What’s Gluten-Free at Chipotle?

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

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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!)

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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.

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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.