Bottom Line: The Ranchero Chilaquiles Bowl from Taco Cabana is not too filling nor does it bring much heat, but it does offer a tasty breakfast item.
Chilaquiles have become all the rage these days. That may be in part because Food Network’s Guy Fieri loves them and has featured the dish several times on his show Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives, and it may also be because international cuisine is getting more attention across the country (and the world) of late. Chilaquiles is a Mexican dish that is basically just tortillas or tortilla chips cooked with hot sauce or salsa and often served with eggs (you can find my recipe for them here). I have known about them since before Guy Fieri started his “body by Chilaquiles” routine, but then I live in San Antonio and we have a few places that serve Mexican food here.
The fast casual Mexican chain Taco Cabana is a fixture in this town, and they just recently added Chilaquiles Bowls to the menu. These have crispy tortilla strips topped with scrambled eggs and a choice of ranchero or green sauces. That is then finished with a drizzle of sour cream and a sprinkle of cotija cheese. I stopped by just recently to try them out and purchased the ranchero version.
The eggs are nice and fluffy and rather plentiful. I got this to go and the tortilla strips had lost most of their crunch by the time I dug in because of the toppings, but they were still tasty. The ranchero sauce has some tomatoey tang and richness and is quite plentiful. I don’t generally care for sour cream with Mexican food, but the small amount included works pretty well by adding some creaminess. The dish is a bit on the salty side, but not to the point that it overwhelms. The cotija is hardly noticeable, mostly just adding to the salt.
I’m not looking for too much spice with my morning coffee, but a little bit of kick is nice. However, these Chilaquiles were not spicy at all, not even reaching Mild on my scale. One of the salsas from their fresh salsa bar could have kicked them up, but I didn’t ask for any because I figured these were already pretty saucy from the ranchero. I had some habanero hot sauce at my office, though, and a few drops of that added a nice burn.
Overall, I enjoyed the Chilaquiles bowl even though I didn’t find it very filling (I found myself wishing I ordered one of their breakfast tacos to go along with it). But these seemed more like Migas than Chilaquiles to me. Migas are corn tortillas often cooked with chili peppers and topped with eggs, sauce, and cheese. They are similar to Chilaquiles, but the sauce is not cooked with the chips. So for me, these seemed to be mislabeled, but I still gobbled them down and will probably make a stop to try the version with the green sauce at some point (with a chorizo and egg taco on the side, thank you very much).
Taco Cabana does not list the nutrition information for these since the Chilaquiles bowls are a limited time only item. But I would guess they are somewhere in the 500 calorie range. At $5.79 in my area, that’s not a bad price for breakfast, but if you add a taco and a drink, you will be getting over the ten buck range pretty quickly.
As mentioned, these will be returning to Limited-Time-Only-Ville before too long. And if you are a big fan of Chilaquiles, you may be disappointed with them. But if you like Migas, or something that is a hybrid of the two, you will probably enjoy the new bowls at Taco Cabana. Just know that if you are showing up hungry, you will want to add more than just the bowl to your order.