Are burritos Mexican or Texan?
Let’s get something clear, everybody loves burritos, you can make them with anything your imagination is set to, from meat to chicken or fish, and a really wide variety of veggies and sauces but many people wonder about their origins, some claim is Mexican while others say it was actually invented in Texas and then adopted by the Latin American country falling into the Tex-Mex category, well, since they have a long history it is very easy to locate its origins, and you’ll be surprised to know how people made them before.
Before the development of the modern burrito, the Mesoamerican peoples of Mexico used corn tortillas in 10,000 B.C. to wrap foods, with fillings of chili peppers, tomatoes, mushrooms, squash, and avocados. That sounds a little bit familiar, right? In such a long time the burritos haven’t changed that much, they are essentially the same as what people buy and eat nowadays. Historically, the Pueblo peoples of the Southwestern US also made tortillas filled with beans and meat sauce and prepared much like the modern burrito. But these preparations could also be said to be the origin of the burrito cousin, the taco, rather than the modern burrito.
Burritos are a traditional food of Ciudad Juárez, a city bordering El Paso, Texas in the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua, where people buy them at restaurants and roadside stands. Northern Mexican border towns like Villa Ahumada have an established reputation for serving burritos. Authentic Mexican burritos are usually small and thin, with flour tortillas containing only one or two of several ingredients: either some form of meat or fish, potato, rice, beans, asadero cheese, chile rajas, or chile relleno (stuffed chilli pepper) along with some salsas (sauces) typically mild or really hot like the salsa verde (green sauce).
Burritos have spread over the country and the world and it is now part of everyone’s arsenal against hunger, throughout the years people have invented different varieties or types of burritos to suit their taste, and here we bring some of the most popular to you.
1. Bean and Cheese Burrito
The OG’s burritos, they are simple, tasty, good for every event and occasion, you can use one or many types of cheese like cheddar and the beans can be made in many ways, the traditional ones are refried beans, and the best part, it’s not expensive, you can make it without having to spend a bunch of money.
2. Breakfast Burrito
Oh yes, breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and guess what? You can totally have a burrito to star your day the right way and here at Jack’s Bistro we have a great selection of breakfast burritos for you like our Green Chili Breakfast Burrito stuffed with three scrambled eggs, green chili, jack cheese and fresh cilantro, our Deluxe Burrito with spinach tortilla, scrambled eggs, avocado, bacon, cheddar and jack cheese or our Vegetarian Burrito with spinach tortilla, scrambled eggs, hummus, avocado, tomato, cucumber, red onion and lemon pepper, three great options to improve your mornings.
3. Burgerrito
This is the crazy enough to work combination between a burger and a burrito, it is made with the regular tortilla, ground beef spiced with salt, pepper and garlic powder, cheese on top of the meat while it’s cooking just like a cheeseburger and then some lettuce, tomato and French fries on top, seal the tortilla and that’s it, remember, crazy enough to work.
4. Poncho Burrito
This one is more on the Tex-Mex side and it consist of meat, beans and rice real tight on the tortilla, it’s an insane amount of proteins in a really small package and whether you believe or not the beans have more protein than meat so it’s a good and healthy idea to make your vegetarian burritos with beans and rice.
5. Hapa Burrito
This is a combination as well, Half Hispanic and Half Asian, it uses one of the main ingredients of the poncho burrito, the rice, with many Asian cuisine aspects like fresh fish or the acid kimchi, and even Korean BBQ
6. The Wet Burrito
This is the kind of burrito that you have to eat with knife and fork, it is a burrito covered with a red chili sauce or enchilada sauce and shredded cheese on top, have in consideration that this burritos are usually big
7. The Chimichanga
This is by far one of the most popular versions of the burrito, and the favorite dish of the funniest anti-hero Deadpool, it consist of a deep fried burrito filled with rice, cheese, beans, machaca (dried meat), Carne adobada (marinated meat), Carne Seca (dried beef), or shredded chicken and can be accompanied by salsa, guacamole, sour cream or more cheese.
8. Burrito Skillet
This is a one pan recipe that involves cutting your tortillas into strings and tossing them into a pan or skillet with some black beans, cheese and salsa so it turns soft like a wet burrito and put some sour cream on top of the mixture with some green onions.
9. Burrito Bowl
Although is not technically a burrito despite its name, it consists of burrito fillings served without the tortilla. The fillings are placed in a bowl, and a layer of rice is put at the bottom, the fillings can be corn, meat of any kind, avocados, mushrooms, pico de gallo, beans and cheese, some even use chicken stock to make it a burrito bowl soup that involves a lot of mozzarella cheese and hot sauce.
So as you can see burritos have a insanely long history and infinite varieties and ways to make, even the most basic and simple ingredients can make something really tasty but you can go crazy with the ingredients as well to make it spicy or sweet, yes, there are sweet burritos as well but they are not that popular as the salty one, but hey, a little bit of sugar never hurt anyone.