Taco Bell Meat Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What is Taco Bell's meat made out of? ›

We use 100 percent USDA premium beef in our seasoned beef. We prepare it much the same way you prepare taco meat at home: after simmering, it is drained of excess fat and pre-seasoned with our signature blend of 7 authentic seasonings and spices.

Does Taco Bell put fillers in their beef? No, it's 88% beef by volume, then water, salt, spices, oatmeal starches, and an emulsifier to keep the meat from clumping together while cooking. There aren't many things that go into it.

Boiling ground beef is the best way to cook it so that it comes out in small, fine crumbles. Trust me, this is the secret to all those amazing tacos and pasta sauces at your favorite restaurant! It's also a healthier option, because the boiling process helps separate the fat from the meat, and it comes out quite lean.

It then is slow-cooked and simmered with proprietary seasonings and spices to provide Taco Bell's signature taste and texture. Our seasoned beef recipe contains 88% quality USDA-inspected beef and 12% seasonings, spices, water and other ingredients that provide taste, texture and moisture.

But Taco Bell shouldn't be defensive about the fact that its seasoned beef is only 88 percent beef. It should be proud.

Lean finely textured beef (also known as Pink slime or LFTB, finely textured beef, or boneless lean beef trimmings or BLBT) is a meat by-product used as a food additive to ground beef and beef-based processed meats, as a filler, or to reduce the overall fat content of ground beef.

A typical 12-serving taco seasoning mix recipe uses about 1 ½ tablespoons of cornstarch. If you want to skip the cornstarch in your homemade seasoning to use it for other purposes, just sprinkle ⅓ to ½ teaspoon of cornstarch per pound of browned, spiced meat before adding ¾ cup of water and heat until thickened.

“Our beef is 100% USDA inspected, just like the quality beef you buy in a supermarket and prepare in your home. It is then slow- cooked and simmered in our unique recipe of seasonings, spices, water, and other ingredients to provide Taco Bell's signature taste and texture.”

Chef Jamie Oliver injects "pink slime" into the lexicon in an episode of his TV show, Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution, blasting its use as a food additive. A USDA microbiologist is credited with coining the term. McDonald's, Taco Bell, and Burger King announce they no longer use pink slime in their menu items.

So Taco Bell uses low quality, but perfectly safe ground beef. However, since this stuff isn't flavorful by itself, so they process it by adding 'natural' flavoring, salt, sugar, caramel color. So in summary, there is no such thing as a “Grade-D” beef.

What does adding water to taco meat do? ›

What you're doing when you add water is helping the cornstarch create a smooth sauce flavored with the spices. The heat then activates the cornstarch, thickening the mixture.

Add just enough water to cover the meat, bring to a boil, then reduce and simmer for about an hour. Every 15 minutes or so break up the meat with a large spoon or a potato masher so that it isn't lumpy. Be sure always to keep just enough water to cover the meat.

The main reason why ground beef dries out is when it's OVERCOOKED. When you cook the meat, it loses water content and the fat gets rendered out. And since ground beef is normally cooked to WELL DONE for health reasons, it's really easy to dry it out.

Then they are put through a centrifuge to separate the fat tissue from the muscle tissue. The muscle tissue is sterilized with ammonia (which is commonly used in food production and safe in small amounts) and the resulting product is called “lean finely textured beef,” or pink slime. Or… err… “ground beef.”

When we committed to serving 100 percent whole cage-free eggs in all U.S. Taco Bell restaurants, we said we'd do it by the end of 2016. And we did, at record pace. We're proud that our eggs come from hens raised in an open environment where they can feel comfortable and display their natural behaviors.

Every one of our McDonald's burgers is made with 100% pure beef and cooked and prepared with salt, pepper and nothing else—no fillers, no additives, no preservatives. We use the trimmings of cuts like the chuck, round and sirloin for our burgers, which are ground and formed into our hamburger patties.