Pro Chefs Blind Taste Test Every Frozen Burrito | The Taste Panel | Epicurious

Chefs Yara Herrera, Eric See, and Adán Medrano are used to thinking outside the box when it comes to cooking; however, today on Epicurious, we’ve asked them to give us their unfiltered, honest reviews of some prominent frozen burritos found on supermarket shelves. Which burritos pack the most bang for your budget, and which should you avoid at all costs?

00:00 Intro
00:13 Amy’s Cheddar Cheese, Bean and Rice
02:28 Trader Joe’s Bean, Rice and Cheese
04:29 Vista Hermosa Bean and Oaxaca Cheese Burrito
05:53 El Monterey Bean and Cheese
07:24 Great Value Bean and Cheese
09:07 Red’s Organic Chicken, Cilantro and Lime
10:36 Trader Joe’s Chicken Chile Verde
11:45 Vista Hermosa Super Spicy Chicken Burrito
13:18 Tina’s Red Hot Beef
14:38 El Monterey Beef and Bean
15:35 Red’s Steak and Cheddar
16:37 Trader Joe’s Carne Asada
17:31 Amy’s Gluten Free Cheddar Cheese, Bean and Rice
18:38 Feel Good Foods VG and GF Roasted Vegetable and Bean
19:50 Vista Hermosa Sweet Potato and Cactus Burrito
20:51 Whole Foods 365 Vegan Bean and Rice
21:38 The Verdict

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[burrito thumping] Amy’s Cheddar Cheese,
Bean and Rice Burrito. – It’s not the most attractive burrito and it looks a little dry. – It doesn’t look like it’s gonna have a nice tear or chew to it. – The tortilla doesn’t
have any brown spots. – One side of the burrito
has already started to kind of seep out from the side, but it smells really good. – With a frozen burrito, I don’t believe that you’re ever gonna
get the full experience of a fresh burrito. I do think that it’s
possible to get close. You gotta start off with a
really good tortilla, something that has a little bit of a
tear and a little bit of chew. – [Yara] Not too dry, not too moist. And when you go to reheat your burrito, you want it to stay together. – The structure of the tortilla itself has to go with the story of
how it was first invented. You put it in a basket and you carry it around
to the neighborhoods and selling these to people
who had to rush off to work. So the integrity and the structure has to be strong enough for that. – The inside of it should
also be pretty moist. – [Yara] We’re looking
for a nice balanced, favorable filling. – With enough acidity, some
things a little bit spicy. – And overall a good
burrito should be tasty. – This definitely is not, in my opinion, a good tortilla, it’s really dry. – It’s chalky, parts of the top are hard. – It’s not a fat-based tortilla. – Fat acts as a gluten inhibitor. So if you want a soft, tender tortilla, you need to have enough fat in there. – [Yara] Taste beans, rice,
Monterey, something like that. – Filling is flavorful,
there is some acidity in it. – I’m biting into the pinto beans, they’re whole, which is wonderful. – Mostly stayed inside of its vehicle, so I guess we hit the mark on that. – I like those burrito. [wrapper crunching]
– Oh, it’s Amy’s. – I’ve always thought that they were fine, but this doesn’t feel
like what I remember. – Monterey Jack cheese, but then on the front it says
cheddar cheese, deceiving. I feel like the Monterey Jack
is a little more texture, whereas cheddar is more for flavor. – In this particular recipe, I don’t think that those two cheeses make much of a statement. – Tortilla is not my favorite. – As soon as you turn on the microwave, it starts to heat the
water in the tortilla, begins to gelatinize, but then you keep heating it
and then it becomes rubbery. [wrapper ripping]
[burrito thumping] – [Announcer] Trader Joe’s
Bean, Rice and Cheese Burrito. – So this one, the tortilla
looks a little nicer. – I see golden brown
spots on the tortilla. That’s a very good sign. – It seems to be holding up fairly well. – Lots of cumin. – [Yara] There’s some strong cumin flavor that kind of overpowers everything else. – This tortilla’s getting better, but it’s still not a good tortilla. Texturally, I can appreciate
it a little bit more, but there’s no flavor in this tortilla. [wrapper crunching]
– Okay. – Oh.
