Review: Taco Bell Cranks Up The Heat With Its Fiery New Frank's RedHot Diablo Sauce

Taco Bell has long been a stalwart on the fast food scene, fulfilling lunchtime cravings and late night hunger pangs with its iconic menu items, affordable value options, and unique new releases. Though it's primarily known for crunchwraps, burritos, and gorditas (along with many other dearly missed items from years gone by), Taco Bell has more recently turned its attention to breaded chicken, with crispy chicken nuggets and other menu offerings that have made it a pleasant change up for fast food fried chicken lovers.

The fast food chain is also known for its collaborations, whether it's with Mountain Dew to create the legendary Baja Blast, or Milk Bar . Now, Taco Bell has paired up with Frank's RedHot — one of my favorite hot sauces — to create a new sauce to feature on its crispy chicken. The Frank's RedHot Diablo sauce menu is now available, and I had a chance to sample every item on it, including the crispy chicken burrito, taco, nacho fries, and chicken strips. So, is this spicy collab helping Taco Bell improve its already-hot chicken game, or will this partnership smother the chain's once-promising rise to the fast-food chicken elite? Let's find out.

I unexpectedly fell in love with Taco Bell's chicken when sampling nuggets with Mike's Hot Honey Diablo Sauce, which debuted earlier this year. For this menu, Taco Bell takes Diablo sauce (which is already the hottest of all Taco Bell sauces) and combines it with Frank's RedHot sauce and spicy ranch. Together, the chain creates a creamy, spicy, and a little smoky flavor.

The menu includes a burrito, soft taco, nacho fries, and chicken strips. Frank's RedHot Diablo Crispy Chicken Burrito is a combination of crunchy lettuce, crispy purple cabbage, bright pico de gallo, cheddar cheese, and tortilla crispy chicken, all wrapped and grilled within a tortilla and the special Frank's RedHot Diablo sauce (or avocado ranch if you prefer). The taco is essentially a smaller shelled version of the burrito, but with the same ingredients. With the nacho fries, you'll get the chain's zesty and flavorful nacho fries with chicken, nacho cheese, more shredded cheese, pico de gallo, and that spicy sauce. For a more simple chicken and sauce route, the strips come with a dipping cup of the sauce.

The burrito was the richest item featured with the RedHot Diablo sauce and had 580 calories, 27 grams of fat, 1,680 milligrams of sodium, 60 grams of carbohydrates, and 23 grams of protein. Predictably, the taco offering was lighter with 250 calories, 11 grams of fat, 710 milligrams of sodium, 27 grams of carbohydrates, and 11 grams of protein. In terms of carbohydrates, the nacho fries landed between the burrito and taco with 450 calories. For fat, however, it had nearly the same as the burrito with 26 grams but less sodium at 1,270 milligrams and 40 grams of carbohydrates.

One interesting aspect of the ingredients was that all items used the crispy chicken strip, but the nacho fries used slow-roasted rib meat. The chicken addition to the fries felt a little fruitless since it isn't the crispy stuff. In fact, I think it would probably be better left off the fries altogether as it didn't assist in the texture or flavor.

Taco Bell's Frank's RedHot menu hit stores on October 16, 2025, as a whole new way to try out these delightfully crispy chicken tenders. Though I didn't get a definitive date as to how long these menu items will be available, it's clear that the chicken is working toward becoming a permanent part of the menu. Taco Bell promises new, innovative ideas in the future, so I imagine there will be further sauce partnerships, especially considering that Mike's Hot Honey had its time in the sun before Frank's.

As you might expect, the items are all very reasonably priced. I was told to expect a price breakdown that included a burrito for $5.49; $2.99 for the taco; nacho fries for $4.99; and chicken strips for $6.99. However, at my location, some of the prices were a little skewed from these initial expectations. The burrito was $5.99, the taco was the same at $2.99, the nacho fries ended up at $5.49, and the strips were $7.49. With this difference, it's safe to say that prices may vary by location.

