Taco Bell is testing out an entirely vegan Crunchwrap

As far as fast-food restaurants go, vegans and vegetarians have long turned to Taco Bell for nonmeat meals. An array of menu items are vegetarian as is, but getting a vegan meal has always required some customization: Anyone who wants to avoid cheese or sour cream knows to ask for “Fresco style” to replace those dairy items with diced tomatoes. Now, Taco Bell is removing that hurdle with its first fully vegan entree, a vegan Crunchwrap.

The vegan Crunchwrap isn’t just all beans and tomatoes. It includes seasoned vegan beef made from soy and pea proteins; a vegan nacho cheese sauce made with chickpea and soy (no tree nuts involved); and a vegan blanco sauce, also made with soy, to emulate sour cream. All three ingredients are proprietary to Taco Bell, and have been in development, the company says, for years.

All three help to make the vegan Crunchwrap feel as familiar as the original, not like a substitute that’s missing vital elements. The beef is seasoned with a classic taco mix spice, the cheese sauce has that classic tang of bright orange, artificial (in the best way) nacho cheese, and the blanco sauce cuts through those fatty elements with a mild creaminess.

The vegan Crunchwrap is still just a test for Taco Bell. It’ll be available at three locations—one in Los Angeles; one in New York City; and another in Orlando, which Taco Bell internal research revealed as a vegan enclave—for a limited time and while supplies last, beginning June 8.

During that test, Taco Bell isn’t allowing any modifications—either to the vegan Crunchwrap or by adding the new vegan ingredients, like the nacho cheese or blanco sauces, to other menu items. “We designed it to be, in our opinion, perfect the way it is, and we want to learn how well this does,” says Missy Schaaphok, director of global nutrition and sustainability at Taco Bell. (That could be an option in the future though, she notes.)

Not having to customize the vegan Crunchwrap is part of the point. Taco Bell customers are “already hacking the menu to make [the Crunchwrap] vegan,” Schaaphok says. “So let’s just make it vegan.” Taco Bell has a history of innovations meant to be experienced as its developers intended; the company often trials new items not just for different diets but to follow food trends and as experiments with well-known brands like Doritos and Cheez-It.

Schaaphok says customers have been asking for a vegan item directly. “Whenever we’re doing any type of vegetarian promotion, we keep getting asked, ‘Well, when are you going to have anything vegan?’ The ingredient development work was happening behind the scenes,” she says. How well the vegan Crunchwrap does, though, is now the question Taco Bell is looking to answer. The vegan Crunchwrap will be offered at price parity with the classic version during this test run, though prices can vary by location. Depending on how this test does, Taco Bell could do a larger test market next; this could also inform future menu developments.

Vegetarian consumers have long swapped beef for beans or potatoes in tacos and burritos on their own. But in 2019, Taco Bell acknowledged this base by launching a specific vegetarian menu, with new items like the Black Bean Crunchwrap Supreme; in 2020, it debuted a “veggie mode” on its kiosks. These vegetarian offerings have already proven popular—in 2022, more than 23% of Taco Bell products sold were vegetarian.

Because so many of Taco Bell’s offerings can already be made vegetarian, some vegetarian and vegan consumers might find its attempts at mimicking meat less appealing. But the vegan Crunchwrap does offer something that just beans, tomatoes, and lettuce can’t: saucy, creamy, cheesy goodness, and that same sort of “junk food experience” anyone else can get at Taco Bell. Maybe a “vegan mode” will be coming next.