Enchiladas vs burritos mostly comes down to what the filling is wrapped in and whether anything gets poured on top. An enchilada rolls its filling in a corn tortilla covered in chile sauce and ends up on a plate with a fork. A burrito gets a large flour tortilla and goes in your hand.
Enchiladas suit a seated dinner. Burritos are what you eat on the move. The wet burrito, a flour burrito smothered in enchilada sauce, sits somewhere between them on Mexican and Tex-Mex menus.
Most people assume the enchiladas are the lighter pick, and that isn’t how the numbers play out. USDA FoodData Central (2024) lists a regular beef-and-cheese burrito (190 g) at about 507 calories, while USDA data puts two beef-and-cheese enchiladas at about 646.
What Is the Difference Between Enchiladas and Burritos?
Corn tortilla plus chile sauce on top makes an enchilada. A burrito goes the other direction, with a large flour tortilla, folded ends and usually nothing poured over it.
Those two facts, plus how you eat the thing, do most of the separating. Fillings and serving temperature mostly follow from there.
| Feature | Enchiladas | Burritos |
|---|---|---|
| Tortilla | Small corn tortilla | Large flour tortilla, 10 to 12 inches |
| Sauce | Chile sauce over the top | Optional, salsa usually on the side |
| Assembly | Softened, filled, rolled, sauced, usually baked | Warmed, filled, ends folded, rolled tight |
| Fillings | Cheese, shredded chicken or beef, beans | Rice, beans, meat, cheese, salsa, guacamole |
| How it is eaten | Plated, with a fork and knife | By hand, often wrapped in foil |
The names carry clues. Enchilada comes from the Spanish verb enchilar, which means to season with chili (Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary), so the sauce is baked right into the word.
Burrito translates as little donkey. The usual explanation is that a wrapped bundle of mixed fillings looks like a pack animal’s load.
Portions split the same way. Enchiladas come two or three to a plate, and one burrito is a full serving all by itself.
Why Enchiladas Use Corn Tortillas and Burritos Use Flour
Corn holds up to a sauce bath and a trip through the oven. Flour folds into a sealed cylinder without tearing.
Enchilada tortillas are small rounds, roughly 5 to 6 inches, with a slightly grainy bite. Burrito tortillas run bigger. Mission Foods’ burrito size is 10 inches, and extra-large rounds of 10 to 12 inches are also sold.
Corn tortillas start as nixtamal, dried corn steeped in hot water with calcium hydroxide (lime) and washed to strip most of the outer hull. The dough ground from it, masa, gives the tortilla its structure.
That structure has a ceiling. Chef Minerva Orduño Rincón wrote in The Arizona Republic (2021) that corn tortillas lack the flexibility and holding power a burrito needs.
The rule is a default, not a law. Tex-Mex kitchens do roll enchiladas in flour tortillas, and Old El Paso’s own enchilada recipe calls for 6-inch flour tortillas.
Thickness and pliability vary by brand, so it pays to read up on tortilla brands that hold up in enchiladas before the first batch.
How Sauce Decides Whether You Need a Fork
Chile sauce is part of what makes an enchilada an enchilada. Oxford and Merriam-Webster both define the dish as a filled tortilla covered in sauce. A burrito has no such requirement and often arrives dry.
Common enchilada sauces
Red sauce starts with dried guajillo and ancho chiles, toasted or soaked, then blended with garlic and onion. Green is a tomatillo-based salsa verde.
Enchiladas served in mole are called enmoladas. Enchiladas suizas wear a cream-based sauce, often salsa verde blended with Mexican crema, under melted cheese.
Green sauce swaps the dried chiles for tomatillos. The two cook and taste differently enough that a side-by-side look at how red and green enchilada sauces differ is worth the read.
Canned sauce is the shortcut most US kitchens take. Old El Paso’s mild red lists water, tomato puree and modified corn starch first, and chili pepper only appears after sugar and salt.
A quarter cup carries 290 mg of sodium (13% of the daily value), and a 10-ounce can holds 4.5 servings, or roughly 1,300 mg per can (Old El Paso label).
