Taco Bell understands that true innovation isn’t accomplished in broad strokes, but mild refinements. The Cantina Chicken Mexican Pizza is proof of this.
This fusion of the Cantina brand with the Mexican Pizza works wonderfully, to the point I’d contend it’s one of the best things you’ll find in the entire Taco Bell canon.
By now, we all know how TB’s Mexican Pizzas work. We’ve got two tortillas, with a smattering of black beans and what the restaurant touts as “savory, slow-roasted chicken” wedged in between them. The quality of the poultry here is much better than what you’d expect from the franchise. Like, it actually has some chewiness, and it isn’t buried alive in salt like the rotisserie-style chicken you get at rival fast food chains. Maybe it’s not on par with Chipotle, but it doesn’t feel like run-of-the-mill TB chicken, either.
Atop the pizza, we’ve got a smorgasbord of toppings. We’ve got a tri-cheese blanket consisting of pepperjack, mozzarella, and cheddar, we’ve got the iconic green chile sauce, we’ve got pico de gallo, and we’ve got purple cabbage … and lots of it. I’ve never been a big fan of cabbage in Tex-Mex, but I actually liked the textural variety it adds with this particular product. It’s a bit muted, but in a fast food item like this, muted cabbage is hardly a negative.
All by itself, the Cantina Chicken Mexican Pizza is exactly the kind of limited-time-only offering you’d want from the Bell. It’s crispy, it’s chewy, it’s comically cheesy, and it has a richer, more varied amount of ingredients in the mix than the standard Taco Bell product. Pretty much my only complaint is that the interior chicken was a little skimpy, but that’s the kind of thing that varies from store to store. As is, it’s still a top-tier Taco Bell item and something any long-time Mexican Pizza fan would almost certainly enjoy.
Yet the thing that pushes the Cantina Chicken Mexican Pizza from being a very good fast food selection to a genuinely great one comes in the side dressings. The Avocado Verde Salsa isn’t exactly a “new” offering from Taco Bell, but the Jalapeño Citrus Salsa certainly is. The latter is reason alone to give these things a try. It’s the best sauce I’ve tried from TB in ages, and it’s something that already deserves to be a year-round item. Heck, I’d even pay extra for it — it’s that good.
Once you’ve mixed the two salsa packets onto the Mexican Pizza, not only do you get a nice green and orange color palette, but you also get an absolutely stellar combination of flavors that’s unlike anything else you’ll find at Taco Bell. It’s chunky, it’s gooey, it’s zesty, it’s delightfully spicy, and it’s filling like you wouldn’t believe. Taste-wise, this is one of the ritziest and most complex dishes we’ve ever gotten at the Bell. It’s definitely worth checking out — especially considering it could leave the menu and never, ever come back.
Purchased Price: $6.49
Rating: 9 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: 520 calories, 29 grams of fat, 8 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 75 mg of cholesterol, 1,190 mg of sodium, 37 grams of carbohydrates, 9 grams of fiber, 4 grams of sugar (includes less than 1 gram of added sugar), and 27 grams of protein.
