Taco Bell Beefy Crunch Burrito Recipe

Taco Bell's Beefy Crunch Burrito is seasoned beef, seasoned rice, nacho cheese sauce, reduced-fat sour cream and Flamin' Hot Fritos in a warm flour tortilla. For four at home, cook half a cup of rice with tomato paste and paprika, simmer twelve ounces of ground beef with taco seasoning, and roll both up with warm cheese sauce, sour cream and a handful of the chips.

What is in Taco Bell's Beefy Crunch Burrito

Taco Bell's menu page lists five things inside the tortilla: seasoned beef, reduced-fat sour cream, nacho cheese sauce, Fritos Flamin' Hot and seasoned rice. On 2 October 2026 it shows the burrito at $2.79 and 450 calories. The copy comes to about 705 calories by USDA figures; it is a larger burrito.

It has come and gone several times. USA TODAY wrote in October 2025 that the burrito was first introduced in 2010, taken off the menu in 2011 and brought back for several limited runs, among them in August 2023, after it won a fan vote on the Taco Bell app.

This is a reconstruction from the menu description, and MakeFoodLovely is not connected with Taco Bell.

Recipe

Taco Bell Beefy Crunch Burrito

A reconstruction of Taco Bell's Beefy Crunch Burrito — seasoned beef, seasoned rice, nacho cheese sauce, reduced-fat sour cream and Flamin' Hot Fritos in a warm flour tortilla. Four burritos.

5.0 (1)Print

Prep

10 min

Cook

25 min

Total

35 min

Serves

4

Cuisine

Mexican-American

Ingredients

• For the rice:
• 1/2 cup long-grain white rice
• 1 cup water
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• 1/2 teaspoon paprika
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• For the beef:
• 12 ounces ground beef (85% lean)
• 1 1/2 tablespoons taco seasoning
• 1/3 cup water
• For the burritos:
• 4 burrito-size flour tortillas
• 1/2 cup nacho cheese sauce (warmed)
• 1/4 cup reduced-fat sour cream
• 2 ounces Flamin' Hot Fritos (about 1 1/2 cups)

Instructions

1. Stir the rice, 1 cup of water, the tomato paste, the paprika, the garlic powder and the salt in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil, cover, turn the heat to low and cook for 15 minutes. Take the pan off the heat and leave it covered for 5 minutes, then fluff the rice with a fork.
2. Brown the beef in a skillet over medium-high heat for 5 to 6 minutes, breaking it up finely. Pour off the fat, add the taco seasoning and 1/3 cup of water and simmer for 3 to 4 minutes, until the liquid has cooked down to a sauce.
3. Warm the tortillas one at a time in a dry skillet for 15 seconds a side, or all four wrapped in a damp towel in the microwave for 30 seconds.
4. Spread 2 tablespoons of nacho cheese sauce down the middle of each tortilla. Add a quarter of the rice, a quarter of the beef and 1 tablespoon of sour cream, and scatter a quarter of the Fritos on top.
5. Fold in the two sides, roll the burrito up tightly from the bottom and serve at once, while the chips are crisp.

Nutrition

Calories:

705

Calculated from the ingredient quantities above using the USDA FoodData Central database, then divided by the number of servings. It is an estimate and will vary with the exact products you use.

The crunch in a Beefy Crunch Burrito

The chips go in last and the burrito is eaten at once. Fritos sitting against warm cheese sauce and sour cream soften within ten minutes.

• Sauce first, chips last. With the cheese sauce under the rice and the chips on top of everything, the chips touch the tortilla and the beef and stay dry longest.
• Whole chips. Crushed chips turn to paste. The folded burrito breaks them up enough.
• Regular Fritos take away the heat and keep the crunch. For a milder burrito, mix the two kinds half and half.

Beef and rice, seasoned separately

The beef is the same one as in the other Taco Bell copies here, made with this site's Taco Bell seasoning or a packet from the shop. Breaking the meat up finely while it browns gives the loose, saucy texture of a fast-food filling.

The rice gets its orange colour from tomato paste and paprika. Leftover plain rice works too: warm 1 1/2 cups of cooked rice with the tomato paste, the spices and 2 tablespoons of water.

Nacho cheese sauce

A jar from the chip aisle is the shortcut. The Taco Bell cheese sauce on this site takes thirteen minutes and keeps four days, so it can be made ahead and warmed.

For later

The filling keeps three days in the refrigerator, the beef and the rice in separate containers. Roll the burritos to order and add the chips at the end. A rolled burrito with chips inside does not reheat well.

Other Taco Bell burritos on this site are the cheesy double beef burrito and the cheesy dipping burritos.