The thing about burritos is, you can never just make a few. The second you tell people you’re making burritos tonight, suddenly your best friend, her cousin, and her cousin’s ex-husband’s sister’s family are all coming over for dinner too. OK, maybe it’s not quite that bad, but you get our point. Burritos bring people together; it’s the perfect sharing food. But if there’s one thing nobody likes, it’s a cold burrito.

So that leaves us all with a bit of a problem: how do you keep burritos warm? Well, now you don’t need to wonder any longer, because we’re on hand to tell you about everything you need to know about keeping burritos warm safely, so you can feed your family (or an entire crowd). Ready to find out more? Then grab some tortillas because it’s burrito time!

So, how do you keep burritos warm?

Before we answer this burning question, let us just explain why keeping burritos warm is actually not as easy as people think. It seems logical that the tortilla wrap would be enough to keep the ingredients inside warm, right? Wrong, actually. Cool air can get inside tortillas from all sorts of angles, and your burritos will be cold before you have time to eat them. So what are the different methods you can use to keep them warmer for longer?

5 ways to keep burritos warm

Below are 5 tried and tested ways to help you keep your warm burritos warmer for longer. It goes without saying that for all of these, you’ll need to cook your burrito first so it’s thoroughly cooked and nice and hot. This article is about keeping them warm, not cooking them! Ready to find out the best way to keep burritos warm? Surely one of these 5 solutions ought to do the trick!

Be aware of your cool ingredients

This first suggestion can be a bit of a hassle, but if you have the time to do it, then this will really help keep your burritos warm. You see, adding on sour cream, guacamole, or salsa is delicious, but if you put this on top of the warm burrito ingredients right away, then it’s going to get cool quicker. For warm burritos, you need to keep your cool ingredients elsewhere.

Now don’t worry, we’re not suggesting you skip them altogether (come on, we’re not heartless). Instead, you

just need to pack them in separate containers that’ll keep them cool. There are some thermal storage containers you can use with different compartments that’ll help keep hot food hot, and cold food cold, so think about this.

In a nutshell, don’t mix your hot and cold until you’re ready to eat, or else you’ll be very disappointed! It’s also unsafe from a food safety perspective too, so bear that in mind.

Folding your burrito

Now, earlier we said your tortilla wrap isn’t going to keep your ingredients warm, and that’s true. But it can help. When you fold your burrito, make sure your tortilla wrap is really tightly packed. The trick here is to make sure all those hot ingredients are forced together as tightly as they can be to keep each other warm. Imagine snuggling under a blanket on a cold night with someone you love. That’s what you want for your ingredients. Cute, right?

Make sure you don’t tear your tortilla wrap either. Cold air in your warm burrito isn’t a good mix and you’ll be disappointed. Just wrap it tightly to prevent cool air from getting in, and it’ll certainly help keep it warmer for longer.

Toasting your tortilla

When we first read about this tip, we’re not going to lie, we thought it sounded a little mad. But trust us, it helps. Lightly toasting your tortilla before wrapping your burrito makes a difference. A huge difference? Probably not, but since we’re all about finding out different ways to keep those burritos warm today, we’ll take whatever we can get!

It works by essentially forming a very light crust on the outside of the tortilla wrap. This just stops more air from getting inside the burrito, helping it stay warm for longer. This is also a great idea to help prevent soggy burritos. A topic for another day, perhaps, but toasting your tortilla helps stop it from becoming soggy, which we burrito connoisseurs know is never a good thing.

If you don’t have the time, you can skip this step, but if you’re as passionate about warm burritos as we are, then you’ll want to give it a go!

Aluminium foil

If the heating in our houses ever cut out in a snowstorm, you best believe we’ll be reaching for the aluminium foil to keep us warm! And it’s great for keeping your burritos warm, too. The trick here is to make sure you take your burrito straight off the heat and place it onto the aluminium foil immediately. Then wrap it as tightly as you can straight away. This helps keep all that heat inside your little parcel of goodness.

Honestly, if you can’t do anything else on this list, then please, use aluminium foil. It is basically an insulator; it’s designed to trap warm air inside and cold air outside, so it’s perfect for keeping your burrito warm. In fact, it’s so good that it’ll keep your burrito warm for a while comfortably. That’s perfect if you’re serving lots of people at your burrito night!

