We’ve all been there — young and struggling, perhaps living off student loans, not caring about nutrition or flavor. All you need in this situation is something cheap to fill your stomach. Well, El Monterey’s frozen burritos were designed to fit this very need.
We decided to take a trip down Memory Lane and relive our college days by trying out the El Monterey Bean & Cheese Burritos. A pack of eight of these will cost you roughly what a single Evol Big Burrito will, so these are one of those quick, cheap, and easy frozen foods that will last you several meals on a shoestring budget.
We find two of these to be a pretty reasonable serving size. If you left these sitting in the fridge overnight, like we did, two burritos on a plate should take you about 80 seconds of microwave time to cook.
These come out about as tasty-looking as you’d expect — by which we mean colorless and bland. Seriously, there’s almost no color here at all.
When cooked in the microwave, the shell gets soggy and sticky. It doesn’t taste great, but it’s not horrible. It’s just pretty mediocre.
The mash of beans and cheese is a little watery and a little bland, but there’s an alright flavor built in somewhere. It’s just kind of hard to find. We’d say this is slightly below a gas station burrito in terms of quality. From a gas station burrito, usually we’d expect to find a couple beans that were left whole — the El Monterey Bean & Cheese Burritos contain pure refried mash and very little more than that.
Now, if you’re eating these on an extremely tight budget, there are a few tricks to doctoring them up to make them a little better. For example, you can put some cheddar cheese on top before you cook it, or you can dip the burrito in a little salsa or sour cream. Back when we were eating these regularly, we came up with all sorts of ways to make them feel just a little fancier than they actually are.
El Monterey claims to make “America’s #1 frozen burrito.” We’re not sure where they’re pulling this data from, because these burritos really aren’t that great. The El Monterey Bean & Cheese Burritos will fill you up in a pinch, but they’re not healthy and they don’t taste all that great. Sometimes, that’s all you need. For any other occasion, however, we advise you to go with something a bit more expensive. For example, you could try an Evol Big Burrito if you want a better-tasting meal, or a Sweet Earth burrito if you want something a bit healthier.
To learn more about the nutrition content or ingredients in these frozen burritos, check out our package scans below.