– Trader Joe’s. – I usually like this burrito. Normally at home, I like
to reheat this in a pan. This burrito is microwaved. – Don’t microwave these
with a wet paper towel ’cause you’re gonna end up with this. [finger thumping] – When the microwave hits the molecules of water in the tortilla, the gluten becomes very,
very soft and tender. But then if you cool it down or heat it, then it retrogrades. That’s when you get, look.
[tortilla crunching] See, it’s like super hard. – This is more ingredients in a tortilla than I’ve think I’m
used to or seen before. – And they use lecithin. Lecithin is a wonderful
way to hold those oil and water products that would
normally repel one another. – I will say that the tomatoes and the chili peppers
were definitely cooked. If you put a fresh or
like undercooked pepper or tomato in here, something
that holds a lot of water, when it freezes, it’ll break down the cell
structure of the water in there, and then when you go thaw it or cook it, then it releases all that water and makes your tortilla
really soft and soggy. And so I’m glad that Trader Joe’s at
least cooked their peppers and tomatoes before they put ’em in there. – Everything in here is organic, and maybe that’s why
it’s my go-to burrito. – Fresh, organic, natural
ingredients is the way to go. – Organic doesn’t necessarily
mean anything to me. It costs so much to put
organic labeling on stuff that a lot of the really great farms that are doing biodynamic farming and taking care of the
land and the produce, they can’t afford to do that. [wrapper ripping]
[burrito thumping] – [Announcer] Vista Hermosa
Bean and Oaxaca Cheese. – It looks like a real tortilla. – Tortillas can be very subjective, and this is a very polarizing topic. Where I come from, we have a
more cakey, thick tortilla. The Sonoran style and kind of what I’ve
evolved to enjoy more is a thin kind of window pane tortilla. You can see the inside of it, but it’s also cooked all the way through. – All this is raw dough. Some people like eating raw
dough, I’m not one of them. The structure of the
tortilla just didn’t hold. – It has a moist and melty interior. It can differentiate the
ingredients by color. And there’s black beans,
they’re my favorite. – I could easily see four
different chili peppers in here. – It’s a little spicy. – It’s filling, the tortilla’s good. – This hits the mark
for a balanced burrito. – I’m curious if this is
the Vista Hermosa one. Their tortillas are really good. They’re made with avocado oil. [wrapper crunching] Oh, I was right, Vista Hermosa. – I don’t know this brand. – Bean and Oaxaca Cheese. – Oaxaca cheese is a very mild, more of like mozzarella flavor. – It usually comes in this big ball and you have to tear it
apart and then pull it. – It’s also called Castillo and it is from the
region of Oaxaca, Mexico. – It helps in the texture because it’s a easily melting cheese. – This is my new favorite burrito. – We can save that one for
later if I’m so hungry, yeah. [wrapper ripping]
[burrito thumping] – [Announcer] El Monterey
Bean and Cheese Burrito. – This thing is tiny [laughs]. – It’s like a mini, mini burrito. – This is a very small burrito. The original burritos when
they were first invented, were big. The tortillas in El Paso and the New Mexico get really, really big. And if you go down into
Sonora, they’re this big. So there’s all sizes, I’ve
never seen one this small. – This is the type of burrito filling that kind of scares me,
where it’s just all one color and you don’t know what you’re eating. – Hmm, sorry, the tortilla is raw. – The rawness of the tortilla
is at least making it chewy, but it’s stuck in my teeth. – It’s like baby food. – I am not a fan of baby puree texture, but this one works. I think the flavor’s extremely mild. – It tastes like American
cheese or like Velveeta. – But it does taste like the flavors of the Texas Mexican region. – It’s not bad, but I just
dunno what I’m eating [laughs]. [wrapper crunching]
– El Monterey. – Oh my god, I love El Monterey brands. – “America’s number one
frozen burrito,” it says. – There’s cheese product in here. – And then the next
