Chipotle is one of my favorite places to eat at. You can order tacos, salads, burritos, burrito bowls, and quesadillas at Chipotle. Chipotle offers Mexican cuisine that can be catered to your healthy lifestyle, but you need to know what to order and what to avoid at Chipotle in order to create a healthy meal that will not hurt your diet or weight loss goals. So here is everything you need to know in order to create a healthy meal at Chipotle.

Meats

Chipotle has 5 different types of meat that you can order. Barbacoa (170 calories), carnitas (210 calories), chicken (180 calories), sofritas (150 calories), and steak (150 calories). Barbacoa is beef, carnitas are pork, and sofritas are organic tofu. I do not eat pork or tofu because they are not good for your health. Pork is also very high in calories and fat, so that is another reason to avoid it. If pork is not cooked long enough as well, which is not uncommon in fast food settings, you could get tapeworms or parasites from it, so pork is one of the most unhealthy and riskiest foods that you can eat at restaurants.

If you are vegan, you will want to order sofritas, and if you are vegetarian, you will want to order guacamole. If you like meat and need it to feel full like I do, then I recommend ordering chicken, but if you are dieting and counting calories, then the steak or barbacoa are the better choices. An important warning though, guacamole tends to be high in calories, so it will greatly increase the calories in your Chipotle bowl since it is 230 calories by itself.

Vegetables

You will never lose with vegetables when it comes to dieting and weight loss. Vegetables are the safest choice because they are filling in large quantities, and even when you eat a lot of them, they are low-calorie, so you can order all the vegetables that you want at Chipotle without worrying about it hurting your diet. Once again though, be careful with guacamole because it is 230 calories.

Salsa

Salsa is one of my absolute favorite diet foods because it comes in many different varieties, it is very low-calorie, and it tastes delicious. Chipotle offers four different salsas: Green (mild/the least spicy/only 15 calories), red (very spicy in my opinion/30 calories), fresh salsa (25 calories), and corn salsa (80 calories). All of the salsas at Chipotle are low-calorie, which is common for salsa, but the corn salsa is much higher in calories, so if you are dieting and trying to lose weight, I recommend avoiding salsa with corn in it.

When I go to Chipotle, I get all of the salsas added to my Chipotle bowl, except for the corn salsa and the red salsa, which is a bit spicy for me. In general, the majority of my Chipotle bowl consists mostly of salsas and meat, which is a good balance between raw veggies and cooked food.

Food Items Dieters Need To Avoid At Chipotle

Cheese

Cheese should be avoided if you are on a strict diet because it can cause things like constipation, as well as weight gain if you eat it in large quantities or too frequently. However, if you are not on a strict diet, then feel free to add a little to your meal. A burrito bowl or salad is not quite the same without cheese, so I always add a little to my burrito bowl. The golden rule for cheese is little, none, or infrequently.

Chipotle has two types of cheeses, shredded Mexican cheese, and white queso. Both of these cheeses are 110 calories, so I never get more than one of them. If you get both, you end up adding 220 calories of non-filling fattening food to your meal. So it is best to pick one or the other for your meal, rather than both.

Rice

Chipotle offers two types of rice, white and brown. Rice is unhealthy and not good for you, so it should be avoided or limited. White rice has less nutritional value than brown rice, but both are 210 calories at Chipotle, so they are high in calories. If you do order rice with your meal, I recommend asking for a small portion, instead of a full portion. Of course, you can also skip rice all together to make your meal significantly less fattening, and much more on the healthier side.

Beans

Chipotle offers two types of beans, black, and pinto. If you are vegetarian or vegan, you can order either type at Chipotle because unlike at most Mexican restaurants, Chipotle does not put pork in their pinto beans.

Chipotle’s Beans are only 130 calories, but beans are not healthy because of the lectins in them, so I recommend avoiding them altogether. I never order beans on my food at Chipotle, or anywhere for that matter.

Burritos

What goes into the burrito is not the problem so much. The problem is the bread, which is a heavy carbohydrate and a fattening one. For the burrito, a flour tortilla is used at Chipotle that is 320 calories by itself! In general, flour tends to be high in calories and carbohydrates so you should avoid it.

I can easily make a healthy meal that is 320 calories at home that will keep me full for hours, so this many calories just for bread that will still leave me feeling hungry is crazy!

When you add the flour tortilla for your burrito, it can easily make your meal go up to 800 calories or more in total. A burrito without the tortilla is basically a burrito bowl, so this is the better healthier food item to order at Chipotle.

Sour Cream

Chipotle’s sour cream is 110 calories. I sometimes add this to my Chipotle bowl. If you are on a strict diet, then you may want to leave this out of your meal, but if your meal is already pretty low-calorie, then feel free to add it. I love sour cream, and it does really enhance the taste of food, so if I did not eat a lot of calories for the day, I always add sour cream to my meal.

What is your favorite menu item to order at Chipotle?

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