Review: Taco Bell's New Luxe Value Menu Brings Familiar Flavors At An Affordable Price

Taco Bell has long rung up plenty of value deals for its customers. In the mid '70s, bargain specials like five tacos could be had all for just 95 cents. The idea of an actual set "value menu" took hold by the end of the '80s, when fans made a run for the border to order up items in the holy priced trinity of 59 cents, 79 cents, and 99 cents. Good luck finding anything today for half a buck, or even a whole one. 

Well, we're already a quarter into the 21st century and Taco Bell is still trying to work that wallet-friendly magic from its kitchen to your brown bag order. While it seems something new from Taco Bell is coming in hot every second, like the Volcano Quesarito, the chain is hoping to grab everyone's attention by launching additional options to its Luxe line, with a Value Menu where everything is $3 or less.

$3 or less almost sounds like an impossibility in this day and age, so what does one actually get for such little scratch? The newbie savers go by the name of Mini Taco Salad, Avocado Ranch Chicken Stacker, Beefy Potato Loaded Griller, Chips & Nacho Supreme Dip, and Salted Caramel Churros. The fine folks of Taco Bell threw a purple velvety soirée to launch these new Luxe Value Menu, letting The Takeout take a sneak peek nibble of them all before they land in your hands. Do these cheap eats have any bite or do they just bite in general? The truth can now be told in this tortilla wrapped chew & review.

Some recommendations are based on firsthand impressions of promotional materials and products provided by the manufacturer.

In 2024, Taco Bell redefined value when it launched its "Luxe" menu, which it claimed on its website "offers fans the opportunity to enjoy their favorites without having to compromise on quantity, craveability and price." The initial offerings were essentially its "Cravings Box" meals that rang up at $7. A year later, the Luxe got de-Luxer, adding options at additional $5 and $9 price points.

In 2026, the Taco Bell line is going big on options, and little on price, with its new Luxe Value Menu. Ten items reside on this menu that all cost $3 or less. Half of them are returning favorites: Cheesy Roll Up, the Spicy Potato Soft Taco, Cheesy Bean and Rice Burrito, Cheesy Double Beef Burrito, and my personal favorite, the 3 Cheese Chicken Flatbread Melt. The other half are a batch of rookies looking to make a name for themselves: Mini Taco Salad, Avocado Ranch Chicken Stacker, Beefy Potato Loaded Griller, Chips & Nacho Supreme Dip, and Salted Caramel Churros.

This Luxe Value Menu had a test run last summer in the Indianapolis, Indiana area, and is now going nationwide for all to try. In a statement, Luis Restrepo, Chief Marketing Officer, North America, at Taco Bell noted: "The Luxe Value Menu was built on one ambition: to defy expectations of what value can be. Through extensive fan testing and bold innovation, we created menu items that deliver an elevated experience at an accessible price point." He added, "This isn't just a menu refresh, it's a new standard for value at Taco Bell and across the industry."

The Luxe Value Menu officially launches at participating nationwide locations of Taco Bell on January 22, 2026. However, Taco Bell Rewards Members will have early access to the menu starting on January 16. The items are available to order anytime Taco Bell is open for business, including breakfast hours, while supplies last. Orders can be placed in-store, at the counter, through a kiosk, or drive-thru where available. Advance orders for dine-in, pick-up, or even delivery can be placed through Taco Bell's app or website.

Again, the key here is that every item on the Luxe Value Menu is $3 or less. The Mini Taco Salad, Beefy Potato Loaded Griller, and Chips & Nacho Supreme Dip are each tagged at $2.49, the Avocado Ranch Chicken Stacker sells for $2.99, and the limited-time only Salted Caramel Churros are a mere $1.99. The returning favorites are priced as follows: the Cheesy Roll Up is $1.19, the Spicy Potato Soft Taco is $1.29, the Cheesy Bean and Rice Burrito is $1.49, the 3 Cheese Chicken Flatbread Melt is $2.29, and the Cheesy Double Beef Burrito is $2.79. Prices may vary per location, and may be higher when ordered for delivery or through third-party apps and websites.

