Meals from Chipotle can be healthy by being incredibly nutrient-rich and balanced. The key to a healthy Chipotle meal is to customize your order based on the restaurant's most optimal ingredients and your personal nutrition goals. Here's how to select a good-for-you lunch or dinner at Chipotle.
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/GettyImages-943113502-274d97f76b7b42a494eddf7515c490b0.jpg "What's Healthy to Order at Chipotle? (1)")
Chipotle makes eating according to your dietary patterns or needs relatively easy. The restaurant provides material about allergens, ingredients, and nutrition to help you decide how to build your meal.
Allergy Friendly Options
Whether you're plant-based or an omnivore, your top concern may be avoiding ingredients that trigger a food allergy or intolerance. Fortunately, Chipotle's website includes a chart to identify sources of dairy, soy, gluten, and sulfites.
Plus, the chain makes it easy to avoid problematic foods as it does not use the following ingredients:
- Eggs (except at locations that serve breakfast)
- Mustard
- Peanuts
- Sesame
- Shellfish or fish
- Tree nuts
Unlike many fast food establishments, common allergens are found in a few of Chipotle's items. For example, the only source of soy is sofritas, made from crumbled, seasoned soy. Gluten and wheat are only found in the flour tortillas used for burritos and tacos.
Meat Options
Chipotle's has three primary meat options, but they are broken down further into the following:
- Beef: Steak and barbacoa
- Chicken: Chicken al pastor, chicken, and pollo asado
- Pork: Carnitas
If you're looking for a healthy balance of fat, protein, and carbs, your best meat options would be plain grilled chicken, steak, or barbacoa. Between those options, they include no more than 7 grams (g) of fat, at least 21g of protein, and no more than 2g of carbs.
Healthy Veggie Options
To maximize your meal's nutrient content and health benefits, three essential ingredients to consider including in your order are:
- Beans: Beans are a true superfood, with benefits that may include a reduced risk of diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and microbial infections.
- Guacamole: Consumption of its star ingredient, avocado, is associated with better overall diet quality and nutrient intake.
- Veggies: Veggies provide vitamins, minerals, fiber, and antioxidants.
Plant-Based Options
Researchers looked at data from more than 400,000 people in the U.S. over 16 years and found that a higher plant protein intake was associated with a lower risk of death from all causes.
Chipotle makes it easy to craft a plant-based bowl, with three choices for plant protein made with no animal-based additives:
- Black beans
- Pinto beans
- Sofritas
What Can You Order at Chipotle That's Healthy?
Chipotle offers various meal options that can be considered healthy. Remember to go for as many veggies as possible, including greens as your base, fajita peppers and onions, and salsa.
1) Plant-Based Meals
Build your plant-based bowl or salad by adding the following:
- Brown rice
- Fajita veggies
- Guacamole
- Salsa
With all three plant protein options, this combo can easily provide 22g of protein and an impressive 20g of filling fiber. Bonus: A veggie meal includes guac at no extra charge.
Plus, a salad with plant-based protein allows you to load up on leafy greens. Chipotle's salad base has just 1 gram of carbs with 1 gram as fiber and 35% and 10% of the daily value for immune-supporting vitamins A and C, respectively.
2) Lifestyle Bowls
Chipotle offers Lifestyle Bowls that cater to special diets, including Whole30, keto, high protein, and paleo. Each bowl contains pre-selected ingredients that fit the corresponding criteria, but you can also tweak the order based on your preferences.
3) Burritos
The Chipotle flour tortilla for a burrito has 320 calories and 50 grams of carbohydrates with only 3 grams of fiber. Though the burrito includes a tortilla, you can include any ingredient options from the bowl- or salad-based meals and focus on adding healthier ingredients. For example, you can get at least 25g of protein with the following combination:
- Chicken, steak, or sofritas as your protein
- Brown rice (or no rice)
- Black beans
- Tomatillo-green chili salsa
- Fajita veggies and lettuce
Is a Bowl Healthier Than a Burrito?
A bowl may be a healthier option based on how you build it. A bowl with higher-calorie ingredients like pollo asado, guacamole, sour cream, and cheese or queso Blanco can have 1,120 calories, 66g of fat, and 80 g of carbs. While the burrito would add 320 calories, 9g of fat, and 50g of carbs because of the tortilla, that can still be a lot of calories to consume in a bowl, depending on your calorie needs.
4) Lower-Calorie Meals
A few of Chipotle's offerings are high in calories. A side of chips can be 810 calories per large bag—1,290 with queso Blanco—and a fully loaded burrito can easily pack over 1,200 calories. If you're calorie-conscious, use the brand's nutrition calculator to view the calorie content of each item you add.
You'll find that selecting meals that clock in at fewer than 500 calories is possible. For example, you could make a salad with:
- Black beans
- Fajita veggies
- Fresh tomato salsa
- Guacamole
- SuperGreens lettuce blend
The salad has 390 calories and is nicely balanced with 20 grams of net carbs, 10 grams of protein, and 24 grams of fat.
Chicken tacos can be another good choice. For 430 calories, you can have three made with:
- Chicken
- Crispy corn tortillas
- Fajita veggies
- Fresh tomato salsa
- Lettuce
Chipotle offers many nutrient-rich, whole food ingredients and heavier, less nutritious choices, so the healthfulness of what's in your bag is really up to you. To ensure you get the most nutrition from your meal, use the chain's tools, including nutrition and allergy info, to customize meals based on your needs and goals.
