Taco Bell Cheese Quesadilla Recipe

Taco Bell's cheese quesadilla is a large flour tortilla filled with mozzarella, pepper jack and cheddar and a creamy jalapeño sauce, folded and grilled. At home, stir mayonnaise with chopped pickled jalapeños, their brine and spices, spread a tablespoon on half a tortilla, add half a cup of the three cheeses, fold it and toast it in a dry pan for two minutes per side.

What Taco Bell puts in its cheese quesadilla

Taco Bell's menu page describes a large flour tortilla filled with a blend of mozzarella, pepper jack and cheddar and Creamy Jalapeño sauce, then grilled. It gives 440 calories and marks the item as certified vegetarian by the American Vegetarian Association. The same page lists the chicken quesadilla at 490 calories and the steak quesadilla at 500.

The menu page does not say what is in the sauce. The one below is this site's reconstruction, a mayonnaise sauce with pickled jalapeño, cumin and paprika. One quesadilla made by the card comes to about 545 calories by USDA figures. MakeFoodLovely is not connected with Taco Bell.

Recipe

Taco Bell Cheese Quesadilla

A reconstruction of Taco Bell's Cheese Quesadilla — flour tortillas filled with mozzarella, pepper jack and cheddar and a creamy jalapeño sauce, toasted in a dry pan. Four quesadillas.

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Prep

10 min

Cook

8 min

Total

20 min

Serves

4

Cuisine

Tex-Mex

Ingredients

• For the creamy jalapeño sauce:
• 1/4 cup mayonnaise
• 1 tablespoon finely chopped pickled jalapeños
• 1 tablespoon pickled jalapeño brine
• 1/2 teaspoon paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon granulated sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/4 teaspoon onion powder
• 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• For the quesadillas:
• 4 burrito-size flour tortillas (10-inch)
• 2/3 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
• 2/3 cup shredded pepper jack cheese
• 2/3 cup shredded cheddar cheese

Instructions

1. For the sauce, stir the mayonnaise with the chopped jalapeños, the brine, the paprika, cumin, sugar, garlic powder, onion powder and cayenne until smooth.
2. Toss the three cheeses together in a bowl.
3. Spread 1 tablespoon of sauce over one half of each tortilla, leaving a 1/2-inch border. Scatter 1/2 cup of cheese over the sauce and fold the bare half over it.
4. Heat a dry frying pan over medium heat. Cook the quesadillas two at a time for 2 minutes per side, pressing them flat with a spatula, until the tortilla has brown spots and the cheese has melted.
5. Let them stand for 1 minute, cut each into four wedges and serve the rest of the sauce for dipping.

Nutrition

Calories:

545

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 creamy jalapeño sauce

• Brine, not plain vinegar. The liquid from the jar carries the jalapeño flavour and thins the mayonnaise until it spreads.
• Heat. It comes from the cayenne and the jalapeños. Leave out the cayenne for a milder sauce; double the chopped jalapeños for a hotter one.
• Half an hour in the refrigerator lets the dried spices soften. The sauce keeps a week in a closed jar.

Three cheeses, shredded from the block

Mozzarella is the cheese that stretches, cheddar is the sharpest of the three, and pepper jack carries pieces of chilli. Bagged shredded cheese is coated with starch or cellulose so that it does not clump, and it melts less smoothly than cheese shredded at home.

A dry pan and medium heat

Taco Bell's quesadilla is grilled, not fried, so no oil or butter goes into the pan. A dry tortilla browns in spots and stays flexible.

• Medium heat. On high heat the tortilla scorches before the cheese has melted.
• Press it. A spatula, or a second pan set on top, keeps the tortilla in contact with the heat.
• One minute of rest. Cut straight from the pan, the cheese runs out.

Chicken, steak and dips

For a chicken quesadilla, lay 1/3 cup of chopped cooked chicken on the cheese before folding. The Taco Bell seasoning on this site seasons it.

For dipping there is the rest of the jalapeño sauce, or the Taco Bell cheese sauce. Other Taco Bell copies on this site are the stacker and the cheesy dipping burrito.