The Mini Taco Salad packs in 280 calories, with 16 grams of total fat and 20 milligrams of cholesterol. It has 490 milligrams of sodium, 26 grams of total carbohydrates, and 9 grams of protein. The Beefy Potato Loaded Griller is filled with 490 calories, along with 25 grams of total fat and 30 milligrams of cholesterol. It contains 1,120 milligrams of sodium, 54 grams of total carbohydrates, and 12 grams of protein.

The Chips & Nacho Supreme Dip scoops up 360 calories, 19 grams of total fat, and 20 milligrams of cholesterol. It includes 720 milligrams of sodium, 36 grams of total carbohydrates, and 10 grams of protein. The Avocado Ranch Chicken Stacker stacks up to 360 calories, 16 grams of total fat, and 40 milligrams of cholesterol. It has 880 milligrams of sodium, 38 grams of total carbohydrates, and 16 grams of protein.

The Salted Caramel Churros contains 230 calories, with 16 grams of total fat and 10 milligrams of cholesterol. They contain 100 milligrams of sodium, 20 grams of total carbohydrates, and 2 grams of protein.

At my tasting, Taco Bell presented the new items in a round of five courses, with the Mini Taco Salad as its opening salvo. Taco Bell just teamed-up with miniature replica food maker MGA to make Miniverse versions of its food, and while it's not as minuscule as that toy, this Mini Taco Salad had a similar super-adorableness written all over it. The taco shell was certainly small physically, but you could tell it packed a lot in. The shell had cute pinched corners, and had the texture of a grainy, salted Tostito tortilla chip.

The cooler elements dominated this Taco Salad's top surface, with shredded cheese and tomatoes throwing literal shade to the elements below. The Taco Salad looked so dainty, I almost wanted to sip at it like a cup of tea, but settled on a fork to gobble it up. Breaking the top surface, a layer of iceberg lettuce, both in chunks and shreds, added further freshness to the warmer parts of the salad. I wouldn't say there was an ample amount of seasoned beef, but there was enough present to make a taste impact, mixed in with the usual great chipotle sauce, and hovering just above the refried beans that served as this salad's bottom base.

While the salad as a whole didn't seem like anything revolutionary, I had the most fun with it when I started munching away at the shell itself. The shell was sturdy enough to keep all the ingredients in place, and avoid wilting with the more wet and fluid ones in town. It also had a pleasant airy crunch to it that made for a nice alternative to the chain's standard tortilla chips.

Next up was the Beefy Potato Loaded Griller. From its exterior, it didn't really reveal much. It was a long and thin burrito, measuring to the eye at perhaps 6-inches, with pressed grill marks on the tortilla's folds. In lieu of biting from this Griller's head, I opted to cut it in half to see what we were dealing with before digging in. It appeared like a mini-Hot Pocket, with oozy cheese ready to spill, coating what looked like a piece of white chicken — but I knew that poultry had nothing to do with this "beefy" bite. That was in fact a little potato wedge.

Personally, outside of french fries and chips, I am not a giant potato loving person. To me they act as a filler and never worth reserving space in the stomach for. This Griller was primarily made up of "crispy" potato bites, which weren't all that crispy, but certainly did their job at being filling. The potatoes are accented by the present nacho cheese, chipotle sauce, light amount of ground beef, and apparently reduced-fat sour cream, which didn't seem to register. It's almost like a little loaded baked potato, wrapped up in a tortilla. I actually felt like some of those saucier elements would have been better served as dipping elements than ones buried under the hood. Overall, this Griller is inoffensive and just plain A-OK.

Before I dined on any of these Luxe Value Menu items, I got a visual sneak peek of them splayed out on a fancy silver tray. The Chips & Nacho Supreme Dip had a similar diameter to the Mini Taco Salad, but perhaps was a little wider. Sadly, it was not housed in such an attractive package as that magical little pinched shell. Instead this dip comes in a little black plastic container. I'm assuming the version of the dip I was served was the same serving size as the one sold, but it looked really mammoth in the silver dish before me. 