ingredient down is cornstarch. Cornstarch is definitely included to hold and bind everything together. So I think that’s where we’re
getting that graininess. – Guar gum, and that’s also a binder. – I know that it’s a stabilizer. – To make the tortilla hold its shape. [wrapper ripping]
[burrito thumping] – [Announcer] Great Value
Bean and Cheese Burrito. – This tortilla at least
looks like it’s cooked ’cause I see a straight line
of brown marks across it. – Stripes that are roasted brown. Unfortunately, I’d like to see more of it. – Three exact straight lines. So it’s probably some
kind of conveyor belt. – Kind of rolled it down
and cooked it, flipped it. – And so the conveyor
belt will develop hotspots and all the tortillas
will be uniformly roasted with golden brown on those hotspots. – All right, so this burrito
is almost double wrapped. There’s too much tortilla. – Too much tortilla, not a good tortilla. – [Adan] The ends are folded, so you’ve got a lot of dough
there that has to cook. – It doesn’t look like a good refried bean because the beans will be broken up and it’ll be real starchy. – As a matter of fact,
refried beans is a misnomer. It should be well fried beans because in Spanish [speaks in Spanish], the R-E prefix in in Spanish is very well. So refried beans really
is well fried beans because you roast them in the oven and as they cook at 300 or above, they develop a rich flavor,
sometimes it’s very umami. – Structurally sound, yes,
because it’s a dry tortilla. It’s just not a well balanced flavor. – Bad burrito.
[wrapper crunching] – Ah.
– Great Value. Where’s this from?
– Is this Walmart? – This does not look like the picture. – That is not what you see
when you eat this burrito. I – I feel like more
ingredients that you have, the bigger the brand is. – I think they may have
added some of the emulsifiers so that it doesn’t fall
apart, doesn’t get watery. – The filling has potential, but there’s so much tortilla
you can’t get to it. [wrapper ripping]
[burrito thumping] – [Announcer] Red’s Organic Chicken, Cilantro and Lime Burrito. – These are getting smaller and smaller. It’s a burrito nugget. – It looks crispy. – It was not prepared in a microwave. I think it was an oven. – It smells like Popeye. – Oh, there’s chicken. – This is the first burrito that’s incorporated any
kind of meat in there. It looks a little bit like
that frozen grilled chicken that you can get at
Costco or Trader Joe’s. This one’s not dried out, but anytime you have like a
roasted chicken or something, it has the potential to dry out. – The chicken is surrounded by a gravy. I mean, it’s very interesting, but I don’t find it very pleasant. – But again, there’s not enough in here. It’s all tortilla again. – I like the tortilla, it’s like stretchy. – The tortilla has a little bit of chew, surprisingly for how dry it is. – I’m going to say Red Baron or that red person, whoever that is, Red. What is it called, Red, what is it? [laughs] It is Red’s Cilantro and Lime. – I mean, this is the one of the shortest list of
ingredients we’ve seen. – When you see sugar in a tortilla, that’s another like more
natural dough conditioner, sugar breaks glutens down,
some of the proteins, makes it more tender. – [Adan] This particular
chicken is minced. Small pieces like that that are blended into a casserole type of filling aren’t going to suffer too much from freezing and then thawing. – I honestly would probably
not buy this burrito only because it’s not my flavor of choice. – Buy this if you like the herbal forward treatment of chicken. [wrapper ripping]
[burrito thumping] – [Announcer] Trader Joe’s
Chicken Chile Verde Burrito. – I have an actual burrito this time. – Like speckled. – You see the little brown marks on here, which tells me that it
was actually cooked, unlike some of the other ones. – The filling is oozing out. It’s like a tomatillo chicken situation. – It’s wet goo.
– Mm, oh, it’s hot. – Oh my goodness, this is bad. – There’s a funny lactic flavor to it. – [Adan] It is got to be some
sort of artificial chemical that is making that happen. – There’s a weird undertone to it. [boxes thumping]
Oh, these boxes. Oh, Trader Joe’s.
