Article may contain affiliate links. Learn more.

When I was a fat little 12-year-old, my parents moved to Orange County. Along with the many challenges present in transitioning into a large high school in California in the early 1990s (thank you, Mom, for not letting me buy L.A. Raiders sneakers and overalls worn with one shoulder-strap unhooked), one of the biggest changes of all was the difference in school lunches. Instead of mostly wholesome meals, scheduled months in advance and prepared largely by hand, in California, many of the school lunch options were pre-packaged, processed convenience foods.

After trying several different strategies for asserting my “uniqueness,” in a sea of other 13-year-olds, including eating popcorn with a spoon, and getting lunch trays filled only with different kinds of juice, I finally settled into a pattern of eating, almost daily, frozen burritos. They cost about a dollar, they were hot, and they stayed with me all day. And, to turn them into even more of a “Fat Kid Special,” I dunked them, one bite at a time, into a huge, sweaty paper cup of ranch dressing. It’s no wonder the Emilys, the Chloes, and the Sarahs of the world were forever rejecting my stammered advances.

It was only a move back to Maine in the 11th grade that broke me of my frozen burrito habit, but they still hold a soft spot in my heart. The frozen burrito is the unsung hero of the broke-and-starving set, or at the very least, a staple dinner of the Summer intern. Often costing less than 50 cents a piece, and packing all the nutrition of a tossed salad, provided that salad is made of canned deviled ham, frozen burritos have continued to occupy at least some space in my freezer since I was in my early 20s.

I have always been partial to Tina’s brand “Red Hot Beef” burritos, which you can sometimes find for as little as three for a dollar. Double that coupon, and you’re walking out the door with a plastic bag of burritos you’ll never eat, that cost $0.16 apiece. But in the time since I settled on that favorite, dozens more frozen burritos have flooded the bottom shelf of the ghetto-burrito landscape. It was high time for a tasting.

I settled on some rules as I went along:

In selecting which burritos to eat, I would select flavors as close to the “Gold Standard” of Tina’s “Red Hot Beef” variety as possible. In most cases, this meant always opting for a “beef” or “spicy” version of a particular brand. In some cases, this wasn’t possible. I would prepare my burritos using the “Conventional Oven” directions. Microwaving these things almost always destroys them, and leaves part of the filling frozen, and part of it mouth-devastatingly hot. Though frozen burritos are a convenience food, I was going to take some extra time in their preparation. I wouldn’t dress my burritos up. These burritos were going to be eaten without any accoutrement, even in instances where some sour cream or some Cholula hot sauce might have saved the day. These burritos were going down bareback. I wouldn’t evaluate them the way I would evaluate a restaurant burrito. A frozen burrito is never going to be able to compete with something made fresh, and the two types of burrito shouldn’t be held to the same standard. These burritos are evaluated as they relate to each other, not as they relate to a burrito in the real world. Finally, I would not conduct my burrito testing while in the middle of a blackout drunk. Though frankly, this is the one area in which I may have strayed from the intended audience for these burritos.

Thirteen frozen burritos, 5,590 calories, and $24.44. Join me, won’t you, as we see which of these frozen burritos is deserving of your dollar, and of your heartburn:

Name: Jose Ole® “Steak and Cheese” Chimichanga

Net Weight: 5 oz.

Read what other folks had to say.

Notes: Our only “chimichanga” entry in the series (and I use that term very loosely), the Jose Ole Steak and Cheese Chimichanga has a little bit of a different style than the other burritos. Cooking in just 30 minutes, the chimichanga had a lightly greasy, flaky shell, somewhere between a fried flour tortilla and a cracker. It was nowhere near a restaurant-caliber version of a chimichanga, but it provided a welcome break from the other brittle flour tortillas in this tasting. It’s filled with clearly-discernible, pleasantly stringy chunks of shredded beef, separated into sections by oozy, melty, flavorless cheese and visible chunks of lightly spicy green chile. It was surprisingly fresh-tasting, mildly, incomprehensibly tangy, and overall, one of the better entries in the series. Jillian also tried this one, saying, “Not bad! Not something you should eat every day, but certainly not terrible.” I reminded her that none of these burritos should really be eaten, ever.

