What Only The Biggest Taco Bell Fans Know About The Chain's Burritos

We know you love Taco Bell's burritos, but there's probably still plenty you don't know about your favorite menu item. Burritos are among the top five best-selling options on the menu and have staying power (via Thrillist). After all, Taco Bell has been serving burritos since day one. Like tacos, they've never left the menu.

At any one time, you're likely to find ten or more burritos on the menu featuring your favorite style of meat or beans. Unfortunately, many fans have found it frustrating to lose their favorite burritos in the past few years while the company cycles through menu items seemingly every other week. You can recreate long-time favorites like the Seven Layer Burrito by hacking the menu with web, app, or kiosk ordering. However, other burritos like the beloved Beefy Crunch Burrito are impossible to procure. No matter which burrito is your favorite, we have all the inside information you want to know about Taco Bell burritos.

Corn tortillas first appeared in Aztec cuisine around 10,000 BC (via History of Bread). However, since corn tortillas break easily, burritos weren't born until recently. Jewish colonists who settled in the northern part of Mexico to distance themselves from the Spanish Inquisition began making tortillas out of wheat flour since corn wasn't kosher (via the Houston Chronicle).

The origin of the burrito is debatable. However, all three stories place its origin in northern Mexico in the early 1900s. And all relate to small donkeys ("burrito" in Spanish) in some way. One theory is that a street vendor in Chihuahua named Juan Méndez invented burritos during the Mexican Revolution in the 1910s. He began wrapping his food in tortillas to keep it warm while transporting it on his small donkey. Another origin story places the burrito's invention about 400 miles west in Sonora, where wrapping food in a flour tortilla made it more portable, especially for travel by donkey. Thus, you'd pack a burrito on your burrito for a journey. The third story comes from Ciudad Juarez, 225 miles north of Chihuahua. Supposedly a street vendor in the 1940s sold burritos to school children, whom he called "burritos" because he negatively associated the children with unintelligent donkeys. Gustavo Arellano, author of "Taco USA," finds the Sonora theory most plausible since Sonora grows wheat (via Vox).

The Taco Bell Grilled Cheese Burrito starts out looking like an ordinary burrito. It's a soft flour tortilla filled with seasoned beef, a three-cheese blend, sour cream, creamy chipotle sauce, and seasoned rice. It acquires even more cheesiness with nacho cheese and crunch from red tortilla strips. To complete the fusion of a burrito with grilled cheese, Taco Bell employees sprinkle a little cheese on top of the burrito before making it toasty and crisp with the grill.

The Grilled Cheese Burrito is appealing not only because it has a grilled exterior but because it's a filling menu item. If you order a more expensive version like the Double Steak Grilled Cheese Burrito, it might come at a higher price point. But at 920 calories, you'll probably not want to order anything else.

While many restaurants were closing and losing money, Taco Bell started creating higher-caliber menu items with higher price tags. Yum! Brands CEO David Gibbs says that customers have been demanding more high-end, premium-value menu items. "That's why you're seeing us do things like the Double Steak Grilled Cheese Burrito at Taco Bell, which is at a higher price point than normal, but still a great value and a big part of our success in Taco Bell" (via The Motley Fool). During the second quarter of 2022, Taco Bell saw same-store sales increase by 8% and its gross operating profit increase by 10% (via Yum! News).

When we look at all the burrito options available abroad, we're frankly a little jealous. While we tend to occasionally get new sauces in the U.S., the main ingredient combinations tend to remain the same. We've yet to see ingredients like seafood, avocado, or non-Tex-Mex sauces. While there's always the possibility of a fusion menu in the future, we won't hold our breath.

So, what types of burritos can you find in international Taco Bells? Nearly every burrito from Taco Bell India contains fajita veggies, and the cheese is likely to be paneer. Plus, you can order a Tikka Masala Burrito. At the Korean Taco Bell, you can order a kimchi or shrimp burrito. In Cyprus, there is a Fajita Burrito, you can get the Grilled Stuft Burrito with shredded meat, and there are two bacon burritos (the Cheesy Bacon Fries Burrito and the Bacon Quesarito). Costa Rica also has bacon on its burrito menu in the form of its Bacon Cheddar Burrito. In Chile, the Burrito Chilito has chili sauce cooked into the ground meat. However, some burritos you can find around the world are sweet rather than savory. For example, in Cyprus, the Banurrito contains a banana, hazelnut praline sauce, and colored vermicelli sprinkles.

Sometimes, your eyes are bigger than your stomach and you buy far too many burritos. Other times, you may buy extra burritos for lunch the next day to kill two proverbial birds with one Taco Bell trip. You'll want to consider that not every ingredient reheats equally. If your burrito contains lettuce, guacamole, or creamy sauces, the texture and taste will likely change negatively upon reheating.

Microwaving is the fastest way to reheat your Taco Bell burrito. Simply wrap your burrito in a paper towel, place it on a microwave-safe plate, and reheat for a minute. The main negatives are that it may not heat evenly and the tortilla can come out chewy. An air fryer is the next-fastest way to heat a Taco Bell burrito. You should wrap it in foil and heat it at 300 degrees Fahrenheit for about five minutes. The resulting burrito will be warm and somewhat crunchy. However, the absolute best way to reheat Taco Bell burritos is in the oven. It will take 15 to 20 minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit to make them hot and delicious on a baking sheet.

Chances are, if you've tried to make burritos at home, you've used the same brand of tortillas that Taco Bell uses: Mission. After all, Mission is among the top five best tortillas you can use. Astronauts even use Taco Bell tortillas during their space missions. According to the manager of food for the International Space Station, the tortillas that Mission makes for Taco Bell are packaged in a way that allows them to stay fresh for nine months (via Cnet).

There are several options for getting a Taco Bell tortilla to use at home. For a tortilla that's closest to what Taco Bell sells, you can buy Taco Bell Soft Taco Dinner Kits or Soft Taco Mission Restaurant Style Flour Tortillas. However, soft taco tortillas are eight inches rather than ten inches (the size that's ideal for burritos). Mission also sells super soft Burrito Flour Tortillas, which are likely somewhat similar to Taco Bell tortillas, and reviewers seem to like them just fine.

None of Taco Bell's burritos satisfy its customers quite like the Bean Burrito. In fact, Thrillist confirmed with Taco Bell that it was actually the third-best-selling menu item Taco Bell had in 2017. Only the crunchy taco and soft taco beat the bean burrito in popularity. No other burritos made the top five. This five-ingredient burrito is so simple that you can recreate it easily at home. However, somehow, it just tastes better from The Bell.

Part of the Bean Burrito's popularity likely lies in its price point. The Taco Bell Bean Burrito is only $1.69 and is filling enough for a meal at 350 calories. Sure, it's a favorite with vegetarians. However, its simple and comforting melty shredded cheese, refried bean, red chili sauce, and onion combination makes even carnivores happy. And if you add guacamole to make The Hulk, it's even more filling.