Some burritos are there for when things are going great. That’s what those floofy burritos are there for — you know the ones — these are the burritos made by Evol and Sweet Earth and so on. But some burritos are made for the hard times — those stretches of life where you’re living off student loans or your check for the freelance work you did three months ago still hasn’t shown up yet. And that’s what El Monterey is there for. These are hard-times burritos.
Today, we’re checking out the El Monterey XX Large Beef & Bean Burrito.
Since this is a single burrito per package, we decided to test out the oven instructions. We thawed the burrito in the fridge overnight, then preheated the oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit. We then wrapped the burrito in aluminum foil and stuck it in the oven for 20 minutes, flipping it over about halfway through the cook time.
Unfortunately, cooking this in the oven didn’t give us the nice, crispy shell we were expecting. This still came out a bit damp feeling.
As soggy as this is on the outside, the filling is inexplicably dry. In fact, we might even go so far as to use the word chalky. This was a strange texture that we found to be very off-putting. To make matters worse, the filling barely has any flavor. There’s a little bit of a sweet undertone — we’re really not sure where that comes from — but the mash of beans and beef is incredibly bland. If you’re going to chow down on one of these, we definitely recommend grabbing some kind of sauce for it.
This burrito packs a hefty amount of calories into an affordable package. This burrito contains 640 calories, which makes it one of the most calorie-loaded burritos we’ve seen here at Freezer Meal Frenzy. When you’re on a strict diet, this is a no-go. But when you’re trying to cram as many calories down your gullet for as few dollars as possible, this burrito could be a lifesaver. There’s also 690 mg of sodium wrapped up in here, which isn’t as bad as we would have expected. It’s not healthy, by any means, but that’s not really the point here.
While there are far better burritos on the market, it’s hard to beat El Monterey’s price points. The XX Large Beef & Bean Burrito is not a good frozen burrito, but it’s an inexpensive one.
To learn more about the nutrition content or ingredients in this El Monterey XX Large Burrito, check out our package scans below.