Tortilla: 4

Filling (Flavor): 4

Filling (Texture): 4

Size: 3

Spiciness: 2

Overall: 3.4/5

Nutrition Facts

Calories – 350, Total Fat – 15 grams, Saturated Fat – 4.5 grams, Cholesterol – 25 milligrams, Sodium – 580 milligrams, Carbs – 40 grams, Dietary Fiber – 2 grams, Sugars – 1 gram, Protein – 13 grams

Name: El Monterey® “Spicy Red Hot Beef and Bean” Burrito XX Large!™

Net Weight: 10 oz.

Read what my peers had to say.

Notes: This is exactly what you don’t want in a frozen burrito. The tortilla got crispy-crackly crunchy, while still managing to get completely saturated by orange grease. The filling ruptured out through the top, while the bottom half stuck to the baking sheet and got ripped apart by the spatula. The inside of the burrito had massive air pockets, and other areas that were filled to overflowing with a dark orange goo. The only taste I could make out was “spiciness,” with no suggestion that there could be any beef or beans inside. The whole thing tasted entirely too synthetic. One of our worst tasting burritos was also one of the worst for you, weighing in at 750 calories and 35 grams of fat. Unsurprising, given that this burrito is almost twice the size of most of the other varieties tested.

Tortilla: 1

Filling (Flavor): 0

Filling (Texture): 0

Size: 5

Spiciness: 3

Overall: 2/5

Nutrition Facts

Calories – 750, Total Fat – 35 grams, Saturated Fat – 12 grams, Cholesterol – 40 milligrams, Sodium – 770 milligrams, Carbs – 85 grams, Dietary Fiber – 5 grams, Sugars – 2 grams, Protein – 24 grams

Name: PJ’s Organics® Steak and Cheese Burrito

Net Weight: 6 oz.

Notes: This burrito was unusual, in that it required an hour’s lead time, as well as foil for wrapping while cooking. If I’m the kind of guy that’s eating frozen burritos, chances are I don’t have things like “aluminum foil” or “an hour’s worth of forethought,” in my kitchen, so right away, this burrito is problematic. The foil did keep the flour tortilla soft, but the end result was more a kind of “gumminess,” that sticks to the back of your teeth with each bite. The filling, ostensibly a combination of “steak, cheese, beans, rice, and onion” may as well have contained none of those things. The smooth paste inside had a few errant grains of rice, but little else to help discern one ingredient from the next. There was a sourness to the filling that I also didn’t particularly enjoy. Overall, it was more expensive per ounce than other burritos we tasted, and its “organic” labeling didn’t make it any more appealing. This one was a sticky, gluey mess.

Tortilla: 4

Filling (Flavor): 2

Filling (Texture): 2

Size: 3

Spiciness: 1

Overall: 2.4/5

Nutrition Facts

Calories – 380, Total Fat – 10 grams, Saturated Fat – 1.5 grams, Cholesterol – 20 milligrams, Sodium – 800 milligrams, Carbs – 52 grams, Dietary Fiber – 3 grams, Sugars – 0 grams, Protein – 12 grams

Name: El Monterey® “Beef & Bean Red Chili” Burritos 2-Pack

Net Weight: 8 oz.

Read What Others Said About This One.

Notes: Unlike the “XX Large™” version, the twin-pack variety of the El Monterey burrito doesn’t include instructions for preparation using a conventional oven. So, though I had to violate one of my rules and prepare them using the microwave, I also got to hold to the other rule that said I would strictly obey the package directions. The results were pretty disastrous. The package instructs you to open one end of the bag, and microwave the whole thing for two and a half minutes. What results is a soggy, steamy bag of wet burrito, that are far too hot to touch, let alone be eaten. The tortillas were soaked through with orange grease, and had a terribly gummy texture. The filling was mildly spicy, with no noticeable chunks of the different listed ingredients, and absolutely devoid of any flavor. The decision to include two burritos was also an odd move; I can’t imagine finishing the first one and starting on the second with any kind of excitement. The second one ended up in the dog’s bowl, who looked at me like I was an asshole.

