Guy Fieri is videos of people havinv sex with animalsdoing everything in his power to help make 2020 suck less, and that includes sending all the fix-ins for his famous Trash Can Nachos straight to your door.
Between churning out quality memes with his team, organizing a socially-distanced version of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, and starting the Restaurant Employee Relief Fund (which has raised more than $21.5 million for unemployed restaurant workers) Fieri has truly been on fire this year.
As 2020 comes to an end, the Mayor of Flavortown decided to give fans one of the greatest gifts around: comfort food.
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Fieri partnered with Goldbelly, an online marketplace for gourmet foods and gifts, to make one of his most beloved appetizers — *the* BBQ Trash Can Nachos available to order to and concoct in the comfort of your own home. The Flavortown special, which feeds four to six people, is offered in three kits: The first option is the classic plain BBQ Trash Can Nachos for $69, and you can also receive kits with brisket or pulled pork at $79 each.
Guy stan or not, the thought of spending nearly $80 on nachos is downright absurd, so we set out to see if the kits were worth the hype.
Getting the goods
First things first: Let's talk about how you get all those ingredients delivered to your doorstep. The complete Trash Can Nachos kit comes with the following edible items, along with a "trash can" that's beautifully adorned with an authentic Guy Fieri Trash Can Nachos sticker.
Tortilla chips
Cheddar cheese
Guy's Super Melty Cheese (SMC) sauce
Black beans
Guy's signature BBQ sauce
Pico de gallo
Jalapeños
Sour cream
Cilantro
Pickled red onions
Smoked BBQ brisket or pulled pork (depending on your order)
Keep in mind: All of this costs $79 on Goldbelly. Credit: goldbelly Everything listed above is shipped to your home in a single box, with perishable items sealed in a temperature-regulated bag with two ice packs. As you may notice, Goldbelly's website clearly states that items "may thaw in transit," so I'd be lying if I said I wasn't absolutely terrified to consume that bagged brisket with nothing but a little ice pack to keep it cold, but as you can see I ate the cubed mail meat and lived to tell the tale.
Once your food arrives, it's important to be mindful of the best used by dates and plan your nacho night accordingly. The tortilla chips can be kept at room temperature for five days, while the remaining ingredients will stay stay fresh in the fridge for a week. As for the brisket, Goldbelly suggests storing it in the fridge and using it within two to three days of receiving, though the meat can also be frozen for up to two months.
Assembling your trashy feast
I received my nacho kit on a Saturday afternoon and made them on Sunday night, which was truly some solid planning on my part. I highly recommend a weekend nacho "party," and I can confirm they're an amazing distraction from the Sunday Scaries.
As I'm sure everyone reading this review knows, the sheer boredom and monotony of 2020 has almost made getting bills in the mail exciting, so it should come as no surprise that receiving and unpacking the Trash Can Nachos kit filled me with extreme delight.
Once it came time to assemble my trash feast I received my first of several surprises when I learned that these nachos aren't actually made insidethe can. Was everyone on the planet aware that Trash Can Nachos are simply regular nachos made on any flat old pan then shoved into the can afterthey're baked? I genuinely had no clue, so that was a bit of a bummer, but I quickly moved on and began channeling my inner Chef Fieri.
In anticipation of casualties, the kit is stocked with extra tortilla chips — enough to fill a large baking sheet and half of a small sheet, which is what I did to ensure maximum toppings-on-chip coverage.
Still can't believe Trash Can Nachos are made on trays. Credit: nicole gallucci I set my oven to 400 degrees, topped the chips with some admittedly questionable-looking beans, and then prepped one of the star ingredients: the SMC cheese sauce. The directions advise microwaving the sauce for 20 to 30 seconds until it's "easy to pour," but I sadly don't have a microwave so I heated the liquid cheese on the stove, which worked perfectly fine.
After taste-testing the sauce — which had a bit of a smokey flavor and reminded me of frozen bacon-covered TGI Fridays potato skins — I drizzled it onto the chips and topped everything with shredded cheddar cheese. Things were going swimmingly until it came time to face my biggest Trash Can Nachos fear: the brisket bag.
Yikes. Credit: nicole gallucci I'm not going to sugar coat things in Guy's sweet BBQ sauce here. The brisket bag does not look great. It resembled a bag of wet dog food when I pulled it out of the fridge, and after feeling how much colder it had gotten since I received it I couldn't help but fear that the brisket was too warm upon arrival and consuming the contents of the bag would poison me. Luckily, I wasn't poisoned, and my worries began to fade when I unzipped the bag and a gorgeous brisket aroma wafted into my face.
