I’ve bought Taco Salads at Wendys three or four times a month for 18 years.
I went by there last night and they are off the menu.
Replaced by some garbage they call a Baja Salad. It’s similar but has the red Mexican sauce (pico something) and guacamole. I can’t handle that sauce. I’d wake up puking from indigestion.
Damn shame. 18 years and they screw it up.
So, I’ll have to start making them at home. I bought a bag of lettuce, can chili, Fritos and shredded some cheese. It was pretty good.
Perhaps you can share your favorite Taco Salad recipe?
Ugh. My wife made the mistake of ordering that salad last time we were there. It was the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen at a fast food restaurant. It looked like someone scooped up some day-old chili and threw it on some lettuce. It ended up being a soup, with poor wilted lettuce leaves floating around in it. She didn’t manage more than two or three bites.
You can find copycat recipes for Wendy’s Chili everywhere. Just get that, some tortilla chips, shredded cheddar, iceberg lettuce, onions, and chopped tomatoes and you’re set.
Last night I tried the new Apple Pecan salad at Wendy’s. I really liked it. In fact, it’s the best salad I’ve ever had at a fast food restaurant.
HOWEVER, they were out of the pomegranate vinaigrette they give you with it so I took it home and used my own blue cheese dressing. I highly recommend this variation as it knocked my proverbial socks off.
Because I am a tightwad, instead of ordering Wendy’s Taco Salad (which was recently featured on Yahoo’s “The worst fast-food salad” for having too much sodium and calories), I just order one of their side salads and a bowl of chili. $2.
Then you take it home and add your own salsa, cheddar cheese, sour cream & tortilla chips. Personally, I skip the salsa, sour cream and chips and just add a bit of cheese and onions because there are few things in life that a chopped up Vidalia doesn’t make better.
Or you could… you know… brown a pound of ground beef and throw some taco seasoning on it. Add salad, salsa, cheese, tomatoes, sour cream, whatever. Profit! Fun for the whole family!
Did you ever think to bother to ask for the old Taco Salad at Wendy’s? See if they can’t make the old one with the new ingredients …Or you know, order the Baja salad without baja sauce and guacamole and ask for shredded cheese instead?
Q’Doba’s is pretty good, mostly because you have more control over what goes on it. I usually get the naked taco salad with ground beef or black beans, hot salsa and cheese.
Anybody else remember when Wendy’s had that little buffet with a salad bar and a hot food pod? I used to love that when I was a kid, but first they got rid of the hot food, then a salad bar part. I do like the [del]Big Bacon Classic[/del] Bacon Deluxe.
I miss their grilled chicken salad It had broccoli and cauliflower and stuff in it, and it was served with a breadstick. They haven’t had it since 2001 or so, though; they replaced it with some fancy crap. Sigh.
It’s pretty much because that disappeared that we stopped going to Wendy’s at least once a week. A lot of people stopped going, and I hoped that would mean they’d put it back due to loss of business, but alas, too many people would still buy Frosties.
ETA: As Frosties are their only unique item on their menu.
I worked at Wendy’s when I was 19 or so-- and they had the SUPERBAR!
Folks would hit that thing like the nukes were in the air already.
I don’t know if this is still the case, but back then the chili was a way to recycle hamburger patties that had been on the grill too long.
The thing about the taco salad at Wendy’s is they use chili in it. It’s not taco meat. Or it wasn’t when I worked there. It didn’t come in a bland tasting shell that gets soggy by the time you reach the bottom; instead the crunchy chips stay crunchy. There’s no refried bean paste layer on the Wendy’s salad. It’s just a different salad altogether.