– Trader Joe’s. – Trader Joe’s.
– Chile Verde. “Authentic product of Mexico,” huh? – Let’s see how they went wrong. – The tortilla has cultured
wheat flour and fumaric acid, probably to make it shelf stable. – I wouldn’t think that those additives would have such a pronounced taste, but they’ve interacted with tomatillos and with the chilies in such a strong way. – It says, “Dark chicken
and chicken breast.” I like that it uses two
different parts of the chicken. – This chicken is shredding
when I press it apart, so it’s telling me that
it was probably braised. You get more flavor
cooked into the chicken when it’s braised like this. [wrapper ripping]
[burrito thumping] – [Announcer] Vista Hermosa
Super Spicy Chicken. – The size is like a burrito. – This texture’s like not
appetizing, it’s almost slimy. – It looks thin. It’s got that kind of
window pane texture here. – It’s not properly cooked,
it’s raw, it’s sticky. It is moist with the filling, but the chicken itself is very dry. – Chicken wasn’t seasoned or
cured or brined or anything. – [Yara] There’s no real sauce like holding anything together. – It tastes healthy. – I think it’s the spiciest
burrito we’ve had so far, but you don’t get a specific chile or a specific spice mixed flavor. It just kind of tastes spicy. – This one feels more like a meal, like the Vista Hermosa one. – Maybe it’s like a Vista Hermosa. – Oh.
– It is. – It is.
– Super Spicy Chicken. – You hit the nail on
the head with that one. They got that right. – This burrito has white rice,
which I guess makes sense, it soaks up a lot of the flavors of the different chiles in here. – I like the brown rice
over the white rice simply because it’s healthier. – I prefer white rice over brown rice. It just takes in seasoning a lot better. Brown rice is a little
harder to break down and it has more of a chew and a bite. – I would prefer a
white rice in my burrito so that it doesn’t have the
hole on it and make it drier. – Chicken thigh meat, which is also crazy. – Because chicken thigh, it’s really hard to overcook and make dry and they did do that here. – Wow, disappointing. [wrapper ripping]
[burrito thumping] – [Announcer] Tina’s Red Hot Beef Burrito. – Back to the little guys again. – All right, this burrito
definitely seems dry. – Not very moist. – I need more adjectives for dry. – Oh wait, oh gosh, it’s got meat in it. – There’s some kind of
braised beef product. It smells like Hungry-Man. I think it’s supposed to be beef. – Okay, this is a strange taste for me. – The filling is moist,
there is some acidity to it. It’s a terrible tortilla, but
it is holding its shape so. – It’s slightly gummy, but
a whole world different from the gumminess of the others. – Is this on its way to a good burrito? No.
– I don’t hate it. This does remind me more of
like a Tina’s burrito, ooh. – What is it?
[wrapper crunching] – Tina Red Hot Beef [laughs]. – I haven’t had one of
these in like over 20 years. – I love this label, but nothing else. – It’s held up the test of time. I think the nostalgic part
is just kind of looking back at a time when you were younger, not really paying too much attention as to like what I was eating and why. – It’s got dicalcium phosphate and sodium metab, micro
crystalline cellulose. – Oh my gosh. – And sometimes I feel
like you have to do that to enjoy certain foods. – If you still like these
for nostalgic reasons, you need to talk to your therapist. [wrapper ripping]
[burrito thumping] – [Announcer] El Monterey
Beef and Bean Burrito. – This might be the smallest one. – Oh, it looks kind of scary. – It’s coming out its seams. – This tortilla doesn’t
look like it was meant to hold such a wet filling. It’s not a structurally sound tortilla. – It smells like Taco Bell. – [Adan] Hmm.
– This one’s not terrible. I’m not gonna lie.
– It’s lovely. It’s simple, it’s very straightforward. – I don’t mind the greasiness, but the mix itself is not very good. – Terrible tortilla, but I can tell that it’s beef and beans. – This does remind me of
the Texas Mexican flavor. – It tastes very homey. It’s not like a super complex
flavor profile in here, but I would eat this. – It’s pretty gross.