Just remember to be quick when taking your burritos out of the oven and placing them inside the aluminium foil parcel. The hotter your burrito is when it’s placed inside an aluminium foil parcel, the longer it’ll stay warm!

The thermos trick

This is the sort of thing you should be taught in science class, in our opinion. Seriously, we never would have thought of this trick on our own, but some genius somewhere thought it up, and now it’s the perfect way to keep burritos warm for a VERY long time. Granted, it isn’t going to work if you have crowds of people coming over (unless you have an unreasonable amount of thermos’ at home, and for the sake of this guide, we’ll assume you don’t).

No, this is the trick you need if you’re heading into the office early, but want a delicious lunch to help you power through those boring morning meetings! It’ll only help you keep one burrito warm, but sometimes a secret burrito to ourselves is exactly what we need!

Start by doing all the usual things, cooking your burrito, leaving the cool ingredients out until later, wrapping the tortilla tightly (preferably after toasting it) and then placing it in an aluminium foil parcel. BUT, whilst you’re doing all of that, boil some water, and then pour it into a thermos. Leave it to sit a little while.

Once your burrito is safely wrapped up in its aluminium foil, pour out the boiling water from your thermos and immediately place your burrito inside and close the lid again. If your mind hasn’t just been blown by that, let us explain why you’ve just gone to all that trouble.

The boiling water will heat the inside of your thermos up. Your thermos’ job is to keep that boiling heat inside. Once the water is poured away, and you’ve placed your burrito inside instead, the thermos is still holding on to that boiling heat from earlier. This essentially creates a mini low-temperature oven in your thermos, helping keep your burrito warm until lunch!

What temperature should burritos be kept at?

Generally, a burrito is safe to consume if the internal temperature of the burrito is over 165 degrees Fahrenheit.

Now, this trick is good to know at home or if you’re cooking for a crowd, but in the office, it’s unlikely you’ll have a thermometer to hand to make sure it’s safe to eat. But, if you head to the last section, there’s a bit of a get out of jail free card you can use that’ll mean you can still eat a cooler burrito safely.

If you’re at home though, and you can wrap your burritos in aluminium foil and then place them in an oven at 165 degrees to keep them warm, then this is ideal and will mean your food stays nice and hot whilst you finish making the other burritos and getting all the sides together.

How do you keep burritos warm for a crowd?

If you’re cooking for a crowd of people, then there’s really only one way you can keep their burritos warm for them. Keep the cool ingredients separate and let them help themselves to that, and make sure the warm burrito is wrapped in aluminium foil. If you’re making good burritos, then the chances are they’ll fly off the shelf, but if the crowd isn’t coming for them as quickly as you’d hoped, then set a timer for two hours. Why? Well, read the last section below, where we’ll explain everything.

Can you keep a burrito warm for hours?

Yes. You can, but only for two hours. The USDA recommends burritos can be left out at room temperature for two hours. Any longer, and the chances of harmful bacteria forming go up significantly, meaning your burritos are unsafe to eat and could cause people to get sick. This is good news because those of you who are cooking for a crowd or a large family can make sure all of your burritos are wrapped up to stay warm and now you also know it’s still safe to consume within two hours. Even if you’re having a burrito for one, then you can still wrap it up to take into the office, so long as you take an earlier lunch break and eat it within two hours.

Keeping it warmer for longer is not a good idea, so if you can’t consume it within two hours, then you really need to let your burrito go cold, keep it in a refrigerator, and then reheat it in a 225 degree Fahrenheit oven for around 30 minutes until the internal temperature is 165 degrees Fahrenheit. This is the best way forward if you’re prepping multiple burritos ahead of time too, and need to reheat them rather than keep them warm.

Notable mentions

• The Chilango Burrito Bible: Mind-blowing Mexican flavours
• Aluminum Foil (Pack of 6)
• Cuisinart Griddler Deluxe burrito toaster
• THERMOS Stainless steel Food Jar with Spoon

Take away message

The point we’ve been trying to make throughout this post is that you can keep burritos warm easily, so long as you do so safely! Cool ingredients should be kept separate, not just to help keep your burritos warm, but for food safety as well. Remember, wrap your burritos tight, ALWAYS use aluminium foil, and leave them for no longer than 2 hours before eating. Otherwise, you’ll need to refrigerate them and reheat them using the method in the section above instead.

So now all that’s left for us to say is make sure you follow food safety best practices and enjoy your warm burritos!