Tortilla: 1

Filling (Flavor): 0

Filling (Texture): 1

Size: 3

Spiciness: 2

Overall: 1.4/5

Nutrition Facts

Calories – 600, Total Fat – 28 grams, Saturated Fat – 9 grams, Cholesterol – 30 milligrams, Sodium – 740 milligrams, Carbs – 70 grams, Dietary Fiber – 6 grams, Sugars – 2 grams, Protein – 18 grams

Name: Trader Jose’s Shredded Beef Burritos

Net Weight: 14 oz.

Notes: The Trader Joe’s (ahem: “Trader Jose’s) brand frozen burritos seemed expensive, but they also came two to a package, which drove their per-ounce cost into a similar range as other frozen burritos. Having long been a fan of their frozen taquitos, I was looking forward to tasting these. I was a little disturbed by the lack of conventional oven directions, but much more disturbed by what seemed like clearly insane microwave directions: These burritos asked that I microwave them for two and a half minutes on EACH SIDE. I assumed this would absolutely destroy the burrito, and at first, my suspicions appeared to be confirmed. After the first 2.5 minutes, when it came time to flip my burrito over, the tortilla was completely saturated, and some of the filling appeared on the plate out of nowhere, in spite of the tortilla appearing intact. There was also some WATER on the plate, which was surprising, since I hadn’t added any water to my burrito prior to cooking. I flipped it over and added another two and a half minutes, assuming that the burrito would explode, and I would end up with a cool photograph, at the very least.

Instead, though, something mysterious happened. The water on the plate cooked away, the burrito crisped up, and the whole thing appeared more structurally sound after the full five minutes than it had at the midway point. The filling had a great texture and flavor, with little sections of rather dry shredded beef, whole beans, and whole grains of rice. In fact, the whole thing was kind of dry, but as compared to many of the pastes we tasted, this was a welcome relief. I didn’t pick up on any of the cheddar cheese listed on the ingredients panel.I also noticed that the beans had been reduced to dry dust, probably as a result of the high microwave time.

Overall, this was one of the better burritos we tasted, though Jillian could smell it from the other end of the apartment; a smell she described as “Dinty Moore beef stew being strained through a pair of underpants.” So, there’s that.

Tortilla: 3

Filling (Flavor): 4

Filling (Texture): 3

Size: 4

Spiciness: 2

Overall: 3.2/5

Nutrition Facts

Calories – 600, Total Fat – 28 grams, Saturated Fat – 9 grams, Cholesterol – 30 milligrams, Sodium – 740 milligrams, Carbs – 70 grams, Dietary Fiber – 6 grams, Sugars – 2 grams, Protein – 18 grams

Name: Amy’s® Burrito “Especial” (Made with Organic Black Beans, Rice, & Tomatoes)

Net Weight: 6 oz.

Replaced with this Southwest Burrito.

Notes: At almost 50 cents an ounce, Amy’s Organic burrito was the most expensive in our tasting, which comes as no surprise when you are buying from the special “organic” frozen section of Hannaford. Always the arbiter of good taste, Amy’s doesn’t make a variety of burrito anywhere similar to the Tina’s “Red Hot Beef” burrito that we were using as our baseline, so we went with their black bean, rice, and tomato variety. Ready in 55 minutes. the tortilla had some satisfying scorch marks on the outside. Unfortunately, the inside of the burrito was so wet, that the burrito wouldn’t hold together as soon as you took a bite of it, spraying beans and rice onto the plate. I was pleased to be able to make out individual ingredients, and this burrito tasted most like a burrito you might actually be served in a restaurant.