The dip resembled a volcano consisting of the usual suspect Taco Bell ingredients. It had a molten lava center, where the fiery red pico de gallo lay in a stacked mound. Moving outwards, the shredded cheese had a mildly-melty appearance meshed into the nacho cheese, before the edges filled-out with earthy brown refried bean terrain.

It was served with a side of chips, but I first wanted to encounter this mass with a fork. And what a forkful it was. All these standard ingredients are fine on their own, but came together for a multi-faceted, textured, and overall hearty bite. It's hard to deny the simple pleasure of this dip on its own. Taco Bell's tortilla chips were their usual solid self, light and airy, but a little bit more dense of a bite than the shell of the taco solid. They're worthy of a nosh as is, but of course do the delicious dirty work as the actual delivery mechanism for this dip. This bowl almost seemed endless, and I wouldn't have complained if it never ended.

Next up was the biggest "splurge" on the new value menu — the pricier Avocado Ranch Chicken Stacker. It loosely reminded me of a giant scallop shell, but outfitted with the looks of a neatly folded tortilla pie. It also reminded me of a hand fan, and I almost was ready to pick it up and start fanning myself with it, but with no real spice to flare up any of these new menu items, I knew cooling off wouldn't be necessary. In such a large package, I started to have high hopes for this one. Before indulging, I briefly unfolded its flaps to see what taste treasures lay ahead. It resembled creamy Caesar salad wrap, complete with chunks of chicken.

I was then having trouble figuring out where to start with this handheld entree. I ultimately decided to embark where the folds all come together, at its girthy epicenter. The anticipation was highly elevated, and when I finally bit in, the results were immediately underwhelming. Beyond the lead ingredients mentioned in the title, there is also shredded cheese, lettuce, and tomatoes. The only thing that added seasoning to the mix is the avocado ranch sauce, but its flavoring was not strong enough to create the glue that this Stacker seemed to be lacking. While it looked like a complete meal, it had an incomplete taste to it. Some chipotle sauce or nacho sauce would have probably worked wonders on this Stacker to help it stack up.

As my meal was coming to an end, the finishing touch was a small dose of the Salted Caramel Churros. What probably would amount to one long churro, here has been to split into three little Lincoln logs. These logs here were generously dusted in white and brown crystals of both sugar and salt. They had an almost dull appearance, but then again, so do most churros I've come across in life.

It's hard to make bad churros. It truly is. All you have to do is provide a crunchy fried shell and you're already well on the way to tasty success. Biting down into these Salted Caramel ones, the shell easily held up its end of the bargain — a truly delicious first step. That would have been enough to earn my praise, but then it got even better once the caramel creme was let loose. Oh my, did I instantly fall for that creamy element. It had a smooth, and milky flavoring and flow to it, and added just the right amount of caramel sweetness to tie it all together. Each bite, where the lightly salted breading and the luscious cream met in the middle, etched harmonic eating memories. This was a certified home run of a dessert.

The Beefy Potato Loaded Griller wasn't probably ever going to wow me, but perhaps would have been better more exciting had those tubers been swapped out with a handful of Taco Bell's crispy and well-seasoned Nacho Fries. The Avocado Ranch Chicken Stacker was also one element away from being something with better potential, but I will not deny that these are decent, rather filling items, with very friendly price tags. 

The Mini Taco Salad was briefly hyped by name only at Live Más Live 2025, and it proved worth the wait to become a reality. It's nothing earth shattering, but like with the Chips & Nacho Supreme Dip, it does a great job of recycling familiar Taco Bell flavors and presenting them in new tasty ways, and at a price no one could refuse. I actually can't stop thinking about that ultra-cutie taco shell, and I wish more things could be served in them, although I'd draw the line at filling them with Taco Bell's mythical seafood salad of yore. 

The real star attraction is the Salted Caramel Churros. This is an awesome new dessert that has only one drawback — it's limited by its time on earth, so best to try it now before it's too late. I'd recommend making a tasty triple feature of the Mini Taco Salad, the Chips & Nacho Supreme Dip, and Salted Caramel Churros, and it will only set you back just shy of $7, before taxes. Great food for a great value — this is totally Luxe-urious stuff!