There Is No Excuse For Putting Rice In Your Burrito

Make a pilgrimage to La Taqueria in San Francisco — widely regarded as the home of America's best tacos and burritos — and you'll notice that rice has no place in their burritos. Head down to Southern California and Arizona and you'll discover that many of the burritos in that part of the country don't include rice, either. And you know what? They're right!

Rice has no place in a burrito. The purpose of a burrito is to envelop meats, beans, vegetables, and sauces like guac or salsa inside a warm tortilla. Rice is just filler, and it's completely unnecessary. "Rice dulls the flavor of the other ingredients, adds unnecessary calories and makes the burrito messier to eat," San Francisco Chronicle food critic Michael Bauer recently told SFGate, and we agree wholeheartedly.

Rice has no place in a burrito from a logical standpoint as well. Those gigantic tortillas function as the bread holding the burrito together, and provide all the starch you need. Would you ever consider adding rice to, say, a turkey sandwich? Or how about a Mexican torta? Or how about to the burrito's closest relative, the taco? Of course not, because that would make no sense. Tacos, like burritos, are perfectly balanced just the way they are (and burritos are filling enough without any excess carbs), and they don't benefit in any way from the addition of rice.

The next time you head to your local burrito shop, order yours without the rice. It'll be the right thing to do. To learn where to find the 50 best burritos in America, click here.