This week I reached out for a new — wacky and weird — Naked Chicken Chalupa from America’s No. 1 Mexican-style drive-thru, Taco Bell, with 7,000 restaurants from sea to shining sea, plus some murky bodies of water in between.

Here’s the thing about the Naked Chicken Chalupa, besides its truly unappetizing name: The taco shell is a folded slab of breaded and deep-fried chicken, stuffed with standard Taco Bell innards. The chalupa is served in a cardboard boat so you won’t get your hands greasy. Still, weird.

Here’s the Naked Chicken Chalupa breakdown: marinated and breaded white-meat chicken, fried and folded, then filled with shredded lettuce, diced tomatoes, cheddar cheese and creamy avocado ranch sauce.

Total calories: 440. Fat grams: 30. Sodium: 1,090 mg. Carbs: 22 g. Dietary fiber: 3 g. Protein: 20 g. Manufacturer’s suggested retail price: $2.99 (might be higher in the big city).

The medium is the message, and the message is chicken. It’s not the first time a demented research-and-development loon decided to do away with a bun and use chicken to envelop a sandwich. In 2010, KFC, which happens to be Taco Bell’s sister fast-food chain, introduced the Double Down — two Original Recipe fillets surrounding bacon, two kinds of cheese and the “Colonel’s secret sauce.” It was a big mess and an even bigger hit — over a short run. Then customers decided it was too crazy, even for fast food.

Taco Bell’s Naked Chicken Chalupa has a better chance of enduring success. It’s packing only one hunk of chicken, so the gross calories aren’t so … well, gross. While KFC’s Double Down sported soft-shell Original Recipe fillets, Taco Bell’s Naked Chicken Chalupa has a very crisp, delicately spicy chicken patty.

If you dig into a Naked Chicken Chalupa thinking this is nothing but a joke gimmick, the chicken shell might sway your opinion. It’s really tasty, with a lot of flavor and a distinctive, appetizing crunch.

The rest of the recipe is typical Taco Bell fare: lettuce, tomatoes and avocado ranch sauce. There’s not a Doritos chip in sight. That’s peculiar. Be careful of ranch-sauce overflow if you grip this too tightly.

While the ingredients list is spartan for Taco Bell, you have 23 custom add-ons available, ranging from pico and beans for 25 cents to steak for $1.50. Best bet: bacon for 50 cents.

The Naked Chicken Chalupa also is available in a $5 box with a medium soft drink, Crunchy Taco and Nacho Cheese Doritos Locos Taco — aha, there’s the Doritos!

On the corporate front, Taco Bell is spreading its wings, with an eye on world domination. The Mexican-style kingpin, which has 250 international stores currently, is planning to add 2,000 overseas outlets in the next 10 years.