It was one of the healthiest burritos we tasted, with only 7 grams of fat. It was also the burrito we tasted that was most similar to “real food,” but I’m not sure that was necessarily a good thing. It tasted the way perfume smells; the perfume girls in liberal arts colleges wear, who have lots of pillows, tapestries on their walls, and listen to Morphine. It tasted like an old velvet Crown Royal bag filled with foreign coins.

Tortilla: 2

Filling (Flavor): 3

Filling (Texture): 5

Size: 3

Spiciness: 1

Overall: 2.8/5

Nutrition Facts

Calories – 300, Total Fat – 7 grams, Saturated Fat – 1.5 grams, Cholesterol – 5 milligrams, Sodium – 620 milligrams, Carbs – 50 grams, Dietary Fiber – 4 grams, Sugars – 2 grams, Protein – 9 grams

Name: Evol Burritos Shredded Beef (“Tender beef, pinto beans, rice, monterey jack cheese and an authentic tomato & roasted corn salsa – all hand rolled together in an insanely tasty flour tortilla”) Burrito

Net Weight: 8 oz.

Tough to find now, but their chicken burrito is decent as well.

Notes: By rights, this should have been the best burrito we tasted. It had one of the highest costs per ounce, it looked the most like a burrito you would be served in a restaurant, it had lots of descriptive language on the package, AND it came from Whole Foods, which, as we know, sells strictly food that is better than you. After cooking, it was a huge, weighty beast, with brown marks on the tortilla to help encourage the idea that this didn’t come from a factory. I could clearly make out the individual ingredients inside, and the corn in the salsa was a nice surprise. The shredded beef had a great texture, and there was just the right balance between wet and dry ingredients.

Unfortunately, it just didn’t taste very good. It was almost completely unseasoned, which doesn’t make sense for frozen Mexican food; the overwhelming flavor was that of stale, warm air coming out of a latex balloon. Most of the bulk of the pleasingly-hefty burrito came from many, many folds in the tortilla, rather than from being stuffed with ingredients.

Tortilla: 3

Filling (Flavor): 1

Filling (Texture): 5

Size: 4

Spiciness: 1

Overall: 2.8/5

Nutrition Facts

Calories – 470, Total Fat – 11 grams, Saturated Fat – 3.5 grams, Cholesterol – 25 milligrams, Sodium – 640 milligrams, Carbs – 72 grams, Dietary Fiber – 6 grams, Sugars – 2 grams, Protein – 20 grams

Name: Tina’s® “Red Hot Beef” Burrito

Net Weight: 4 oz.

Notes: As I pointed out at the beginning of this tasting, Tina’s “Red Hot Beef” Burrito is, for me, the gold-standard of ghetto-burrito fabulousness. I’m not alone, apparently. Even the good people at Tina’s didn’t seem to understand what a following they had, and when they tried to reformulate their flagship burrito to make it even cheaper, there was such an uproar that they were forced to change back to their original recipe. Today’s tasting confirmed my feelings on Tina’s. Though the burrito lost much of its filling, and though the tortilla hardened into a crackly, crunchy, dry mess, there’s something about the unapologetic, spicy beef-flavored “textured vegetable protein” paste inside that continues to define what sixteen-cent (on special) burritos should taste like. They’re incredibly cheap, deeply satisfying, surprisingly spicy, and are perfect for when you have either just had, or are about to drink, a dozen beers. Though they don’t rank at the top of the list, due mostly to their diminutive size, every freezer in America should have one of these in it.

Tortilla: 3

Filling (Flavor): 4

Filling (Texture): 2

Size: 2

Spiciness: 5

Overall: 3.2/5

Nutrition Facts

Calories – 260, Total Fat – 9 grams, Saturated Fat – 3.5 grams, Cholesterol – 10 milligrams, Sodium – 440 milligrams, Carbs – 36 grams, Dietary Fiber – 5 grams, Sugars – 2 grams, Protein – 10 grams

Name: Smart Option “Red Hot Beef” Burrito

Net Weight: 4 oz.

