When you pick up an El Monterey product, you probably don’t have high expectations. The brand’s true utility is their ability to create low-price Mexican meals that you can toss in the microwave and scarf down while you’re studying for a big exam. Yes, these meals are for broke people with very little time, which makes them perfect for college students.
Even so, El Monterey surprises us every now and then. Their Charbroiled Chicken & Monterey Jack Cheese Quesadillas are far better than they have any right to be, for example. Plus, the Shredded Steak & Three-Cheese Burrito is actually pretty good. So we hoped that the chimichanga version of this — the El Monterey Shredded Steak & Three-Cheese Chimichanga — would be a halfway decent frozen chimichanga.
We typically like to cook our burritos in the oven, because they tend to come out better that way, but when it comes to El Monterey products, we’ve found that the oven is hardly worth the effort. So we stuck this chimichanga into the microwave for about a minute and 10 seconds (it had thawed in the refrigerator overnight beforehand), and dug in.
When we pulled this chimichanga out of the microwave, it had spilled its cheesy innards all over the plate (and that was before we even cut into it). Of course, when it comes to chimichangas and burritos, being filled with gooey cheese is hardly a crime.
And this cheese sauce is quite good. It’s a blend of cheddar, monterey jack, and mozzarella, and it contains some green chilis for good measure. While it’s not the best cheese we’ve ever had, it’s certainly not a bad fit for this chimichanga.
When we reviewed the El Monterey Shredded Steak and Three-Cheese Burrito, we mentioned that we were impressed with El Monterey’s generosity when it came to the steak portion. We can’t repeat that comment here, as this chimichanga is far less loaded with steak than its burrito cousin. We’d estimate that this has about half (maybe two-thirds, if we’re giving El Monterey the benefit of the doubt) of the amount of steak. It tastes fine, though we wouldn’t want anyone to expect to find high-quality meat inside this thing.
El Monterey is certainly not all that concerned with making diet-friendly foods, and that shows in this chimichanga. It’s a little thing that probably won’t fill you up, but it contains 300 calories (100 from fat) and 430 mg of sodium. Considering you’ll probably eat two of these at a time, those numbers aren’t great for the calorie-conscious eater.
The El Monterey Shredded Steak & Three-Cheese Chimichanga is actually pretty competent. It’s not going to blow you away, but it’s certainly not bad. If you’re a broke college student who just needs to cram some calories into your stomach while you’re cramming for an exam, this will probably do the trick. Just keep in mind that one of these is pretty small, so you might end up heating up two at a time.
To learn more about the nutrition content or ingredients in this El Monterey chimichanga, check out our package scans below.
