Hot sauce is still free at Taco Bell, but if you want to add the company’s new avocado verde salsa to your meal, you might pay a little more.
The fast-food chain will charge customers 20 cents for each pack of the new seasoning if it is not ordered with an order from the Cantina chicken menu. (And even if you order from that menu, you’re limited to just one free salsa pack per item.)
Taco Bell tells Fox Business the avocado verde salsa, which is now a permanent addition to the menu, is considered on the same level as nacho cheese sauce and guacamole: a premium addition to surcharged menu items.
You get a little more value for that upsell. The salsa package is about twice the size of the free hot sauces the chain hands out — and it contains half an ounce of the seasoning. (If you receive it, Taco Bell recommends using it immediately or keeping it refrigerated.)
Avocado verde salsa is, in the grand scheme of Taco Bell, a mild (sorry) addition to the brand’s lineup. The chain usually attracts attention with more unusual new products. In February, for example, Taco Bell announced plans to partner with Portland’s Salt & Straw ice cream company to offer what they call “a gourmet version of the dearly departed Choco Taco.”
Here’s a look at some other past offerings:
- The Big Cheez-It Tostada, an extra-large Cheez-It cracker (16 times the size of the one you get in the box) topped with seasoned beef, cheese, diced tomatoes, lettuce and low-fat sour cream.
- In 2017, the company teamed up with Kit Kat to put the bar in a quesadilla.
- The company’s Nacho Fries, a recurring menu item, has found a loyal cult audience.
- Fed up with plain tortilla chips, the company introduced a line of chips flavored with its hot sauces to supermarkets in 2018.
- In 2016, it convinced customers to pre-order a mystery menu item without announcing what it was. (It turned out to be the Quesalupa, a chalupa whose shell was filled with melted pepper jack cheese.)
- In 2021, it was drawn into the chicken sandwich wars.
- And just before the pandemic, it launched The Bell, a pop-up hotel and resort with branded robes, toiletries, blankets, notepads, pillows and a free minibar stocked with Mountain Dew and tortilla chips.