This post about what’s gluten-free at Chipotle is sponsored by Nima Sensor and contains affiliate links.
I often find myself at Chipotle as it’s been deemed as a good place for gluten-free eaters. There are plenty of gluten-free options, and, with a little knowledge, you can mitigate cross contamination with gluten.
While I eat there often and feel fine, I decided it was time to test my food for gluten using the Nima Sensor gluten detecting device.
Just about everything on the menu is gluten-free (except for the flour tortillas) according to Chipotle’s allergen menu. But of course, you never know for sure.
You can watch me do test my gluten-free food at Chipotle live on Facebook and see how everything fared. (Just hit the play button – or the arrow – in the next image.)
At Chipotle, I tested the following items with my Nima Sensor:
- The chicken burrito bowl, which included brown rice, chicken, fajita vegetables, black beans, shredded cheese, tomatoes and lettuce.
- The chips and queso
Related Reading: 13 Things You Need to Know about the Nima Sensor
Here’s what I found:
In the burrito bowl, I put a small sample of the chicken, beans and cheese into the Nima Sensor. Nima Sensor smiled at me, which means it did not detect gluten- nice!
I then tested a chip and it, too, came back negative for gluten. Nima is all smiles. There’s no gluten in Chipotle’s chips – whew!
The queso, however, came back with the wheat symbol and the message, “Gluten Found.” While the queso has no gluten in it, it’s possible the spot I tested was cross contaminated with gluten as there are flour tortillas present on the food assembly line.
How to Order Gluten-Free at Chipotle
When you order at Chipotle, it is important to disclose that you cannot eat gluten, and ask the staff member to change his or her gloves.
You can then order anything on the menu except the flour tortillas… well, I might be wary of the queso now but I’m fairly certain it was a cross contamination issue in the food assembly line. (And this really drives home the point that you need to test your food each and every time you eat at a restaurant!)
Related Reading: What’s Gluten-Free at Wendy’s
Two items I am also wary of cross contamination are the cheese and lettuce. The staff use their hands to grab those items, whereas the rest of the items are dished out with a spoon.
When I order at Chipotle, I always ask for the cheese and lettuce to be taken from a fresh source, and the staff has always obliged this request.
Do You Need a Nima Sensor?
The answer is, yes, you do!
You can test your food each and every time, and you’ll rarely get glutened when you eat out when you have Nima in your back pocket.
Related Reading: Is the Nima Sensor Accurate?
You can shop for a Nima Sensor exclusively on Amazon. I also encourage you to download my Safe Gluten-Free Dining Card. It’s a free printable wallet-sized card that you can carry with you and show to restaurant staff when you’re dining out. Enjoy!
PS: Still having trouble eating out safely at restaurants? Download my ebook, The Ultimate Guide to Eating Out Gluten Free, is now available online.
First I would like to say thank you for helping the gluten free community! You give really sound advise and recommendations. And love that so many people are able to eat a chipotle! However, just telling the servers about your allergy, sensitivity or intolerance and changing their gloves is not enough. Cross contamination is very likely if you think about it. After all, the flour tortillas start at the beginning of the assembly. And they are carried along the whole buffet line! And those serving utensils aren’t immune from touching the flour wrap and going back down into the dish to contaminate it. So accepting anything on the front line definitely puts one at risk, even with clean gloves. They only way a gluten free individual can eat here safely, is if the their food is all from a fresh source.
Yes I would avoid too if that happened. Feel well.
I have a corn sensitivity as well as gluten. I have gotten sick 3 separate times about 12 hours after eating at Chipotle (always salad with chicken, brown rice, and guac, no dairy). The last time, in September, the diarrhea was just horrible. Sadly, I think I have to avoid Chipotle all together.
Yes thank you
Hi Jenny, thanks for this. I ate at Chipotle in Norcal last week and had the burrito bowl which I have had before. I did not have lettuce but did have cheese. A few hours afterwards I had stomach cramps which I had not experienced before so I can only assume cross-contamination….
Do you mean wary ? You can’t be weary of the queso unless you really mean you are tired of it. Is that what
you meant?