How to Get Two Chipotle Burritos For the Price of One on Every Visit (An Addendum to the Now Famous ‘Apartment List’ Hack)

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There is nothing more I love than a good Chipotle hack.  Sure, I’ve had problems in the past with their burrito construction, and called bullshit on their calorie counts, and their off the menu “quesarito”. But I also see a lot of the good in Chipotle, and none of my past run-ins have deterred me from wanting to find a personal go-to order. Aka, the perfect combination of items that will finally get me to embrace Chipotle, with no caveats.  And this week, I’m proud to say, I think I’ve finally found that order. It started with this incredible Chipotle hack article by my new hero Dylan Grosz on a website called Apartment List.  In it he details, with a FiveThirtyEight level of scientific analysis, how to get Chipotle to give you 86% more food than you would get in a normal burrito for the same price as a normal burrito.  If you haven’t seen it, it’s worth a read… but the gist of it is this: get half and half of everything in a bowl (half black beans/half pinto beans, half white rice/half brown rice, half chicken/half steak) plus all the free add ons, including corn and fajita vegetables, and you end up getting way more food than what goes into a normal burrito.  And the best part is, they’ll give you a tortilla (in fact two tortillas) for free so you can roll your own burrito. I went to check this out for myself, with one major change at the end that solidifies this as not only the best Chipotle hack in the history of Chipotle hacks.  But possibly the best fast food hack ever invented. (Can you see where I’m going with this?)

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Followed all of Dylan’s instructions to a T, and as promised ended up with a MASSIVE amount of food in my bowl for just $7.40.  This hack is no joke. Admittedly I did shell out the extra $2 for gauc, because what’s a burrito without guac.  Wait until the end to ask for your two tortillas (“Uh, do you mind if I get a couple of the big flour tortillas with this?”), and make sure you order your bowl “to go” so you get the lid. (More on that later.)

The half and half of every ingredient is a genius move, for sure, but even without that there is no secret that ordering a bowl nets you more food than a burrito. And there is no question that a ton of people have long been loading up their bowls at Chipotle and saving half for a second meal.  The real genius behind the hack is the asking for a flour tortilla on the side, which they will give you for free.  And not just one flour tortilla, but two- which they will also totally give you for free!

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At this point, this is where my thinking diverged from Dylan. For some reason The Apartment List article suggests that you use the second tortilla to create and reinforce a single hulk sized burrito, a worthy move for the .000001% of supreme fatsos who have been to Chipotle and thought “Gee, I’d really like this massive burrito that I’m killing myself to finish to be 86% bigger.”  Obviously you could share the giant double sized, double wrapped burrito with a friend, but why bother with that when you could just…

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… roll TWO. SEPERATE. BURRITOS. It’s a no brainer, right? There’s more than enough food in your bowl to do it and still end up with two huge burritos.

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In fact, if you don’t like one kind of beans or one kind of rice or don’t want two kinds of meat I’d be willing to bet you could order a bowl exactly how you like it and still have enough food to roll two burritos that individually would fill a normal size person.  Share with a friend or wrap the second burrito in tin foil for later.

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And here’s the best part for people who hate getting too much guac in one bite or not enough of something at the end of the burrito: because you have that lid, you can mix up all the ingredients before stuffing them into the tortilla- making these burrito creations the most perfectly balanced bundle of joy every assembled.  The first bite is exactly the same as the last bite.  And while getting two burritos for the price of one would in and of itself make me like this burrito more than any other burrito I’ve ever had at Chipotle (after all I am a cheap bastard), I actually think that mixing all the ingredients together improves the taste of the Chipotle burrito.  Whether that is the case for all burritos is a longer discussion for a different day.  But there is no question that the mixing combined with the price, less than $5 per burrito when all is said and done and that was WITH guacamole, made this my perfect Chipotle order.

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5 Comments

  • if you did this AT Chipotle, it’s pretty damn shameless. still genius though.

  • You just keep getting better, Zach! My hero.

  • It’s funny… I used to hit Chipotle all the time when I lived in NYC. But I don’t think I’ve been to Chipotle once in the nearly ten years since I moved LA.

    That said, this is a pretty awesome tip!

  • User has not uploaded an avatar

    Another trick I’ve heard is to tell them you want one kind of meat, and then just as they’re scooping it on there you correct yourself and say, “Oh no, sorry, I wanted the chicken instead.”

    Apparently they’ll usually ask if you want them to just put the second scoop of meat on top of the first one, which gives you a double portion.

  • User has not uploaded an avatar

    I really sort of love you, Zach.

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