9 Discontinued Taco Bell Items We Definitely Don’t Miss

It always hurts when a fast food restaurant you frequent takes an item off its menu that you once enjoyed on the regular. You have to come up with a whole new go-to order, and you spend your days fantasizing about that discontinued Panera Bread Crispani or McDonald’s Snack Wrap. But there are other times when a fast food restaurant takes something off its menu, and we breathe a sigh of relief, happy that there’s finally more space for something we actually enjoy. And when it comes to Taco Bell, there are quite a few menu items that we simply don’t miss at all.

Whether you agree with us on every point or you actually do miss ordering a Meximelt, Bell Beefer, or volcano taco, this list may just feel like a blast from the past, offering you a glimpse into what Taco Bell’s menu used to look like once, long ago. These are the discontinued Taco Bell items we don’t miss.

Taco Bell is known for its hybrid creations, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that the fast food chain once made a dish that was essentially a cross between an enchilada and a burrito: the Enchirito. It’s been on and off the menu several times over the past several years, but it seems like it’s on another hiatus. Although it was a hit for some consumers, it’s definitely not one of our favorites, mostly because there’s just not a lot going on in terms of variety of flavors.

The Enchirito houses refried beans, beef, and cheese in a flour tortilla. That combo is then covered in sauce — your choice between red or green, depending on your preferences — and topped with olives and cheese. Sure, the olives add a pop of flavor and acidity, but that’s about all that’s going on in terms of flavor beyond the rich, round, and fatty flavors that the other ingredients provide. Trust us: There are better Taco Bell menu items out there from which to choose.

For those who like their tacos spicy, Taco Bell’s Volcano Taco was destined to be a hit. This taco featured a rather tame mixture of ground beef, lettuce, and a spicy cheese sauce (dubbed “lava sauce”) — but there wasn’t much else to give the taco flavor and pizzazz, apart from the hard corn taco shell, which was arguably the whole point of the taco anyway. That taco shell was red and was ostensibly supposed to be spicy, although it kind of missed the mark on heat, if you ask us.

The taco was on the menu for several years but was eventually discontinued in 2013. However, it made a reappearance on the menu in 2023, but only for a limited time. It seems like enough Taco Bell customers liked this product for it to be revived, even for a limited time, but its lack of interesting toppings makes it a menu item that we’re fine with never ordering again.

There are some people out there who absolutely love Doritos and will eat them alongside basically anything. There are others, though, who are a bit more discerning about their chips, and we’re some of them. Nacho cheese Doritos are fine, for instance, but Cool Ranch? We’ll have to pass. That’s exactly why we weren’t too upset to hear about the discontinuation of Taco Bell’s Cool Ranch Doritos Locos Tacos. These tacos were made with a shell made out of — you guessed it — Cool Ranch Doritos, which lent a weird, too-acidic, and somehow dairy-forward note to the dish, which ultimately did it no favors.

Back in 2022, it was pitted against another discontinued item for a chance to be brought back onto the menu for the following year in the summer. Apparently, though, others agreed with us that it wasn’t worth trying again, since the other product won out and Cool Ranch Doritos Locos Tacos were banished to the annals of fast food history.

Burgers are classic fast food fare, so it makes sense that most fast food restaurants would want to get in on the burger game, especially when it gives them a chance to compete with the fast food greats. However, there are some fast food joints that really shouldn’t attempt such a feat, and Taco Bell is arguably one of them. After all, why would you order a burger at a restaurant specifically known for making tacos? It just doesn’t seem like a product that would ever make much sense on the menu.

Taco Bell’s burger offering was one of the five items on its original menu beginning in the early ’60s, but alas, it was ultimately discontinued three decades later. The burger came to be known as the Bell Beefer and was pretty similar to sloppy Joe. Instead of having an actual burger patty, it was just filled with loose ground beef, which made for an especially messy meal. Part of the appeal of a burger is the fact that it’s handheld, but with all that loose meat, this burger was considerably less so. It also had cheese, lettuce, and tomatoes, otherwise, making it a pretty standard sandwich. Since there are so many other fast food burgers to choose from, this isn’t a Taco Bell menu item we really miss at all.

