Hello!! Taco Bell will always be my A1 ride or die fast food establishment. However, I also have a very soft spot in my heart for Chipotle too. I like to think that my homemade guacamole is very similar to their recipe and I found an awesome cilantro lime rice taste alike recipe on Pinterest that I love to make. I decided to try making the additional fixings for a Chipotle burrito bowl from home this past week and it turned out pretty good! Thanks to Pinterest, I found tons of recipes for black beans, fajita veggies, and steak for Johnny that all claimed to be just like Chipotle’s. Take a look at some pics and let’s discuss further:

Recipes Used:

Cilantro Lime Rice: Downshiftology

Black Beans: Dinner Then Dessert

Fajita Veggies: Downshiftology

Steak: Culinary Hill

To make my at home Chipotle burrito bowls, I cooked five different recipes that took about two and a half hours to make in total. None of these recipes were difficult to make and the most time consuming thing was chopping all of the different veggies. To start, I prepared my own personal recipe for guacamole which wouldn’t have taken long at all, but the avocados were really hard. To rectify this, I cut each avocado in half, wrapped them in paper towel, and microwaved them to soften them up. It worked like a charm even though it was a slow going process and I was able to cross it off of my “to cook” list.

Next, I started prepping the fajita veggies and black beans. Overall, I was happy with the fajita veggies but they were missing that extra something. The only seasoning this recipe called for was oregano and salt and pepper to taste. When I make it again, I plan on adding a bit of spice to give the veggies some more kick. The black beans was my biggest bugaboo from this cooking session and is the one recipe I wouldn’t make again. This recipe turned out really saucy and I didn’t care for the amount of onions it called for. I almost think I would be better off cooking the beans in vegetable broth along with the seasoning so I will be winging it the next time I have a taste for Chipotle taste alikes.

The final steps in my cookathon was making the rice and steak. As always, the cilantro lime rice turned out delicious and was easily the best copycat recipe out of all of them. It definitely helped invoke all of the Chipotle vibes and I really think it tastes exactly like theirs. This was my first time ever cooking steak and I can’t say if it was a true Chipotle taste alike or not as a vegetarian, but Johnny loved it and that’s good enough for me! The only thing that I would do differently about the steak is marinate it longer. I let mine sit for over an hour and we both felt that it could benefit from some more time. I definitely breathed a sigh of relief when Johnny gave me his stamp of approval, though, because I had no idea how it would turn out!

The finishing touches on my burrito bowl was adding lettuce, cheese, sour cream, and salsa on top. Even though I wasn’t wowed by the black beans, I was pleased with everything else and it was fun to try and make recipes from one of my favorite eateries from scratch!

What is your favorite copycat recipe? What is your favorite fast food spot? I want to hear from all of you, so leave me a comment and let’s chat! Much love. -Sarah