4 Levels of Breakfast Burrito: Amateur to Food Scientist

[pestle banging] [eggs sizzling]

[grinder whirring] [meat sizzling]

[upbeat music]

Hi, I'm Onika, and I'm a level-one chef.

Hi, I'm Emily, and I'm a level-two chef.

Hi, I'm Saul, I've been a professional chef

for the past 23 years.

[upbeat music]

A perfect breakfast burrito, to me,

is supposed to have sausage, cheese, eggs,

spicy salsa, homemade flour tortilla.

All the elements of it just need to mesh together

like a dance party.

But everyone has that one, two step. It's like, to the left.

I think it's not a breakfast burrito unless you have eggs

and a burrito wrap.

Beyond that, world's your oyster baby.

[sword unsheathing] [cheerful percussive music]

[chill groove music]

So in order to make breakfast burrito,

you make the tortilla.

I don't really make my own tortillas.

Why do you have to do anything from scratch at this point?

It's 2025, why are we still scratching?

The ingredients that I'm using today

to make flour tortilla, it's all-purpose flour,

a little bit of salt and pork lard.

Also, beet juice.

I'm just going to warm these up with a damp cloth

in a low oven for a few minutes.

Take a little napkin sandwich. Pop that bad boy in.

[microwave beeping]

That was the hard part.

Beet's gonna add that sweet flavor,

and our sauce is gonna be spicy.

And when you mix sweet and spicy, poof, love happen.

Look at this.

Now I'm gonna cover it with a towel,

I'm gonna let it sit for 10, 50 minutes in the fridge.

Yeah, nice.

Now I'm just gonna stretch it like pizza.

We want something thick, but not so thick.

Thin, but not so thin.

What do you mean, chef? Yeah, exactly, that's what I mean.

Okay, that looks like 12 inches.

[speaks in Spanish]

I'm nervous.

When you start seeing little bubbles,

that's when the dough is telling you, Hello, flip me.

It's a crime to use the microwave to heat up a tortilla,

because, why you do that?

[microwave beeping]

[Onika] She's ready.

That's why you have a dry taco, a dry burrito.

Don't tell anybody.

[door slamming]

And this is how it's supposed to look,

a flour tortilla make from scratch.

So hot.

Time for a salsa party.

[chill groove music]

The way I make my salsa special is, I take a regular salsa.

Okay. Could somebody open this for me?

Okay. [chuckles]

All right.

And then, heat it up,

but you have to heat it up with this guy.

I'm not measuring. The hot sauce tells me when.

With my sour cream,

I just lime it up, but I give it a kick.

I just like the way those flavors blend.

And now, my sauces are ready.

I'm about to make my tomatillo and chile de arbol salsa

for my burrito.

So we'll start with boiling some tomatillos

for five minutes.

[Emily] Just gonna cut these in half.

And then for my jalapenos, stem these.

[Saul] Chop some onions. Half an onion.

[Emily And Saul] Garlic.

I'm just gonna pop them in the broiler for 10, 15 minutes

until they're looking charred.

The reason why I'm charring these vegetables is

because it's gonna taste sweeter and smoky.

We're gonna do the peppers, chile de arbol,

and then we are going to do salt.

I'm using a mortar and pestle.

It's because I want to keep the consistency of the salsa

a little chunky.

You can put it on the blender and make it easier,

but I don't want that to be a puree.

Now I'm going to cook the sauce again,

what I call sancochar.

I also like to add a little bit of sugar,

it's going to help caramelize it,

and also gonna balance spiciness.

Now we're going to cook this for like maybe 15 minutes.

Look at the beauty. It's rich, it's soft, it's thick.

[Onika] It's sort of like chunky.

Say hello to my delicious salsa.

All right, so other than my eggs,

I have two things that are going into this burrito,

some onion and chorizo.

I find the onion just adds a nice like base note,

just a little funk.

Most of the breakfast burritos I've had in my life

that had meat had chorizo, [chuckles]

so to me, it's just like the option.

Okay, so in my filling, I'm gonna have bacon,

but I'm gonna stir fry it.

It makes the sides crispier.

[chill groove music]

[Emily] This chorizo looks nice and crispy,

my onions look cooked.

Everything smells delicious, it's coming together.

I'm gonna use this same bacon grease for these veggies.

I know these vegetables are like, what the hell is this?

It's bacon grease, girl. You came to New York for a reason.

So I'm adding spinach.

It kind of just makes everything feel more alive.

I could have chopped it up, but hey.

But let me tell you what I'm doing now.

This is the secret.

Shredded potatoes. Don't tell anybody.

Carbs get such a bad rap. It's is for energy, right?

I'm gonna be making my own chorizo, homemade chorizo.

So it's very important that you soak your peppers,

because I want this paste to be nice and creamy.

I'm using two types of peppers,

Poblano, it's a little bit smoky,

in a guajillo for color and texture.

Eight cloves of garlic.

When you add garlic and pork, forget it.

Mexican dry oregano.

If it's not Mexican oregano, you're not making chorizo,

you're making something else.

Dried thyme.

Cumin, comino.

Marjoram.

Apple cider vinegar.

I should be taking two ounces of this every morning,

I'm gonna start tomorrow.

It's not just going to cure some of the pork,

it also is going to kill any spices from those peppers,

if they're spicy.

Look how thick, rich these marinade looks.

So, I got some pork shoulder.

I'm going to start by grinding my pork.

[grinder whirring]

There you go, the last.

The key to make the best chorizo is

that the marinade needs to be in the meat

at least overnight.

So the longer you let it sit to marinade with the pork,

it's gonna be more delicious.

