Taco Bell’s Butter Chicken Taco Wins Global Fan Vote

Taco Bell is about to put a new spin on taco night.

According to Delish, the fast-food chain announced that its Butter Chicken Taco, a menu item originally created for Taco Bell restaurants in India, is headed to the United States after crushing the competition in the brand’s first-ever Global Taco Vote.

Taco Bell Rewards members spent the past week choosing between two international creations, and the Butter Chicken Taco walked away with 64.65 percent of the vote.

That means the other contender — Thailand’s Kickin’ Chicken Taco — is officially out, while the butter chicken creation will land at participating U.S. locations for a limited time later in 2026.

For Taco Bell fans, the winning taco sounds less like a standard drive-thru order and more like a late-night idea that somehow works perfectly. The item takes shredded slow-roasted chicken coated in a rich tomato-and-cream butter chicken sauce, then piles on onion, cilantro, lettuce, and cheddar cheese. Instead of wrapping everything in a flour tortilla, Taco Bell tucks it inside one of its crispy fried chalupa shells.

It is a combination that feels tailor-made for the chain: part Indian comfort food, part Taco Bell chaos, all wrapped up in a shell designed to leave at least a few crumbs in the front seat.

The result is also a sign of how much butter chicken has crossed over in America. What was once mostly found in neighborhood Indian restaurants or “Little India” districts has become one of the country’s most recognizable international dishes.

Butter chicken now shows up everywhere from frozen-food aisles to meal-kit subscriptions, and Taco Bell clearly saw an opportunity to bring those flavors to the drive-thru.

The taco it defeated offered a completely different approach. Thailand’s Kickin’ Chicken Taco featured crispy chicken strips, lettuce, pico de gallo, shredded cheese, and a spicy Kickin’ sauce tucked into a flour tortilla. It had the crunch and heat that Taco Bell fans are used to, but it was not enough to stop the Butter Chicken Taco from winning by a wide margin.

Taco Bell has not revealed an exact release date, only that the item will arrive later this year.