I Tried Chipotle\u2019s New Smoked Brisket and It\u2019s Definitely Different

Chipotle, everyone’s favorite purveyor of food-based couch-nap aids, has begun selling smoked brisket at all of its stores in North America for an unspecified limited time.

Being Men’s Health‘s lab rat for all things Chipotle, and a Kansas City Barbecue Society judge myself, I was naturally drawn to how the burrito chain would treat one of my all-time favorite protein products.

Brisket, which comes from the front section of the cow, below the chuck and above the shank, tends to be well-marbled but tough. (You’d never slice a brisket and grill it unless you wanted a jaw workout.) But its flavor is divine: deeply beefy and intensely rich.

To achieve brisket glory you must slow-cook the cut to tender perfection. Low temperatures over long periods of time break down the cut’s tough muscle fibers, which results in incredible corned beef or BBQ brisket.

In competition barbecue circles, brisket is treated with reverence. A good dusting of rub, patience, and attention. No fluff. No extra steps. And if the brisket is good enough when you pull it off the smoker, you don’t even need barbecue sauce.

Now how Chipotle does brisket is a little different.

They are, after all, Chipotle, a company founded on the concept that if you work a little harder at sourcing better ingredients and preparing those ingredients on-site, you’re not fast-food. You’re fast-casual.

Chipotle does brisket differently both in terms of how it cooks the protein, what it cooks it with, and how it’s served.

Here are the ingredients inside Chipotle’s brisket, its nutritional information, and (naturally) how it tastes.

What are the ingredients of Chipotle’s brisket?

Chipotle doesn’t have an ingredients list available for any of its products online, instead opting for this infernal navigator, so all I have to go off of is the press release.

“Mexican spices, including fire-roasted jalapenos and chipotle chili peppers. The protein is hand-chopped and finished with a new Brisket sauce made with smoky chili peppers.”

So there you have it.

What is the nutrition of Chipotle’s brisket?

According to a representative of the company, here are the nutrition numbers for a four-ounce serving. Note: This is for the brisket alone.

360 calories, 22 grams (g) protein, 6g carbohydrates (0g fiber, 5g sugar), 27g fat

So you’re consuming a nice serving of protein for a reasonable amount of calories per serving. Though, as you might have caught, there are five grams of sugar per dose. Because brisket doesn’t contain any sugar, I suspect there’s something sweet in Chipotle’s brisket sauce.

What does Chipotle’s brisket taste like?

I bought mine tucked into a burrito with white rice, corn salsa, regular salsa, cheese, roasted peppers and onions, and lettuce.

Slicing open the burrito revealed thumb-drive-sized pieces of deeply browned brisket. I picked one up, slightly disappointed by the lack of fortitude. The closest thing they resembled were burnt ends, the cubes of luscious meat cut from the outer edges of a barbecued brisket, but Chipotle’s version paled in size and character.

Then I took a bite of Chipotle’s brisket on its own. The flavor was surprising—spicy and savory at first, and then a gentle, pleasant heat on the finish. I didn’t detect anything sweet, despite the sugar in the nutritional information.

Except the texture was all off.

Instead of the super-tender, slide-your-teeth-through-it tenderness of competition BBQ brisket, Chipotle’s version tasted not tough, but charred and a touch too dry.

I realize I may have set the wrong expectations. Chipotle is not advertising BBQ brisket as meat option. But regardless, the best part of brisket was missing from my bites of Chipotle brisket: that rich, flavorful fat that butter-ifies every bite.

The culprit of this fat-robbing crime may be in how Chipotle finishes their brisket. From the press release: “…the new protein is smoked to perfect tenderness, charred on the grill…”

Now if I were to take a just-smoked barbecue brisket and cook it over high heat, I’d probably over-cook the poor thing and disappoint everyone, including myself, who has been waiting for three-quarters of a day for it to cook.

In the burrito itself, I found the brisket getting lost. Every now and then I’d detect some, and couldn’t help to feel some remorse for not ordering the steak or barbacoa options. Those meats are, well, meaty.

Semi-sleepy after my burrito I dreamt of eating barbecue brisket hot off the smoker.

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