Taco Bell Steak Garlic Nacho Fries Recipe

Taco Bell's Steak Garlic Nacho Fries are seasoned fries topped with marinated grilled steak, nacho cheese sauce, cheddar, pico de gallo and a creamy garlic sauce. At home, bake frozen fries and toss them hot with paprika, chili powder, garlic and onion powder, sear small pieces of sirloin, and layer on warm nacho cheese, cheddar, pico de gallo and a mayonnaise sauce with garlic and jalapeño.

What Taco Bell's Steak Garlic Nacho Fries are

The item first went on sale on 16 January 2025. Brand Eating listed its parts at the time: seasoned fries with marinated grilled steak, pico de gallo, shredded cheddar and nacho cheese sauce, plus a new creamy garlic sauce made with garlic and jalapeño peppers, from $4.99. It came back on 18 December 2025 for a limited time, as Food Network reported.

In October 2026 Taco Bell's menu lists plain Nacho Fries, a large order at 500 calories, and no steak version. The recipe below is a reconstruction from the descriptions; one of its four portions comes to about 625 calories by USDA figures, and MakeFoodLovely is not connected with Taco Bell.

Recipe

Steak Garlic Nacho Fries

A reconstruction of Taco Bell's Steak Garlic Nacho Fries — seasoned oven fries topped with seared steak, nacho cheese sauce, cheddar, pico de gallo and a creamy garlic sauce. Four servings.

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Prep

20 min

Cook

25 min

Total

45 min

Serves

4

Cuisine

Tex-Mex

Ingredients

• For the creamy garlic sauce:
• 1/4 cup mayonnaise
• 2 tablespoons sour cream
• 1 tablespoon milk
• 1 tablespoon finely chopped pickled jalapeños
• 1 small garlic clove, finely grated
• 1/2 teaspoon dried parsley
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• For the fries:
• 20 ounces frozen french fries
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon chili powder
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• For the steak and toppings:
• 12 ounces sirloin steak, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
• 1 tablespoon lime juice
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 3/4 cup nacho cheese sauce, warmed
• 1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
• 1/2 cup pico de gallo

Instructions

1. For the sauce, stir the mayonnaise, the sour cream, the milk, the jalapeños, the garlic, the parsley and 1/8 teaspoon of salt together and refrigerate.
2. Bake the fries on a baking sheet as the package directs, until crisp and golden. Mix the paprika, chili powder, garlic powder, onion powder and 1/2 teaspoon of salt, and toss the fries with the mixture as soon as they come out of the oven.
3. While the fries bake, toss the steak with the lime juice, the cumin and 1/2 teaspoon of salt.
4. Heat the oil in a frying pan over high heat until it shimmers. Sear the steak in one layer for 3 to 4 minutes, turning once, until browned outside and still pink inside.
5. Divide the fries among four plates. Spoon the nacho cheese sauce over them, then the steak, the cheddar and the pico de gallo, and finish with the garlic sauce.

Nutrition

Calories:

625

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 garlic sauce

The copy puts garlic and jalapeño, the two ingredients named when the sauce was announced, into mayonnaise and sour cream.

• Grate the garlic. A fine grater turns the clove into a paste that spreads through the sauce. Chopped raw garlic stays in sharp little pieces.
• Twenty minutes in the refrigerator let the parsley soften.
• Garlic powder replaces the clove: 1/2 teaspoon.

A sauce of the same family, with more jalapeño and no garlic clove, goes into the cheese quesadilla.

Seasoning the fries while they are hot

Hot fries have a film of oil on the surface, and the spice mixture sticks to it. On fries that have cooled, it falls off.

In an air fryer the fries take 12 to 15 minutes at 400°F, shaken once. For fries cut from fresh potatoes, see the Jack in the Box fries.

Steak in small pieces, cooked fast

• Half-inch pieces brown in 3 to 4 minutes and sit on a fry without sliding off.
• One layer. In a crowded pan the meat steams in its own juice. Cook it in two rounds if the pan is small.
• Sirloin, flank or skirt steak all work.

For a stronger seasoning, replace the cumin and salt with 2 teaspoons of the Taco Bell seasoning.

Layering, so that the fries stay crisp

The warm cheese sauce goes on first and the cold garlic sauce last, just before eating. Fries under sauce soften within minutes, so the plates are built at the table.

The nacho cheese can come from a jar or from the Taco Bell cheese sauce on this site.