In order to make an omelet, you gotta break some eggs.

We're adding the Tony's. Always adding Tony's.

Some pepper.

[chill jazz music]

And guess what?

A smoked paprika,

to make it seem like the bacon is like smoked.

[Emily] I'm gonna crumble in a little queso blanco.

Now I'm going to do some of the sour cream,

a little bit of heavy cream.

I gotta make sure I break the chorizo into little pieces.

Let's melt some butter.

[Onika] We have butter.

Why use a lot of butter? Because butter good.

Oh, I almost forgot my cumin seeds.

It kind of blooms them

and brings out some nice extra like flavors.

It's time for these two to get married.

[speaks in Spanish]

And now, you gotta pour it in.

So now you just gotta let her do her thing.

For me, in a breakfast burrito,

scrambled is really the only option.

[Saul] Mix it all together,

the scrambled eggs with chorizo,

and then add some queso Chihuahua cheese.

So this is my chorizo that I'm just popping in there,

and I'm just gonna like fold this all together.

Crumble in the bacon. Veggies, potatoes.

I'm gonna put the cheddar cheese inside,

and I'm gonna put Colby on top.

All right, so my process is this. This is very specific.

I'm gonna put an avocado line down the middle.

So we're gonna start with guacamole.

It has to have some kind of creaminess,

and what's better than guacamole for that?

Some more beautiful, soft eggs.

[Emily] Eggs, chorizo.

So I'm gonna put a little extra cheese. Now for the sauce.

[Emily] Salsa verde down.

Now it's time to wrap. We have to finesse this baby, okay?

Give this a fold and a fold,

come around like this, tuck it.

Sort of like making like a Swiss roll or something.

Get in there, egg, get in there.

You have to underfill it a little,

because otherwise it will not burrit.

I did it. I think I did it.

[chuckles]

So I'm gonna cut it in half

so you can see what it looks like inside.

Look, you see the bacon, you see the spinach,

you see the bell peppers, the onions, the egg,

it's like a medley.

Let's see how we did.

[idle music]

♪ Ah, don't you want to eat that ♪

♪ I kind of do ♪

♪ Right now ♪

[Saul sighs]

Don, don, don, don.

Look how beautiful that looks. It's perfect.

And this is my breakfast burrito.

And this is my version of a breakfast burrito.

And this is my breakfast burrito.

Let's get into it.

I can't wait to dig into this.

I'm just gonna try it, see what happens.

[All] Mm.

This is delicious.

Oh, that's good.

Mm.

The egg, the bacon,

even the potato has its own place here.

You get like cumin and the warming spices

from the eggs and the chorizo, it's like a little creamy.

I mean, look at this baby. It looks amazing.

And when something looks amazing and it looks colorful

and it looks inviting, guess how it's going to be?

Don't trust people that don't eat messy.

It's the perfect protein bar,

Mexican protein bar that you can have.

It's delicious, everything's in there, it's easy to eat,

you can eat it on the go, and I'm gonna do that.

[metal thudding]

[chill groove music]

Breakfast burritos are made of eggs

with lots of tasty additions

wrapped in a flour tortilla and served hot.

Let's see how each of our three chefs made theirs.

[ominous music]

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Onika and Emily used commercial flour tortillas,

which contain glycerin,

a food additive that helps to maintain moisture,

which keeps the tortillas pliable.

Saul made red beet tortillas.

They get their gorgeous and stable color

from a class of betalaine pigments.

The beets add nutrient density to the tortilla with fiber,

manganese, iron, and potassium.

[ominous music]

[chill groove music]

Onika used store-bought salsa

with additives like calcium chloride

to help the tomatoes maintain their diced shape,

and a citric acid as a preservative.

Emily charred her tomatillos and peppers,

which developed roasted, toasted

and smoky pyrazine compounds.

The touch of acid from lime

really brightened her green salsa.

Saul dry toasted his arbol chilies, dehydrating the chilies,

and thereby concentrating the flavor and spicy capsaicin.

Capsaicin is contained in the ribs

and seeds of the chilies,

so removing them can lower the heat

and allow for some of the fruity qualities of the arbols.

[ominous music]

[chill groove music]

Onika used crispy bacon with saute bell peppers and onions.

Green bell peppers contain 2-methoxy-3-isobutylpyrazine,

which give a characteristic aroma and flavor.

Emily added sliced avocado.

Botanically, it's a fruit that's high in fat,

and green from the pigment chlorophyll.

It browns easily when cut

because of the enzyme polyphenol oxidase,

which is activated when the flesh is cut open

and exposed to oxygen.

Saul's guacamole was straightforward,

so the ingredients could really shine.

Lime juice is fruity, but mostly add intense acidity

that slows the browning process.

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[chill groove music]

Onika whisked her four eggs.

Whisks have multiple concentric looped wires

that are designed to add air and stretch proteins

as it moves through the liquid.

Whisking action unwinds the globular egg white proteins

and stretches them, so that they can catch

and coat air as it's mixed in,

adding a bit of fluffiness to her eggs.

Emily briefly sauteed her cumin seeds in the pan

before adding her eggs.

Aromatic lipid-soluble flavor molecules like cuminaldehyde

are expressed in the hot butter.

You get the aroma almost immediately.

She also added chorizo, a pork-based spicy sausage.

It's got paprika, which is red

from the presence of carotinoids like capsanthin.

Saul added heavy cream to his eggs, which adds calories

and richness, and lightens the color of his eggs.

[cheerful music]

Breakfast burritos are great for breakfast

or any time of day.

We hope you'll take some of these tips

to make your breakfast burrito as fabulous

as our three chef's versions.

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