After sprinkling the brisket and drizzling some of Guy's (very good) BBQ sauce onto the chips I popped those babies in the oven for about five minutes and sliced the jalapeño while they baked.
Rather than opting for a plate to build my Trash Can Nachos on I got out a large shallow bowl, because to be quite honest I wasn't feeling super confident in my ability to create a freestanding nacho tower. I pooled some extra SMC sauce on the bottom of the bowl to act as nacho glue (though in hindsight I should have reserved more) and took the nachos out of the oven.
*chef's kiss* Credit: Nicole gallucci At long last, it was finally time to load the trash can.
The one Trash Can Nachos recipe direction I will never understand is when Guy instructed me to "Use a large spatula or tongs to pile the melted nachos in three layers into the can." Three layers? Three? Layers? ThReE lAyErS? I must have read those two words ten times and still couldn't contrive any meaning from them. It was my very own "fold in the cheese" moment, and every second I spent trying to understand was a second those beautiful nachos were losing heat, so I finally decided to go rogue and pile the beautiful suckers in there, occasionally pushing them down in hopes they'd bond and stick together when I removed the can. (Spoiler alert: It was way more than three layers of chips.)
I garnished my cylinder-enclosed chip tower with the provided sour cream, pico de gallo, sliced jalapeños, pickled onions, and cilantro — admittedly using slightly fewer toppings than Guy provided, because I infamously have horrible acid reflux — and I prepped for the big reveal.
It's can o'clock. Credit: nicole gallucci My moment of truth had arrived. After taking a deep breath and saying a small prayer to the culinary gods, I placed both hands on the sides of the trash can and waited to learn if I was worthy of getting anywhere nearGuy's kitchen. And you know what? I freaking did it. I tugged on that trash can and revealed a magical freestanding nacho tower along with my newfound architectural prowess.
Yeah, baby. Credit: nicole gallucci The taste test
The nachos looked surprisingly good, and honestly exceeded my expectations. They were dynamite, bomb-dot-com tasty, bananas good, funkalicious, and a flurry of other enthusiastic Guy phrases.
For those of you still reading to find out how the brisket was, when I wasn't biting into pieces of pure fat it was genuinely delicious.
The Trash Can Nachos offered a perfect blend of flavors and something that most nachos woefully lack — evenly covered chips. While playing nacho Jenga with the chips I was mentally transported to a restaurant booth, if only for a few minutes. When I remembered I was still in my kitchen in the middle of a pandemic at least I had the satisfaction of knowing that I'd made this special restaurant-worthy appetizer myself.
The nachos allegedly feed four to six people, but my mom and I essentially demolished the tower ourselves, leaving only about a dozen chips behind. (In our defense we had them fordinner, not as a pre-dinner treat. So if you're pacing yourselves they should be much easier to share with a larger group.)
All in all it was a super enjoyable experience all around — one that I'm sure fellow Fieri fans would adore.
Are the Trash Can Nacho kits worth it?
Anyone who buys one of Guy's Trash Can Nacho kits isn't doing so just to get some good nachos. You could make nachos at home without the kit or order them from a local restaurant for way cheaper. But the kit offers nachos, a cooking lesson, an experience, andan authentic Fieri pizazz that you just can't find on supermarket shelves.
That said, the Trash Can Nachos (withpulled pork!!!) only cost $20at Guy Fieri's Foxwoods Kitchen & Bar, and you don't even have to make those yourself. So offering the kit for a whopping $79 is a bit of a hard sell. Will the nachos make a perfect gift for the die-hard Flavortown fan? Absolutely. And if it's a gift the price might not seem so scary. As I said, you're paying for food and an experience — both of which were satisfactory — but even so, $79 is steep. You could easily buy your own ingredients and fashion a DIY "trash can" for significantly less money.
Regular nachos feel a bit boring now. Credit: nicole gallucci I didhave a blast making the nachos, though and would highly recommend ordering them if the price doesn't scare you off. My only other complaint was that there were way too many fatty pieces of brisket for my liking, but brisket is a fatty cut and who am I to possibly demand anything else from this meat bag? Still, the fat it's definitely something to keep in mind when ordering.
If you really want to purchase a kit I personally suggest finding a few family members or a pal or two who will share the cooking and eating experience with you, then splitting the cost of the nachos so they won't seem so pricey.
The Trash Can Nachos were ultimately a fun, fresh, incredibly tasty respite from this boring year, and I'll certainly be putting that Fieri trash can to use for future creations.