ago when the nacho belgrande chips one day tasted much different. They all of a sudden had like a rancid oil taste and not delicious like the week before when I purchased the same item.
      I found out they switched from coconut oil which is a health food to the canola oil that is man made and toxic to humans. It comes from the rapeseed plant which traditionally is used for machinery oil.

      Then when the black olives were removed I knew something worse was coming. It then snowballed into the green onions disappearing, then the ground beef turned orange and tasted off. I gradually tasted the quality go away. Now I no longer buy any Taco Bell. Besides having no taste, why would I want to put that refuse in my body? What a shame. A once great food service turned into an artificial imposter grub pusher. I make my own Taco Bell like the original at home. You can find recipes on ChowHound and Tumblr.

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