Here's Why The Tortilla Chips At Chipotle Taste So Good

Chipotle is known for its tasty burritos, sizable salads and bowls, craveable guacamole (which costs extra at Chipotle, naturally), and, of course, its crispy tortilla chips, the perfectly salty accompaniment to any meal. If you've ever tried to eat just a few  — how did that turn out? Likely, you were unable to stop yourself from devouring the entire serving, because they are just so darn good.

What's the secret behind why Chipotle's chips are so imminently craveable? It has to do with the very simple ingredient list (just five!) and the chain's straightforward method of preparing them. The chips are comprised solely of corn masa flour and water and they're crisped up in sunflower oil. Once they're done cooking, they get tossed in salt and a healthy squirt of fresh lime juice to give them their signature tang. It's really that simple, and often, we find, in simplicity, there is so much to love.

In addition to the simplicity of Chipotle's tortilla chip recipe, which allows the quality ingredients to shine, there is also the fact that its crisps are handmade. They actually get hand-tossed with salt and lime not once, but twice, to ensure even distribution and maximum flavor.

However, in 2022, Chipotle announced it was capitalizing on the efforts of the AI-driven technology team Miso Robotics to test out a tortilla chip-making robot named Chippy. Chippy could follow the same recipe as any human cook, complete with a human-like tendency programmed in toward small variations in how much salt or lime juice was used at the end of the process. After much testing, Chippy was ready for its first real-world experience, rolling out in a restaurant in Fountain Valley, California.

Unfortunately, it didn't quite go as planned, as the ingredients gunked up the machine more often than not. "It just became way too cumbersome for the team to clean it," Chipotle's CEO Brian Niccol told Yahoo Finance. There was no word on the quality of the product; however, like with so many things, we have a feeling nothing can compare to actual handmade tortilla chips. The chain was in the testing stages in 2023 with an avocado-peeling robot called Autocado, so it hasn't given up its forays into AI entirely.

There is truly nothing like a fresh batch of Chipotle's tortilla chips — they're so crispy and light, with a satisfying crunch that doesn't feel like it's going to break a tooth. However, sometimes the chips can taste like they were sitting in the bag for, well, more than a few hours. So is it okay to ask the employees to whip up a fresh handmade batch for your order?

The answer is yes and no. It's technically allowable, and you can certainly ask, but be prepared to hear no. The tortilla chips are reportedly made twice a day, at the start of the first shift and when the second shift comes in the afternoon, between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. There is some prep involved in cooking up the tortilla chips, since they are made by hand, so if you ask for a fresh batch just for you, someone will have to stop what they're doing and get everything ready.

One potential route to get fresher chips is to bring the stale bag back and request a new one. Taste a chip right there at the counter, and if that one doesn't meet your freshness standards, you can simply ask for a refund.