Ethan Chlebowski’s Healthier Chipotle Burrito
If I cut it in half, I think it would fall apart
Chipotle has a unique taste, so I'll see how close this one is
Time: 1 hour 30 minutes
Difficulty: 1/5
Ingredient availability: 4/5
Yes, my go to place for burritos is Chipotle. Some of you may know that I’m not really a big fan of Mexican food in general, so It’s only natural that out of all the things on a Mexican menu I like something that is hardly Mexican. When I get a Chipotle burrito, I always go for chicken, rice, no beans, tomato salsa, fajita veggies, and cheese. Sometimes I’ll add lettuce. I didn’t choose this recipe for the “healthier” part, which I think is due mostly to there being no rice in this recipe. I chose this recipe because I felt like making a burrito at home and I knew that Ethan had a recipe already. I just hope that it’s better than the last recipe of his that I tried.
Key Ingredients & Omissions:
Marinade Ingredients
Achiote Packets instead of the elusive paste
Beans Ingredients
Does anyone know if bay leaves really make a difference?
Avocado Sauce Ingredients
I don’t really know what to do with the other half of the avocado.
Burrito Assembly Ingredients
Not shown here: I added diced red onions to my burrito
I used all the ingredients that this recipe calls for. Well, with one substitution
I couldn’t find Achiote paste, so I settled for a powdered Achiote seasoning. I’m not sure what difference it really makes, but the flavors should be pretty similar.
As I’ve said before, I’m a firm believer that when there’s a choice between chicken thighs and breasts, always go with thighs. That’s exactly what I did here.
Tools:
Blender and/or food processor
Cooking Review:
Marinade: 15 minutes
The marinade was pretty easy. I made it the day before I cooked the chicken and assembled the burrito. After salting the chicken thighs, I combined the rest of the of the ingredients in a blender and pulsed until it was smooth. The marinade was then poured over the chicken, which was in a bag at this point. I then left the chicken to marinate overnight.
Beans: 21 minutes
The beans are pretty straight forward, especially since they start from a can. I just added the cumin, salt, bay leaf, and a packet of Achiote seasoning and let them simmer for 13 minutes, mixing occasionally.
Avocado Sauce: 10 minutes
The avocado sauce is only slightly more complicated than the previous two steps. I just prepared the ingredients and used a food processor to mix everything until it was smooth. Nothing can really go wrong here.
Cooking chicken: 30 minutes
After I spread a thin layer of avocado oil over a cast iron plate on my stove and preheated it, I added all the chicken to it and let it cook until they began to brown and were cooked through. I probably could’ve either let the plate preheat more or cooked the chicken in batches to increase the browning and charring. In any case, the chicken still didn’t look too bad. Finally, I chopped it up into bite-sized pieces.
Assembly: 7 minutes
I followed the recipe’s steps to assembling the burrito, ignoring the specific weights. I quickly noticed that my tortilla (which I warmed in the microwave) was too small to fit as much of each ingredient as I would’ve liked. I wasn’t loading it up by any means, so be sure to get a pretty big tortilla. Mine were labeled as extra large. My wrapping job could’ve been better, but given the size of the tortilla and amount of filling, I wasn’t too mad at it. Everything stayed in the tortilla.
Pretty full… could’ve used an even larger tortilla
Analysis:
This burrito is very good. Every part of this recipe is easy to make, plays its role very well, and has plenty of flavorful. Each component works well together and plays off of each other. I really like the avocado sauce as a substitute for the guacamole and sour cream. I don’t typically enjoy sour cream, but in the sauce it just works. You get the flavor and creaminess of the avocado along with the tang of the sour cream, which is perfect for this burrito. The chicken is very flavorful as well. I had no dry or tough pieces and the flavor was one I hadn’t experienced before. The Achiote seasoning is hard to describe, but I might describe it as a better taco seasoning. Where taco seasoning tastes generic and flat, in both the chicken and beans the Achiote seasoning stood out with a more powerful savoriness. Paired with the acidity from the lime and orange juice, the chicken is just as good on its own as it in in the burrito. With all this being said, I’m giving this recipe a 9/10. I don’t usually get beans, but the beans in this recipe are definitely worth adding. The only negatives for this recipe is that it’s a little misleading, as it doesn’t taste much like Chipotle at all and can in no way be faster than Chipotle given the minimum chicken marination time is 30 minutes. This recipe should drop the Chipotle link and faster headline.
