One of the more low-key launches of this month has been Chipotle’s quesadilla, which came out on March 11, in the U.S. and Canada, as an online only option. It consists of cheese in a tortilla with a meat or vegetable filling and three sides. You can choose sides from any of the usual fillings you can get at Chipotle. Most options will cost you $8.30 plus tax. We tried a chicken quesadilla with sour cream, fresh tomato salsa and the Tomatillo red chili salsa. 

John

Now I will be honest, the quesadilla from Chipotle was not good, but it was also not terrible. Honestly, though, I don’t know if that is saying much. This kind of reminds me of the saying that “even bad pizza still tastes good.” 

If we are going on a scale of overall taste, yeah, the quesadilla was great because it had cheese, meat and a toasted tortilla, along with other delicious toppings. However, if we go on a scale of a quesadilla, it did not really have much going for it that differentiates it from other quesadillas. The toppings were also quite underwhelming and non-unique.

This is a perfect segue into what I disliked the most about the quesadilla: the freaking toppings. They gave you three toppings on the side, and you can choose from a (relatively small) list which three toppings it is that you want. Okay, issue number one: why do they limit the amount of toppings that you can have on your quesadilla? On almost every other item in Chipotle, you can order as many of the toppings as you want, some of which increase the price because of their desirability. However, here you are limited to just three. Issue number two: why are the toppings on the side? Imagine you sit down to have a quesadilla and you order rice as a topping, and what comes out is the quesadilla with nothing else inside except meat and cheese, but on the side they put rice. This was the case with all of their toppings, including beans, salsa and sour cream. I feel like it is quite obvious that you want the rice (or beans) inside of the quesadilla, but I suppose Chipotle did not get that memo.

The last thing that I had an issue with was the tortilla. When I grab a quesadilla, I expect the tortilla to be hard. However, the tortilla of this quesadilla was kind of soft and easily bendable. I just did not get the texture that I wanted out of the tortilla. I am not asking for them to burn it, but I think a little bit more time on the stove would help it out quite a bit. 

Overall, I am quite disappointed with the quesadilla, but it still tasted good nonetheless. However, if I were to get a quesadilla, I would be much better off going to a different chain. I would give this one a 5.5/10.

Sasha 

I can’t say I hated the quesadilla, or that it tasted bad, or that anything was wrong with it really. But the entire time I was eating it, I was wishing it was a burrito bowl. So the quesadilla itself wasn’t bad: it was the regular Chipotle chicken (which I think is delicious) with some cheese (which I actually didn’t really like; I don’t like it when cheese overpowers other flavors). The sides were good, but they really aren’t sides, they are burrito fillings. Here’s the other thing with the quesadilla: it is just not filling enough. It is literally cheese and chicken, with which they so generously give you three sides. Three sides?! When I get a burrito bowl, I basically get all the toppings (except sour cream and beans, those are gross). So compared to my chicken burrito bowl with white rice, fresh tomato salsa, roasted chili corn salsa, their red and green salsa, fajita vegetables, cheese and lettuce, this quesadilla was sad and boring. I tried my best to “butter” the quesadilla with the red salsa and scoop some tomatoes on top. It was ridiculously difficult and messy to eat. Even when I was successfully able to scoop my two sides onto the quesadilla, it still needed more toppings to actually be good. As an addition to the Chipotle menu, it feels like a logical one, but it is not an exciting addition. Honestly I was surprised they didn’t have one before. But it is definitely nothing to stop you ordering your current Chipotle go-to (which really should be a burrito bowl; you get so much more food than a regular burrito). Overall, I would rate the quesadilla a six out of 10, but if we include value for cost, that rating goes down to a four, if not lower. 

If you are ever at Chipotle and are curious about the quesadilla, do yourself a favor and get a burrito bowl instead. If this was Chipotle’s attempt at getting some attention by introducing a new dish, they failed miserably with it.