How To Reheat Chipotle

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Chipotle is one of the most popular restaurant chains on the planet. It is considered to be a healthier fast-food option that uses all fresh, natural produce.

Chipotle has a number of popular dishes from tacos to burritos and here we focus on how to reheat Chipotle bowls and burritos. The staple of the bowl and the burrito are rice, beans, and proteins, including tofu, chicken or beef, vegetables, salsas, cheese, corn, sour cream, lettuce, and guacamole. You can add or eliminate them according to your preference. The burritos come wrapped in a soft tortilla. Since the portions are sizeable and the dishes customizable you are often left with a huge bowl or burrito that could easily carry on for two meals.

While refrigerating your Chipotle dish is necessary, it also needs to be reheated correctly for it to continue being delicious. Here are a couple of ways to do that properly.

Prepping Your Chipotle Bowl for Reheating

While popping the bowl in your microwave or oven seems like a good idea, there are a couple of ingredients in your bowl that won’t do well with heat, like guacamole, sour cream, lettuce, and salsa. The first thing to do is try to remove as many of these cold ingredients as possible from your Chipotle bowl. It is hard to remove all the ingredients mentioned above, especially if they have been well mixed in, try and remove as much as you possibly can and place them in another dish. The main reason we remove certain ingredients is that they don’t do well in the heat. The lettuce will wilt, the guacamole will brown, and the sour cream can split.

You can add these ingredients back after reheating your bowl.

How To Reheat Chipotle Bowl in the Microwave

  1. Remove cold ingredients like lettuce, guacamole, and sour cream as much as you possibly can.
  2. Place the other ingredients in a microwave-safe bowl and heat it for 30 seconds.
  3. Stir and heat for another 30 seconds.
  4. If it has not warmed enough, continue heating at 15-second intervals.
  5. Reintroduce the ingredients you had previously removed or add fresh ingredients if you have them. You can add fresh sour cream, guacamole, salsa, and fresh lettuce.

The microwave method is easy and simple, but the dish doesn’t always heat up uniformly. So, you have to keep stirring as you heat it up to make sure that it gets fully and evenly heated.

How To Reheat Chipotle Bowl in the Oven

  1. Remove the cold ingredients mentioned above.
  2. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
  3. Empty the rest of the Chipotle bowl into a baking dish.
  4. Cover with foil and heat for 10-15 minutes.
  5. Remove from the oven and add the ingredients you had taken out.

The Chipotle bowl comes out warmed evenly and thoroughly in this method. Of course, there it does involve more work and a longer cook time, but the texture of the rice, meat, and beans are not affected, which is a huge plus.

How To Reheat Chipotle Bowl in the Skillet

  1. Remove the cold ingredients mentioned above.
  2. Heat the skillet over medium heat.
  3. Add a little bit of butter or oil to the skillet.
  4. Once it has heated up, add the rest of the dish.
  5. Keep stirring till all the ingredients are warmed through, nice and even. This should take about 4-5 minutes.
  6. Take it off the heat, transfer it to a dish and add the remaining ingredients.

The skillet makes the Chipotle bowl perfectly warm without compromising on taste or quality. But you have to keep a close watch on it, as it is easy to burn the dish.

Prepping Your Chipotle Burrito for Reheating

Just like your bowl, your burrito also contains cold ingredients and needs to be removed. This is a lot more difficult to do with the burrito as you need to unwrap the burrito to take out the fillings and rewrap it, but it is possible, and the end results are worth it.

How To Reheat Chipotle Burrito in the Microwave

  1. Remove the cold ingredients and set them aside.
  2. Rewrap the burrito and place it in a microwave-safe dish.
  3. Sprinkle some water on the burrito or place a damp paper towel on it. This is to prevent the burrito from drying up.
  4. Heat the burrito in 30-second intervals till it is fully warmed.
  5. Add the cold ingredients you had kept aside.

The microwave method is the quickest and easiest and the results are satisfying. As there is no extra prep or work it makes reheating a breeze. The one drawback is that the burrito can get dry, so watch out for that and take the necessary steps.

How To Reheat Chipotle Burrito in the Oven

  1. Remove the cold ingredients from the burrito.
  2. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
  3. Place the burrito in a baking tray and cover it with aluminum foil.
  4. Heat the burrito for 10 minutes.
  5. Take it out of the oven and add the cold ingredients to it.

The oven is a great way to reheat the Chipotle burrito. The burrito heats evenly and it doesn’t change the texture of the tortilla wrap in any way and keeps it tasting fresh. The process however does require a bit of effort and time, but you do end up with a burrito that is as good as new.

How To Reheat Chipotle Bowl in the Skillet

  1. Remove the cold ingredients and set them aside.
  2. Heat a skillet on medium heat.
  3. Add some butter or oil to it.
  4. Once heated, add the burrito to the skillet.
  5. Press down the burrito and let it heat for about 3-4 minutes.
  6. Flip it and heat it on the other side for another 3-4 minutes.
  7. Take it off the heat and add the cold ingredients back in.

The skillet is a great way to reheat a Chipotle burrito as you can control the heat and ensure that the burrito is heated properly and evenly. The problem is to make sure that the burrito doesn’t burn. Also, the oil and skillet add some color and texture to the burrito, you just have to keep an eye that it doesn’t get scorched.

Tips and Tricks

  • You can also heat the burrito in a toaster oven, the process is similar to reheating it in a regular oven.
  • Grilling the Chipotle burrito is an option but only if you already have things on the grill. Gassing up your grill just to reheat a burrito is way too much work and effort.
  • You can add fresh cold ingredients to your Chipotle bowl or burrito after heating it up.

FAQ

Can you reheat other Chipotle dishes like quesadillas, tacos, and chips?

Most Chipotle dishes can be reheated in the methods listed above. Both quesadillas and soft tacos can be reheated using the oven, microwave, skillet, or toaster oven. Hard tacos, chips, and nachos need to be freshened up so that they don’t lose texture. You can check out how to reheat nachos here.


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