One of the main appeals of Taco Bell, compared to other prominent fast food restaurants, is the fact that the chain sells a lot of menu items containing a decent amount of veggies. This makes the joint’s dishes a refreshing alternative to other, less vegetable-focused fast food chains. However, the chain’s discontinued Loaded Grillers did not offer any particularly pronounced degree of vegetables, which is why we weren’t particularly sad to see them go.

There were three different Loaded Grillers options: One came with beef, another with chicken, and still another with potatoes. They all came with various sauces, cheese, and even grilled bell peppers, but that tiny bit of green wasn’t enough to offset how heavy these burritos ultimately were. In July of 2020, they made their exit from the Taco Bell menu, and although some may miss these juicy, grilled options, we’re glad they made room for more delicious choices.

If you’re like us, you probably wouldn’t think of Taco Bell as a place to grab breakfast. After all, there are so many other fast food joints that offer better breakfast options, even if that’s not what they specialize in. But at one point, Taco Bell was apparently determined to make a splash on the fast food breakfast scene, which is when the brand released its waffle taco. This menu item seemed pretty gimmicky, but some fans were undoubtedly excited about indulging in Taco Bell first thing in the morning. It must not have been too successful, though, since it was discontinued in 2015 after a year on the menu. Instead, it was replaced by a biscuit taco, which arguably sounds even worse.

The waffle taco was — yes — just a waffle that was sort of folded in half to create a taco “shell,” and it housed sausage and scrambled eggs. Drizzling some syrup on top undoubtedly made it taste a bit more interesting and dynamic, but without any additional fresh toppings to keep things tasting particularly exciting, it shouldn’t be that big of a surprise that it was eventually removed from the menu entirely.

Taco Bell has this weird thing in which it wants to make its taco shells look as weird and as unappealing as possible, apparently, and the Black Jack Taco is a great example of just that. This taco was basically just a standard hard-shelled beef taco, featuring ground meat along with lettuce and a sprinkling of shredded cheese. Additionally, it contained pepper jack cheese sauce, which is probably the only thing that made this taco particularly interesting on the flavor front. What really set it apart from other menu items, though, was the black taco shell. What’s the point of a black taco shell, you ask? Though seemingly a cheap marketing ploy, the Black Jack Taco was launched in 2009 for Halloween. 

It sounds like this taco was a flop, as it hasn’t made a return since then. We’re not too surprised since the only appealing-sounding aspect is the pepper jack cheese sauce, which could be nice as an add-on to other existing Taco Bell products.

If you ever wondered what would happen if you combined a soft taco and a quesadilla, then you probably never tried Taco Bell’s Meximelt when it was still on the menu. It came with ground beef, pico de gallo, and cheese, making it similar to many, many other menu items you can find at the chain fast food joint. This combo doesn’t sound bad, of course, since it’s so basic, but it just doesn’t really seem like anything special. It’s like a done-up quesadilla that’s a bit fresher than others, but it doesn’t really stand out as a menu item that offers anything different or more interesting than a standard taco or quesadilla.

This menu item was removed back in 2019, after more than 30 years on Taco Bell’s menu. Some diehard fans of the product probably still wish it would come back, which it did for a brief time in late 2024. However, the Meximelt isn’t a dish for which we’d ever get too excited, although there are certainly worse menu items on this list.

Sometimes, fast food restaurants will concoct a menu item that’s so large and overstuffed that the gluttony of it all is considered a selling point. In reality, though, if you’re super hungry and craving extra food, it would probably make more sense to just buy two of whatever you’re craving. The Double Chalupa, a limited-time offering in 2017, seemed to be one of these attempts to make a ridiculously oversized entree.

The chalupa was stuffed with a double portion of ground beef, along with tomatoes, lettuce, shredded cheese, sour cream, and cheese sauce. Not only did it contain way, way too much beef for the fried flour tortilla to adequately handle, creating an unwieldy and unbalanced dish, but the toppings didn’t really seem like anything special. Sure, we love chalupas, but this one was too big for seemingly no reason at all.