Step Aside Taco Bell, This Dish Is The Real Mexican Pizza

The Mexican Pizza has been a Taco Bell fan favorite since it was first introduced to the menu back in 1985 — though it went by a different name back then, the Pizzazz Pizza. In its current form at the fast food chain, this dish consists of two layers of crisp flour tortillas with refried beans and seasoned ground beef sandwiched in the middle, and "Mexican Pizza Sauce," melted cheese, and diced tomatoes on top. Previous versions also included sliced black olives and green onions as toppings. While the origin of this beloved item is primarily attributed to the chain's desire to create a "different kind of pizza only Taco Bell has," as the jingle from its '80s advertisements boasted, it does bear a striking resemblance to a traditional Mexican dish called a tlayuda.

In truth, tlayudas are much more similar to a standard pizza than the Taco Bell offering, as the Oaxacan dish consists of a large, crisp tortilla with a variety of toppings. Technically the word "tlayuda" refers to the actual tortilla itself, but these days the dish looks a lot like a pizza made using only the ingredients typical to Oaxaca. This is, of course, not the actual origin of the dish. Instead, tlayudas are likely the result of being a convenient way to make a delicious meal, similar to many other pizza-like creations around the world.

Despite some similarities, there are a number of major factors that separate tlayudas from their American fast food cousins. For starters, tlayudas are just one layer, featuring a large corn — not flour — tortilla crisped on the comal. But it is the toppings where the two really diverge. Beans, meat, and cheese are all common on tlayudas, but they are not the same sort that you'll find at Taco Bell.

The crisp tortilla of a tlayuda is typically smeared with lard and refried beans and topped with strings of Oaxaca cheese, as well as a variety of meats and vegetables. For the vegetables, you might see the likes of shredded cabbage, sliced tomatoes and onions, avocado, and cilantro — standard Mexican fare. The meats used to top tlayudas can be especially interesting, however. At the beginner end of the spectrum you might find crumbled chorizo; in the intermediate category you might see unfamiliar names with familiar flavors, like cecina and tasajo, which are thinly sliced cuts of pork and beef, with slightly different preparations depending on location; and on the adventurous side of things you may even find tlayudas topped with chapulines, a Oaxacan delicacy of crunchy fried grasshoppers. If you're curious about eating insects, chapulines are a great place to start, especially on a tlayuda, where the earthy, umami flavor blends with all of the other delicious ingredients.

We're not here to tell you not to order a Mexican Pizza on your next stop by the drive thru, but for a pizza-like dish with real Mexican flair, the tlayuda can't be beat. Mole often steals the limelight when it comes to Mexican regional dishes from Oaxaca, but a tlayuda-tasting tour might just be worth the plane ticket on its own.