When we first started reviewing the El Monterey line, we thought the selection was pretty small. Now that we can look back and see how many El Monterey reviews we’ve actually published here on Freezer Meal Frenzy, it’s clear that we were wrong. This line is way bigger than it may seem at a glance. In fact, this is our 32nd El Monterey review.
Somehow, in all the bigness of this line, we’d missed the El Monterey Beef & Bean Red Chili Burritos. This is tragic, because we actually really enjoyed the Green Chili version of these. Thankfully, there’s still time for a redemption arc for us, because today we’re finally reviewing the El Monterey Beef & Bean Red Chili Burritos. It’s a Christmas miracle!
These are easy to cook: Simply pop one in the microwave for a minute or so, and you’re good to go. You can heat these in the oven if you’d like to, but the 24-minute cook time is kind of a lot. We always go with the microwave when we chomp down an El Monterey Burrito. We actually did cook one in the oven one time, and it didn’t really make enough of a difference for us to want to repeat that experiment.
We’re sad to say that these are no match for their green chili friends. When we tried the green chili version, we said, “the flavor of the chilies works really hard to prevent these burritos from being overly bland.” That’s simply not the case with the red chili version. These just don’t have a lot of flavor at all. They’re maybe a bit spicier than their green brethren, but that’s not enough to make up for the lack of flavor here.
And that’s especially a problem because these are El Monterey burritos. The shells are kind of mushy, and there’s really not even a decent amount of filling. If that filling tasted better, like it does in the case of the green chili version, then we could forgive these burritos for their flaws. But it just doesn’t, so we’re left with a package of unsatisfying, bland burritos that really don’t do much for us.
One of these burritos contains 310 calories, which isn’t a ton, but keep in mind that these are pretty small. We think two of them are a better meal than one, and that means you’re up to 620 calories. Thankfully, there’s only 300 mg of sodium per burrito, so even when you scarf down two, you’re only at 600 mg of sodium, which is lower than your average frozen meal. So these burritos come with one benefit, we suppose.
The El Monterey Beef & Bean Red Chili Burritos are no match for the Green Chili version. They just don’t have enough flavor to be that satisfying low-budget-burrito-craving killer. We definitely recommend the green version over the red. While these come in Christmas colors (red and green), we doubt these will be on anyone’s Christmas list this year.
To learn more about the nutrition content, ingredients, or cooking instructions for these frozen burritos, check out our package scans below.