Anyone buying canned should compare labels, and a ranked list of store-bought enchilada sauces shortens that job.
Why burritos can be eaten by hand
Sealed ends and a dry exterior. That’s the whole mechanism.
A burrito is a flour tortilla wrapped into a closed cylinder, so the filling stays in and the outside stays clean. Salsa and sour cream go inside or on the side, and guacamole usually does the same.
Folded ends and no sauce on top do the sealing, and foil handles transport.
Enchiladas can’t manage that. Under all that sauce they belong on a plate, with a knife and fork.
How Enchiladas and Burritos Are Assembled
An enchilada gets softened, filled, rolled, sauced and baked. The burrito is simpler. Warm the tortilla, fill it, fold the ends and wrap it up.
Enchiladas usually hold cheese, shredded chicken, ground beef or beans, and get finished with cheese, sour cream, onion, avocado, salsa or cilantro. Burritos tend toward rice, beans, meat and cheese, with salsa, sour cream and guacamole added.
Steps for enchiladas
Old El Paso’s published beef enchilada recipe makes 10 enchiladas from 2 cans of sauce and 1 1/2 cups of cheese. It uses 6-inch flour tortillas, so it skips the softening step that corn tortillas need. The steps below follow its order and add that step.
- Heat the oven to 375 degrees F and grease a 13×9-inch baking dish.
- If you are using corn tortillas, soften each one by dipping it in warm sauce or frying it briefly in hot oil.
- Spoon in the filling, roll the tortilla and set it seam side down in the dish.
- Pour the remaining sauce over the rolls and cover with shredded cheese.
- Bake 15 to 20 minutes, until the cheese melts and the tray is hot.
Seam side down keeps each roll closed. If yours split or crack, a closer look at rolling enchiladas without tearing the tortilla covers the fixes.
Tortillas left to soak too long turn the tray soggy. There are specific fixes for keeping a baked tray from going soggy.
Steps for burritos
No oven needed here.
- Warm the flour tortilla on a dry griddle or in the microwave until it turns pliable.
- Lay the fillings in a strip across the lower middle, leaving a clear border on every side.
- Fold the two sides in over the filling.
- Roll from the bottom edge, keeping it tight, then wrap in foil or sear the seam side on a griddle.
Mission Foods describes its 10-inch burrito tortilla as sized for overstuffed burritos.
The usual failure is overfilling. Once the filling reaches the edges, the ends won’t fold shut and the seam splits.
Where Each Dish Comes From and How It Varies by Region
Enchiladas have a paper trail going back to the 1800s. The burrito’s origin is still argued over. Regional enchiladas change with the sauce, while regional burritos change with size and fillings.
Enchilada history and regional versions
The dish appears in El Cocinero Mexicano (1831) and in Mariano Galván Rivera’s Diccionario de Cocina (1845).
Etymonline finds the English word recorded in 1861 as “tortillas enchiladas” and attested in 1876. The earliest street version was a corn tortilla dipped in chile sauce and eaten without any filling.
In Michoacán, placeras are filled with vegetables and poultry. Poblanas use chicken and poblano peppers under Oaxaca cheese. Over in San Luis Potosí, potosinas work the chile into the masa itself, and enfrijoladas and entomatadas swap the chile for a refried bean sauce or a tomato sauce.
Texas took the dish somewhere else. CraveDFW (2026) describes the Dallas chili gravy enchilada as its own plate: corn tortillas rolled around sharp cheddar and covered in a flour-thickened gravy of beef stock, cumin and chile powder.
Burrito history and the origin dispute
Nobody agrees on where it started.
One story puts it in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, where a vendor named Juan Méndez wrapped tacos in flour tortillas during the Mexican Revolution (1910 to 1921). A competing version has an unnamed vendor feeding schoolchildren in the 1940s.
Sonora has its own claim. Flour tortillas traveled better on a donkey, and the state grows wheat, which is why historian Gustavo Arellano calls this the most plausible theory (VinePair, 2024).
