What Makes Taco Bell's Fire Sauce So Spicy?
There are few fast food chains that are as beloved as Taco Bell and its Mexican-inspired menu items. Gorditas, Crunchwrap Supremes, and Mexican pizzas have fans making a run for the border at all hours of the day, but even the best Taco Bell menu items wouldn't be the same without those iconic packets of hot sauce. While there are four main options, which are Diablo, Fire, Hot, and Mild, it's Taco Bell Fire sauce that has the adventurous heat and their tongues feeling en fuego. It has just the right amount of kick to make the taste buds feel it. But have you ever wondered what makes the Fire sauce so spicy? If you guessed jalapeños and chili powder, then winner, winner, Taco Bell dinner.
With 15 ingredients listed on the packet, these two items, along with vinegar, are the most likely suspects that are creating a spicy and slightly acidic bite. Additionally, Taco Bell Fire sauce includes tomato puree as the base, which is not typically in a host sauce, along with modified food starch, minced onion, onion juice, spices, natural flavors, xanthan gum, salt, potassium sorbate and sodium benzoate, garlic powder, and paprika.
Is it a hot sauce?
Just how hot is this sauce? According to Salon, Taco Bell's Fire sauce clocks in on the famous Scoville heat scale at just 500 SHU, which means it's clearly not one of the world's spiciest hot sauces. In fact, some say it is its own category of sauce because its primary ingredient is tomato puree. And, to be fair, most hot sauces get this tongue-tingling moniker if they are made primarily with chile peppers. This is because they contain capsaicin, which is what makes your mouth feel like it's on fire.
But regardless of its ingredients and whether or not it is or isn't a true hot sauce, Taco Bell Fire is what Live Más lovers are grabbing and keeping in their glove compartments and kitchen drawers, just in case. Released by this quick service restaurant in the early 2000s, it has developed a cult following with individuals selling it on eBay, and one fan even claimed to have subsisted on it for five days during a snowstorm. So, even if it isn't the hottest hot sauce, it has other qualities that keep people coming back.