Taco Bell chicken nuggets: All about new menu item and how to earn rewards

What’s New

Taco Bell will release its new Crispy Chicken Nuggets with three sauce pairings nationwide on December 19 and is offering customers extra rewards points for returning used sauce containers as part of the chain’s recycling effort.

Why It Matters

Throughout the month of December, the fast-food giant is rewarding customers with 80 bonus Taco Bell Rewards points if they mail in “their USED, empty dipping cups,” the chain said in a Tuesday press release. The points will be added to customers’ accounts by mid-January.

What To Know

Taco Bell will launch its limited-time Crispy Chicken Nuggets, coated in tortilla chip breading, and three dipping sauces—Fire Ranch Sauce, made in partnership with Hidden Valley Ranch, Bell sauce and Jalapeño Honey Mustard—on Thursday.

The new items were tested in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 2023 and Houston, Texas, earlier this year. The nuggets are offered as a five-piece package with one dipping sauce or 10 pieces with two dipping sauces. Combos with fries and deluxe meals are also offered.

Also in December, the fast-food chain is offering customers 80 extra rewards points for returning used, empty sauce cups, which can apply to the new trio of sauces. The promotion is only available in the U.S.

At the moment, Taco Bell Rewards members earn 10 points per eligible dollar spent. Customers receive rewards every time they earn 250 points, and if customers reach 2,000 points in a calendar year, they earn 11 points per eligible dollar spent.

The initiative is part of Taco Bell’s sauce container recycling program operated by TerraCycle since 2021.

“The partnership began as a free national recycling program to recycle Taco Bell hot sauce packets, and has recently expanded to include all brands of sauce cups and packets (like ketchup, mustard and dipping cups),” Amber Dutra, senior director of communications at TerraCycle, told Newsweek via email.

Dutra added that “Since 2021, we’ve recycled nearly 700,000 hot sauce packets and sauce cups through the TerraCycle & Taco Bell recycling program. Since the program expanded to include sauce dipping cups, coffee creamer pods, sauce packets, souffle cups and lids, we’ve recycled more than 170,000 items.”

“All of the items collected have been recycled into raw formats and used to make new products,” Dutra told Newsweek.

To participate in the promotion, customers sign up with their Taco Bell Rewards email on the TerraCycle website, collect empty sauce containers, print a free label from TerraCycle and ship them out.

Customers will only be rewarded one time regardless of how many packets and cups they recycle.

“Empty sauce packets, sauce dipping cups, 2 oz souffle cups/lids and coffee creamer pods” are all accepted, according to the chain’s Tuesday press release. TerraCycle’s website states that it “accepts all brands,” not just Taco Bell.

There are enrollment limits, and TerraCycle indicates on its website that if enrollment is full, customers will be added to a waitlist. Participation is free.

What People Are Saying

Taco Bell posted to X, formerly Twitter, on Tuesday afternoon, “people who don’t dip their crispy chicken nuggets cannot be trusted end of story.”

Mountain Dew responded to the post on X, “this might be a new goated combo with a large Mountain Dew Baja Blast,” referring to the tropical lime-flavored soft drink available at Taco Bell.

What Happens Next

Customers will be able to purchase the new nuggets and sauces on December 19 in stores nationwide. In order to receive the 80 bonus reward points, customers must return empty sauce cups through December 31.