Taco Bell Brings Back Crispy Chicken Nuggets with an All New Dipping Sauce

Has your life felt empty lately? It must be because you’ve been yearning for Taco Bell to bring back Crispy Chicken Nuggets. At least, we hope that’s why, because then we’d have the fix—Taco Bell revived them on January 22nd, and they’re bringing with them a brand new dipping sauce made in collaboration with a titan of condiments.

What’s the Crispy Chicken Nugget?

These aren’t your regular chicken nuggets. They’re made with white meat chicken and coated in tortilla chip breading. This one’s for all the people who have ever had chicken nachos and thought “the chicken and the chip aren’t close enough. Encase one in the other. Fuse them together.” Thanks to your mad genius (and, like, a lot of people on Taco Bell’s development team), we now have the option of buying 5 or 10-piece orders of succulent chicken coated in tortilla chips.

What About That Dipping Sauce?

The revitalization of the Crispy Chicken Nugget isn’t the only exciting addition to the Taco Bell menu, because you can now get them with a side Hidden Valley Diablo Ranch. Yup, Taco Bell not only brought back the old favorite nuggets, but also just dropped the hottest new crossover with Hidden Valley. We don’t know if the kids still say things like that, but we don’t care! The Diablo Ranch is an iteration of the original Hidden Valley Fire Ranch, and offers a “spicy remix” of “creamy ranch flavor,” which sounds a little bit like how you might describe adding bass drops to Aunt Edna’s Midwest church choir.

The Rise of the Crispy Chicken Nugget

This triumphant return makes a lot of sense: Fried chicken is having a somewhat long moment in fast food (thank you, Popeye’s chicken sandwich), and Taco Bell has been leaning into it. They sold more than 70 million order of crispy chicken, and about 25% of new customers came specifically because of the crispy chicken. In fact, a spokesperson told Food & Wine that “[their] Crispy Chicken journey is just getting started,” and that “Crispy Chicken remains a long-term focus for us that’s connecting with both new fans and longtime loyalists.” Crispy chicken bringing people together? Thank you, Taco Bell, for giving us hope.

About the Author

Hebba Gouda is a freelance contributor to Sporked who will die on the hill that a hot dog is not a sandwich. She’s proud to spend weekends falling asleep at 9 p.m. listening to podcasts, always uses the Oxford comma, and has been described as “the only person who actually likes New Jersey.” She’d love to know how on earth she somehow always has dirty dishes, if donkeys hear better than horses, and how the heck you’re doing today? Hopefully swell - thanks for reading!