– It’s so good, I’m gonna go with Monterey again. – Oh.
– Oh my God [laughs]. It’s our good old trusty El Monterey. – Did I say Monterey?
– [Interviewer] You did. – Okay, I’m glad, I’m glad. – These are not great. [wrapper ripping]
[burrito thumping] – [Announcer] Red’s Steak
and Cheddar Burrito. – Burrito’s nice and plump. – Tiny grill again, very pale. – It’s taking me a while to chew. – It’s meaty, but it’s really spongy. [napkin crunching] – It’s not disgusting, it’s
just like really weird. – I think this is a vegan
meat product, I think. – There’s definitely a
lot of cheese in this one. – [Adan] The moisture
level is very pleasant. – Not the worst tortilla,
it needs more salt again. – Just the filling flavors are not for me. [wrapper crunching]
Another Red’s. – Red’s Steak and Cheddar Burrito. It says steak, so I imagine
this was something cubed and cooked over like a high short heat, but I think this could be really good if this beef was braised. If this beef was braised, it wouldn’t be so spongy and chewy. – There’s mozzarella
cheese and cheddar cheese. Oh, and sour cream. I just don’t like the
flavor of sour cream. It’s just one of those
flavors that I stay away from and I would never put it in a burrito. [wrapper ripping]
[burrito thumping] – [Announcer] Trader
Joe’s Carne Asada Burrito. – It’s a nice size, it looks
very well put together. It doesn’t look dry. – This looks like there was
some care taken in making this. – This smells like Carne Asada Burrito. – [Eric] There’s a lot of beef in here. – It looks really good. There’s that taste again. It was Trader Joe’s, I think. – This one has a meat that is already cooked
into all of its sauces, that already has all of its flavors. – But this feels like it’s
been over fire or charcoal. – Carne Asada is a barbecued beef. Very popular in all the borderlands. – It’s not bad, I feel
like it’s just all beef. [package thumping]
– Oh, it’s Trader Joe’s. – Carne Asada burritos. – It’s one of these chemicals that normally you’re
not supposed to taste, but otherwise everything
is nice about the filling. – I could feel comfortable
enough recommending this one. [wrapper ripping]
[burrito thumping] – [Announcer] Amy’s
Gluten-Free Cheddar Cheese, Bean and Rice Burrito. – This is a flour tortilla, this can’t be. – There’s a lot of like
little tiny bubbles and little tiny cracks in it. If you’re using gluten-free flours, those tend to absorb a lot more moisture. Feels like it’s gonna
be a little bit gummy. – It looks like a crepe. – Crepe.
– Crepe. I don’t love this
tortilla, whatever it is. – It doesn’t taste like a flour tortilla. – But it also altogether it tastes okay. – [Yara] It’s nice that
you can see the beans. It’s nice that you can see the rice. – Super moist, balance is okay. – I think this is Amy’s.
[wrapper crunching] Oh, really?
– It’s Amy’s Gluten-Free Burrito.
– Gluten-Free. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. – Even though this looks like a crepe, the texture and the flavor
approximates flour tortilla. – I kind of enjoy the way that they presented a
gluten-free tortilla, it’s much softer. – Oh, it’s rice flour. – Rice flour is very gummy. It’s like what you get from Mochi. So you mix it with all these other flour that try to emulate
some of what wheat does. Whatever Amy did with this
gluten-free tortilla concept works for me. [wrapper ripping]
[burrito thumping] – [Announcer] Feel Good
Foods Roasted Vegetable and Bean Burrito. – This one’s nice and toasty. – Oh, and it’s soft. – Was this a different cooking
method than the other ones? – Some yellow from the corn, some beans, smells like poblano cilantro. – There’s the skin on this red pepper that these look like they were
really wet when they went in. – I like the white limey rice cilantro in combination with the corn. It reminds me of Chipotle. – It has a lot of defined
flavors, everything sticks out. – It’s nice to be able
to see the cilantro, a little fresher than most. – But the flavor to me
doesn’t come together. – The tortilla is just not very good. It’s kind of dry.
