The Off-Menu Taco Bell Mac And Cheese Employees Swear By

By now, we all know about secret menus and menu hacks at fast food restaurants. Whether you're recreating an item that has been discontinued using ingredients that are still available, or putting together a new, unique menu item you saw on the internet, almost every fast food chain has a few creations that employees will make for you, even if they never officially appear on the menu. In the world of fast food hacks, one Taco Bell dish goes to the next level. Some very industrious employees found a way to take common menu items that might seem surprising and turn them into macaroni and cheese. All you need are some cinnamon twists and cheese.

If you just cringed a little, that's understandable. Cinnamon twists with cheese are not the most appetizing combination you could imagine. But it's not what you think. The cinnamon twists at Taco Bell are made from something like pasta and duros (a puffed wheat snack). When they come into the store, they're in dry form, no cinnamon or sugar yet. You can see how this Taco Bell hack is shaping up to be a weird one.

Employees at Taco Bell make this dish in various ways, but the general idea is to cook the twist and top it with either nacho cheese sauce or the three-cheese blend. One user on Reddit showed the final product using both kinds of cheese, and it does look like a legit, creamy bowl of macaroni and cheese.

As seen in some videos on TikTok made by Taco Bell employees, the dry cinnamon twists are stored in a bin. It looks no different from any pasta you would buy at the store. However, preparing it does take a little work because Taco Bell is not set up to boil pasta. One method involves placing the pasta in a container, covering it with hot water, and letting it sit. This is time-consuming, no doubt, and probably doesn't give you the best texture.

Another employee's method involves putting the dried pasta in a bag with warm water and then tying it up. The bag is placed in the thermalizer. This is the machine Taco Bell uses to heat packaged ingredients like frozen meat. It's essentially a hot water bath or sous vide machine. After 10 minutes or so in the thermalizer, the twists can be drained, and cheese added. It's probably not going to win any awards, but it's definitely unique.

One thing worth noting is that, although the cinnamon twist noodles look like traditional pasta, they're not exactly the same thing. The noodles are wheat flour, yellow cornmeal, rice flour and salt. Traditional semolina pasta does not have yellow cornmeal or rice flour in it. Even though you can make mac and cheese from Taco Bell noodles, don't try to make cinnamon twists from your own pasta at home. Some employees on Reddit have even taken their mac and cheese to the next level by adding bacon bits, and chipotle, one of Taco Bell's other legendary sauces. Creativity in the kitchen knows no bounds.