Notes: I have to admire the “Smart Option” brand, both for their unabashed attempt to copy the Tina’s formula, and for their branding, which almost makes this appear to be health food. I suspect, in this case, the “Smart” in “Smart Option” is referring to what a savvy, thrifty consumer you are, and not to the fact that you are treating your body with any kind of dignity. The two burritos are almost identical, and both have a similar tendency to spill their insides, under the blistering heat of a 375 degree oven. The similarities stop there, however. Smart Option’s version of the “Red Hot Beef” burrito copies the goo, but misses most of the flavor. The spice is dialed way down, and there is an uncomfortable abundance of layer after layer of dry, crunchy tortilla. A poor imitation of a classic, overall.

Tortilla: 3

Filling (Flavor): 1

Filling (Texture): 2

Size: 2

Spiciness: 2

Overall: 2/5

Nutrition Facts

Calories – 260, Total Fat – 9 grams, Saturated Fat – 3.5 grams, Cholesterol – 10 milligrams, Sodium – 440 milligrams, Carbs – 38 grams, Dietary Fiber – 5 grams, Sugars – 2 grams, Protein – 10 grams

Name: Don Miguel Red Chile “THE BOMB” Beef, Cheese Sauce, and Bean Burrito

Net Weight: 14 oz.

Check out what other people said about this one.

Notes: I first encountered “THE BOMB” in a 7-11, after a three A.M. drive back to Portland from the Midcoast, where I was surprised that, for 80 miles, there was not a single place to get a bite to eat at that time of the morning. At $2.99, it’s more expensive than other burritos in its class; however, it’s also huge. At 14 ounces, THE BOMB’s cost per ounce is only 21 cents, which gets it more in line with the other burritos we tasted.

In a way, it feels like THE BOMB is cheating a bit. It was the only burrito we tried that appeared almost exactly the same, in both its frozen and cooked form. In addition to its size and staggering Nutrition Panel (one burrito weighs in at 1,000 calories, with almost a whole day’s RDA for sodium), THE BOMB is also the only burrito we sampled that had a thick ribbon of movie theater nacho-caliber yellow cheese sauce running throughout and pooling at one end. Needless to say, this improved everything it touched, adding 38 grams of mouth-and-lip-coating fat to the experience. Thanks to the foil wrapping, the tortilla remained somewhat soft, though it was barely able to contain the bucket of cheese sauce found within. Overall, I was happy to have eaten THE BOMB, which is more than I can say for several other burritos in this evaluation.

Tortilla: 3

Filling (Flavor): 4

Filling (Texture): 3

Size: 5

Spiciness: 2

Overall: 3.4/5

Nutrition Facts

Calories – 1000, Total Fat – 38 grams, Saturated Fat – 16 grams, Cholesterol – 40 milligrams, Sodium – 1920 milligrams, Carbs – 120 grams, Dietary Fiber – 12 grams, Sugars – 6 grams, Protein – 32 grams

Name: Red’s “All Natural*” Steak Burrito (“Heaping portions of steak raised without antibiotics, beans, brown rice, and veggies.”)

Net Weight: 11 oz.

Check out what others had to say about this monster burrito!

Notes: I confess to being somewhat irritated by Red’s Steak Burrito, although that may have more to do with having been the last burrito I ate, rather than with any inherent shortcomings. The cooking instructions are the first thing to perplex me, stating that the burrito must be thawed prior to cooking, as though I have all day to commit to this burrito-cooking project. At 11 ounces, but the same length as other burritos, Red’s burrito is big and fat, to let you know that it is chock-a-block full of “All Natural” ingredients. And at about $4 bucks, Red’s burrito isn’t a bargain. That’s more than I expect to pay for a fast-food burrito, actually eaten outside of my house, and so Red’s needs to deliver on at least that level.

