The USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service is telling shoppers to check their refrigerators now: dozens of ready-to-eat chicken, beef, and pork meals sold at Walmart, H-E-B, Kroger, Hannaford, RaceTrac, Wawa, and other retailers may carry Salmonella, after the agency traced the risk back to jalapeños used as an ingredient inside them, according to FSIS’s August 8 public health alert. The notice extends a produce-level recall that started with raw jalapeños into a growing list of packaged meat and poultry products nationwide.
Key Points
- FSIS issued the alert on August 8, 2026, covering meat and poultry meals, bowls, wraps, and salads made with the recalled jalapeños.
- The contaminated peppers were fresh jalapeños grown in Sinaloa, Mexico, and distributed to wholesalers, manufacturers, restaurants, and food service companies nationwide by Coast Citrus Distributors, per the FDA’s outbreak investigation page.
- Affected products carry “use by” dates spanning roughly August 3 through August 16, 2026.
- FSIS says it expects additional downstream products to be identified as the ingredient recall progresses.
- Consumers should not eat the listed products — discard them or return them to the store for a refund.
The jalapeño contamination sits inside a much larger outbreak. As of the FDA’s latest count, 431 people across 32 states have gotten sick, with 57 hospitalizations, no deaths, and a most recent illness onset of August 2, 2026. Investigators traced the peppers to a single Sinaloa grower through traceback work, which is why the fallout has rippled from raw produce bins into salad kits, burritos, and grab-and-go bowls that use jalapeños as a flavor component rather than a headline ingredient. No illnesses are yet confirmed tied specifically to the FSIS-regulated items named here, but the agency issued the warning given the shared ingredient source.
The Full Recall List
- Walmart: Marketside Southwest Style Salad with Chicken, 12.5 oz, use by 8/8–8/16.
- H-E-B: Shake Rattle Bowl Southwest Chicken (9.75 oz); Higher Harvest Chicken & Beef Chimichurri (12 oz); Higher Harvest Creamy Cilantro Chicken (13 oz); Meal Simple Pork Carnitas Bowl (11 oz); Meal Simple Chicken & Rice with Cilantro Jalapeño Sauce (12 oz), use by dates ranging 8/3–8/15.
- Albertsons, Randalls, and Tom Thumb: Ready Meals Beef Barbacoa Bowl (12.5 oz); Ready Meals Chile Lime Rice Chicken Bowl (14.75 oz); Ready Meals Pork Chile Verde Bowl (14.1 oz); Ready Meals Chipotle Chicken Wrap (9.5 oz), use by 8/7–8/12.
- Hannaford: Taylor Farms Classic Beef Burrito (12.8 oz); Taylor Farms Chipotle Chicken Tortilla Wrap (10.3 oz); Taylor Farms Chicken Verde Burrito (12 oz), use by 8/7–8/12.
- Kroger: Deli Kitchen Cajun Chicken Mashed Potatoes & Corn (11.5 oz); Taylor Farms Chicken Enchilada (4-count, 34.5 oz), use by 8/7–8/16.
- Kroger/Dillons: Deli Kitchen Chipotle Cheddar Chicken Wrap, 9.25 oz, use by 8/7–8/13.
- RaceTrac: RaceTrac Southwest Style Salad Chicken, 9.25 oz, use by 8/7–8/13.
- Wawa: Wawa Spicy Chipotle Chicken Wrap, 6.9 oz, use by 8/6–8/8.
If you’ve got any of these in the fridge, the fix is simple: don’t eat it, then toss it or bring it back for a refund. Salmonella infection typically causes diarrhea, fever, and cramps within six hours to six days of exposure, and most healthy adults recover within a week — though FSIS recommends anyone with symptoms after eating a recalled product contact a doctor. Questions go to the USDA Meat and Poultry Hotline at 888-674-6854. Because this traces to a single pepper grower rather than a single manufacturer, expect the list to keep growing — worth checking back on, not just reading once.
