How To Make Taco Bell Copycat Ground Beef, According To A Former Employee

Love it or hate it, if there's anything about Taco Bell's seasoned beef we're all familiar with, it's that it has a very fine, almost paste-like texture. If you make ground beef tacos at home using taco kit ingredients, it's likely your meat doesn't come out nearly as smooth. But what's interesting about Taco Bell's seasoned beef is that because of this specific consistency, it's able to do things like cling to the inside of a hard taco shell without tumbling out nearly as much as a homemade version.

@dollartreedinners

Today, I'm bringing back a discontinued Taco Bell classic: The Enchirito. To get the beef texture just right, I boil the ground beef instead of browning it. After cooking and draining it, I season it like taco meat! A simple mix of chili powder, cumin, onion powder, and garlic powder works great. For the beans, I thin out canned refried beans with a bit of water to mimic the creamy spreadable texture you find at Taco Bell. To assemble the enchirito:  Warm a taco-sized flour tortilla, spread on some of your seasoned beef and refried beans, then add a small sprinkle of finely minced raw yellow onion. Fold it up and place it seam-side down in a microwave-safe container. Top it with warm red enchilada sauce and a little shredded cheddar cheese. Then, cover and microwave it for 10 to 15 seconds, just enough to melt the cheese. These reheat beautifully, so they are a great meal prep option. What would you add to make it your own? #fakeoutfriday #tacobell #copycatrecipe #enchirito #tacobellcopycat #budgetfriendlymeals #weeknightdinner #easymealprep

♬ original sound – Dollar Tree Dinners

TikTok user @dollartreedinners, who says she was a former Taco Bell employee, revealed in a video how she believes it's made. "We did not cook the taco meat in store, but based on the texture, I'm guessing that it was boiled before being seasoned," she says while showing off her process. She boils the ground beef in plenty of water, using a meat masher to break up the crumbles.

"Once it's fully cooked, I drain it and season it just like taco meat, and the result is a super fine, tender texture that is surprisingly close to Taco Bell," she says. Once she's finished with the beef, she uses a few more ingredients — including her version of Taco Bell's refried beans, red enchilada sauce, and diced raw onion — to recreate Taco Bell's Enchirito, which is an extinct menu item that's part burrito, part enchilada. As an Enchirito fan and a firm believer that it was Taco Bell's best menu item, I am going to say that her version looks remarkably accurate to the real thing.

Having tried recreating this texture at home independently myself, I've come to a similar conclusion. For me, it was less about boiling and draining the beef and more about having enough liquid in the pan to allow your mashing utensil to break up the beef particles easily (I just used a wooden spatula, but it was a pain). I too added extra water to make that happen, but the difference is that I eventually let the slight excess naturally evaporate off on its own without running it through a strainer, which is what @dollartreedinner does in her video.

Now, do you want to make finely mashed ground beef for your tacos at home? That's entirely up to you — it's mostly a texture thing. But you can definitely use meat like this as a sort of spread. If you're thinking about making a homemade enchilada casserole or amping up a jar of store-bought queso where you don't want chewy bits of beef to stand out too much, this is definitely something to keep in mind. It all comes down to either simmering or boiling your beef in extra water before you season it, which makes it easier to break apart. And now you've got some copycat Taco Bell meat you can use at home for whatever your experimental heart desires.