I was stunned by what I found when the burrito came out of the oven. I was head-over-heels in love with the tortilla: a thin layer of tortilla perfectly containing the insides, with just the right amount of crispness and browning. When I cut the burrito open, all hell broke loose: this thing was absolutely stuffed with real food. Whole beans! Grains of rice! Corn! Peppers! And see what I’m holding pinched between my fingers up there? Big huge chunks of real, pot roast-y beef, shredded and chunked throughout. This was unlike the inside of any other burrito we tried.

The problem was…it just didn’t taste very good. In fact, it didn’t taste like much of anything. All of these real, recognizable ingredients don’t mean a thing, if they combine into something you don’t really feel like eating. When I want a tortilla filled with real ingredients, I’ll make my own burrito, which will taste much better, for about the same amount of money.

Tortilla: 5

Filling (Flavor): 1

Filling (Texture): 5

Size: 4

Spiciness: 0

Overall: 3/5

Nutrition Facts

Calories – 620, Total Fat – 16 grams, Saturated Fat – 5 grams, Cholesterol – 30 milligrams, Sodium – 760 milligrams, Carbs – 94 grams, Dietary Fiber – 12 grams, Sugars – 6 grams, Protein – 28 grams

Conclusion:

You learn a lot about yourself, when you taste every single frozen burrito you can get your hands on. For example, I learned that when I have the urge to eat a frozen burrito, it’s usually not fresh, real ingredients that I am after. This made most of the “all natural” and “organic” entries in this roundup failures, on that level. This made picking a favorite difficult. It may SEEM like the winner should be the burrito most like one you would find in a restaurant, or like one you might conceivably make from scratch. I found, however, that these often weren’t my favorite; if you’re going to mentally commit to eating a frozen burrito, you may as well accept that a certain amount of processed chemistry is part of the bargain. With this in mind, I separated my favorites into a couple of categories:

Best “Almost Like Real Food” Frozen Burrito:

This was a close race, with both Red’s “All Natural*” Steak Burrito and Evol Burritos Shredded Beef turning in solid candidates that seem almost like a burrito you might make at home. Ultimately, though, if you want to make a burrito at home, that’s what you should do: these overpriced, complicated-to-prepare burritos disappoint on the “guilty pleasure” level, tasting mostly like brown rice, as well as on the “real food” level, tasting like the foil from a pack of Marlboros.

Best “All Around” Frozen Burrito:

In a stunning upset, my pick for the best buck-and-a-half you can spend on a frozen burrito goes not to a burrito at all, but to the Jose Ole® “Steak and Cheese” Chimichanga. I was won over by its flaky, crispy tortilla, almost more of a crust than like a standard-issue tortilla. The filling walks the perfect line between actual food and some sort of mad scientist laboratory creation. While it certainly tastes as chemically as you would expect, there are still real chunks of beef, pockets of melty cheese, and bits of real green chile, which is completely unheard of in other burritos in this price class. This combination of the synthetic and the real is exactly what I’m looking for when I want a frozen burrito, and at $1.39, you’d be hard pressed to find a more satisfying Mexican meal for the money. In your freezer.

Best “Guilty Pleasure” Frozen Burrito:

Frankly, they’re ALL guilty pleasures, in that you should absolutely not feel good about any of these choices. When you’re ready to own up to the crime you are committing against your insides, there are only two clear choices: First, Tina’s “Red Hot Beef” Burrito, for its spicy kick, and pure economy. Time your coupons right, and you can eat one of these per day for almost a whole week, for less than a buck. Second place goes to Don Miguel’s Red Chile “THE BOMB” Beef, Cheese Sauce, and Bean Burrito, for when you have completely thrown your dignity out the window, and are eating standing outside a 7-11 in the middle of the night. This glorious celebration of non-food, combined in a huge flour tortilla, gives you canned chili flavor, tons of beef, a gallon of gluey cheese sauce, and almost a day’s worth of calories in a convenient package that you can eat in your car. Which you probably live in.