[wrapper crunching] – Woo.
– Feel Good Foods, yummy. – Wow, it’s also gluten-free. – That would explain why
the tortilla was so tough. – There we go, someone made
a good gluten-free tortilla. – Water, rice flour, tapioca starch. – The tapioca syrup and the rice flour probably making this
tortilla a little sweeter than I would like. – I like that it’s vegan. I don’t think it needs
cheese to be moisty or juicy. [wrapper ripping]
[burrito thumping] – [Announcer] Vista Hermosa
Sweet Potato and Cactus. – Oh my, here we go again. – It seems like we’ve moved back into the flour tortilla zone,
but it’s wet, wet, wet, wet. – This one looks like
it’s gonna be a mushy mix. – [Eric] I’ve never seen a burrito with so much carrot in it.
– It’s so orange. – It’s fine, I think this is
a plant-based vegan filling, but it has that very generic combination of like cumin, tomato, oregano. – I think it’s closer to minestrone soup. – It’s not dry, but I
wouldn’t call it juicy. – Now that I’m investigating further, it’s not carrot, it’s sweet potato. – I think it’s the Vista
Hermosa vegan version. – Ah.
[wrapper crunching] – Vista Hermosa.
– Sweet potato and cactus. – This is a very
overcooked piece of cactus. – There’s definitely a lot
of sweet potatoes in here, but it was almost like they were boiled. – Roasting the potatoes I think would add just like more texture, nicer flavors. – I think if you were to
taste this in a blind test, you would think minestrone. [wrapper ripping]
[burrito thumping] – [Announcer] Whole Foods
Bean and Rice Burrito. – It sounds spongy. This is the first one
that has a sound effect. [burrito squelching] – It already kind of
failed the tortilla test ’cause it’s already kind of opening up and wanting to explode. Although it is moisty and it does look like
it’s cheesy and juicy, it doesn’t have a lot of flavor. – There’s not a lot of flavor in here. – It has a beginning flavor
that to me is artificial. It might be the flavor of the beans cooked to the point of almost burning. – The tortilla doesn’t have any flavor. It’s holding its shape.
[wrapper crunching] – 365 Whole Foods.
– Bean and Rice Burrito. – And it’s vegan. – It’s new and improved. – Bad tortilla, under seasoned filling. – I am curious what the old
and unimproved recipe was like. – [Announcer] Now let’s see which burritos our chefs liked the most and the least. – My favorite today was the Vista Hermosa Bean and Oaxacan Cheese. – Bean and Oaxacan Cheese Burrito. – [Eric] They were cooked properly, they were seasoned properly. The Oaxacan cheese in there was good. – When you took a bite, you kind of got a bite
of each little thing. – And the tortilla is perfect. – I loved the burritos of El Monterey, the filling and the flavor was right on. – The El Monterey Beef and
Bean Burrito I would eat again. – Tina’s I think would
have to be my number one. Reminds me of like my
mom’s cooking, oddly. I dunno if she would
like that I said that. – I also enjoyed the
Red’s Organic Chicken, Lime and Cilantro Burrito. It reminded me of the enchiladas that my mom used to make when I was a kid. – Amy’s Gluten-Free Burrito had to have been my least favorite. There was no flavor
there that made you think that you were eating a burrito. – My least favorite burrito is Tina’s. Sorry, Tina and the all the
children that grew up with Tina. – So the Carne Asada and
the green chile burritos from Trader Joe’s I couldn’t eat. Artificial, very strong flavor. – If you’re out shopping
in the freezer section, take two seconds to read the ingredients. – If the ingredients
have a lot of chemicals, that might give them enough flavor. – Most of the burritos that
you’ll find in a frozen section suggest that you microwave to reheat. I would suggest taking
a cast iron or a pan. – Or bake it, that will go a long way, it’ll make your tortilla really good. – Take the time, it’s worth it, I promise. – [Interviewer] Any final thoughts? – No, I think my final thought
was make your own burrito. [bright music]