Why Your Homemade Burritos Never Taste Like Chipotle's (Hint: It's The Tortilla)

There are a whole bunch of reasons why homemade food tends to taste very different from chain restaurant food, and in most cases, it involves chemicals and stabilizers that you really don't want to know about. When it comes to crafting Chipotle's burritos though, the magic lies not in some artificial flavoring agents but in the soft and chewy tortillas. The good news is that these are easy to recreate at home if you know a simple trick.

The common problem when making burritos from scratch is that the tortillas are kind of dry and powdery. To fix this, all you need to do is quickly heat your glutinous flour tortillas before wrapping your burrito — important side note: take them off the heat before they start crisping up. At Chipotle, a custom contraption is used to do this. "Think of two hot plates that can be pressed together with the tortilla in the middle," a former employee wrote on Reddit. "It makes it easier to stretch and roll into a burrito." At home, you can warm the tortilla for a few seconds over an open flame, on a griddle, or even over a vegetable steamer, like Rick Bayless does. 

The second trick is to wrap the burrito in silver foil, just like any restaurant or stand selling burritos does. The foil doesn't just hold everything together, it also ensures that the tortilla continues to steam, making it soft and chewy.

If you want to get even closer to crafting Chipotle's burritos, buy the right tortillas (we rated 12 store-bought tortilla brands for you). Alternately, you could just make them from scratch, since Chipotle's tortillas use just a handful of ingredients, which are all easily available at your local supermarket. 

A decade ago, Chipotle doubled down on its positioning as a healthy brand by cutting out all additives and preservatives from its tortillas. The Mexican fast casual chain partnered with the Bread Lab on the Washington State University campus to develop a tortilla using only ingredients that could be found in a regular kitchen. The result was tortilla dough that contained five ingredients: fortified flour, whole wheat flour, water, salt, and rapeseed oil. "Just because food is served fast doesn't mean it has to be made with cheap raw ingredients, highly processed with preservatives and fillers and stabilizers and artificial colors and flavors," said Steve Ells, founder and former CEO of Chipotle, in an interview with The New York Times.

If you're looking to go even more traditional, you could use lard instead of oil in homemade dough – Chipotle steers clear of this ingredient since the chain's tortillas need to be vegan. Fat adds to the tortilla's chewiness, and the type you use will make a difference both in flavor and texture. Regardless of which fat you're using, make sure it's soft when you knead it into the dough so that it spreads evenly. If your fat is still solid, you can use hot water when kneading to ensure the fat (whether it's lard or butter) is evenly incorporated.