The Hands-Down Best Jack In The Box Menu Item Has A Controversial Reputation

A lot of fast food chains tend to stick to one specialty: Burger King and McDonald's do burgers, Taco Bell and Del Taco do (surprise!) tacos. And while all these chains do other menu items, it's safe to say they've picked a lane. West Coast chain Jack in the Box is a bit different, though — it splits its focus between burgers and tacos. But which is better?

One Chowhound writer ranked 11 of Jack in the Box's main menu items and came up with a firm answer: The tacos. (Burgers didn't come close — the best-ranking burger, the Sourdough Jack, more or less a bacon cheeseburger, was back in fifth place.) But despite its first-place finish, the Jack in the Box taco still has some questionable traits, mostly related to the meat filling. It's been described as a "seasoned meat lump" by KLAQ and compared to cat food in various other reviews. Chowhound's reviewer reached similar conclusions, dubbing it simultaneously "amazing" and "disgusting." 

How did it get to first place, then? Well, that "disgusting" description is more about the vibe and appearance of the taco. Open up one of those tacos, and you'll see that flattened hunk of meat all mashed up with other ingredients in a way that frankly doesn't look particularly appealing. Yet it's all about the taste; a lot of people seem to agree that the combination of meat and cheese, plus grease and various other industrial flavorings, hits the spot in a unique way.

Let's break down this delicious monstrosity: Some of its elements are (at least on their own) unproblematic. There's lettuce (although it's often quite limp by the time you get the taco), American cheese, and taco sauce, which (based on the chain's own ingredients list) keeps things pretty simple with vinegar, tomato paste, chiles, paprika, onion, and garlic. The tortilla, made with ground corn, water, and lime, also keeps things simple. It's really just the main filling and the preparation that result in the tasty yet questionable final product. 

Perhaps due to the mushy texture, some people claim the tacos are meat-free and made with soy protein. This isn't true, though — but the "meat" filling is made up of quite the assortment of items. It mixes beef and ground chicken, along with "textured vegetable protein" (basically soy flour) and "defatted soy grits" (basically processed soybeans). Together, these make the filling into a veritable mishmash, to which flavors like Worcestershire sauce are added alongside a salty-umami kick from MSG. That filling is stuffed into the tortilla and deep fried all as one, making it into quite the grease bomb. And the whole thing is dirt cheap, at $0.99 for two of them — a price that's unchanged from 2017.

Ultimately, consider the Jack in the Box taco a guilty pleasure: Nobody's claiming it's a Michelin star meal, but plenty of people (although certainly not everyone) find it a marvel of food engineering.