Up first in this explosion of flavors, I tried the crispy chicken strips with the Frank's RedHot Diablo sauce. Having sampled these tenders before, I was happy to see they're just as enjoyable as I remembered. The little corn tortilla bits in the breading make for a more interesting texture than you get with other fast food chicken tenders, and the texture variance between the breading and the chicken inside is strikingly good. However, paired with the newest sauce, the tenders go from good to memorable.

I was impressed by just how large the chicken strips were this time. In the past, they've been a little on the smaller side. Their size worked well for the sauce as it meant more surface area to cover with that zestiness. While I enjoyed the flavor of the sauce, it is definitely spicy. The Diablo sauce all on its own is a lot, but with the Frank's it really escalates. Even still, the sauce maintained flavor; it wasn't just fire, thank goodness!

The next item from the menu I sampled was the Frank's RedHot Diablo Crispy Chicken Soft Taco. This wasn't the most convenient item — the taco flopped open really easily, giving it something of a thrown-together feel. The chicken was easily the best part of this taco, and while I enjoyed the different textures, the chicken is so good that it doesn't really need much else besides the sauce. All the ingredients added here was additional texture.

My taco came with two small strips rather than one large strip. This made the taco a little more challenging to eat with the chicken, and other fillings, easily falling out. It certainly didn't feel self-contained enough to eat on the run, so save yourself a sauced shirt and avoid ordering this one if you're on the road.

Like the taco, the burrito's best feature was its chicken and sauce filling. However, with its full wrapping, it was a massive improvement on the taco's tendency to just flop open. Since the burrito came grilled, everything stayed together just a little better. But even though it didn't struggle to stay closed, the burrito still felt incomplete.

Simply holding the burrito, I noticed that I could feel all the filling inside the shell without much effort. Even if it was enjoyable to taste, it didn't have the feel of a burrito that is full of all the goodness — this felt more like a slightly enhanced taco. To this end, I think Taco Bell should consider adding some rice and beans to the mix. With the already slightly crunchy fresh elements in the burrito, these additions would help fill out and balance everything more. Thankfully, you can do this yourself in the customization part of the menu, but it will cost extra.

In planning out my tasting experience for this new menu, I was most excited about the chicken nacho fries. However, these were easily the most disappointing. Initially, they looked quite promising, and I was impressed with the packaging, but I quickly discovered the fries were little more than a very mushy pile of food.

I'm never one to turn down a slightly mushy french fry, but there needs to be some variance. These seemed to be little more than mashed potatoes in fry form, covered in extra toppings (which, to be fair, might have added some moisture here). It might be tasty mush, but the texture made these unappetizing. It could be improved if there were crispy chicken pieces to break things up and add some extra bite, but the regular chicken pieces used here didn't add much. Mine didn't even look very well seasoned and they were nothing like the bites of chicken from the tenders, for instance. Honestly, it would have been much more enjoyable to just dip Taco Bell's regular nacho fries into the new sauce rather than dealing with the additional toppings.

This one is a bit of a mixed bag. While I don't think every single item on Taco Bell's Frank's RedHot Diablo sauce menu is worth a try, the sauce absolutely is. It's spicy, a little smoky, and has just the right amount of creaminess to make it the ideal condiment for chicken, especially for those who like a bit of heat. While the actual menu items need work, this sauce is near perfection. I understand it is a limited time offering, but I hope Taco Bell finds a way to make it a permanent offering to pair with its crispy chicken.

On the whole, the rest of the menu feels like an attempt at figuring out what customers want with this kind of spicy sauce, but I think it misses out on some key categories. Breakfast, for instance, would be a delicious way to integrate this sauce. I can imagine it being especially good on a chicken breakfast crunchwrap. But I guess if nothing else, the Taco Bell and Frank's RedHot collab produced a killer sauce that almost every fast food (spicy) chicken lover will enjoy. And we can never, ever have too much good sauce.