Arellano also told KQED (2023) that very few origin stories in Mexican food are beyond dispute. Wikipedia’s burrito entry says the precise origin of the modern burrito is not known, and notes that central and southern Mexico still call a flour-tortilla burrito a taco de harina.
The early versions were much smaller, with one or two fillings. They grew in Southern California after migrant workers arrived in the early 1900s (VinePair, 2024).
Mission and California burrito styles
Size, not ingredients, defines a Mission burrito. Two San Francisco taquerias claim to have started it, and both claims involve hungry firefighters.
El Faro credits owner Febronio Ontiveros and dates it to September 1961. La Cumbre points to Micaela Duran joining two flour tortillas, per Miguel Jara and Francisco Hernandez as told to KQED, and the taqueria dates its first big burrito to September 29, 1969.
Even the opening dates differ. Mission Local dates the Durans’ Valencia Street meat market to 1967, while VinePair says the restaurant itself did not open until 1969.
The label itself is contested. Miguel Jara of La Taqueria told KQED he does not know what a Mission-style burrito is, and Francisco Hernandez of El Metate says he makes his the way it is made in Guanajuato.
Chipotle carried the big, foil-wrapped format across the US in the mid-1990s, according to Arellano.
The California burrito is San Diego’s version, and it puts french fries where rice and beans would go, usually with carne asada.
Wet Burritos, Flour Enchiladas and Other Cases That Break the Rules
Judge a dish by its tortilla and its sauce together, never by the menu name alone.
| Dish | Tortilla | Sauce on top | Ends |
|---|---|---|---|
| Enchilada | Corn | Yes | Open, rolled |
| Wet burrito | Flour | Yes | Sealed |
| Plain burrito | Flour | No | Sealed |
A wet burrito is a sealed flour-tortilla burrito covered in enchilada sauce and melted cheese, eaten with a fork. It also goes by smothered burrito or enchilada-style burrito (Wikipedia).
Rolled enchiladas are more common in Mexico, while New Mexico is known for a layered style (Etymonline). The corn tortillas are fried flat, then stacked with red or green sauce, chopped onion and shredded cheese, often with a fried egg on top (Wikipedia).
Some Tex-Mex kitchens roll flour tortillas instead. Open ends plus sauce on top make it an enchilada, whatever the grain.
The wet burrito’s origin is as unsettled as the plain burrito’s. Beltline Bar in Grand Rapids, Michigan says it created the dish in 1966.
Other claimants include Little Mexico Cafe and El Sombrero in the same city, plus Los Angeles and Texas (Grand Rapids LocalWiki; VinePair, 2024). The LocalWiki entry also cites a 1983 interview in which a former Beltline owner said Mexican food was not on the menu until 1973. Michigan writer Michael Douma’s 2022 archive search found 1976 as the earliest newspaper mention of the term, though he says further research is needed.
How Do the Calories in Enchiladas and Burritos Compare?
One beef-and-cheese enchilada runs about 323 calories, a regular beef-and-cheese burrito about 507 and a large one about 761, so a two-enchilada plate lands between the two burritos and a three-enchilada plate lands above both.
The figures behind that, for anyone who wants them:
- A cheese-and-beef enchilada comes to 323 calories each, at about 192 g (USDA data)
- A regular beef-and-cheese burrito (190 g) is about 507 calories at 267 per 100 g (USDA FoodData Central, FNDDS, published October 2024)
- The large version of that burrito, 285 g, is about 761 calories
- Chipotle’s burrito tortilla alone is 320 calories, per its published nutrition information
Most comparison pages call enchiladas the lighter dish. That holds per piece, and it flips once the plate carries two or three of them.
Portion weight drives the whole comparison. A homemade enchilada in a 6-inch corn tortilla weighs less than the USDA record, and a burrito built in a 10-inch tortilla weighs less than a large one.
The tortilla sets the burrito’s floor. Chipotle’s 320 calories arrive before any filling, and a calorie calculator for Chipotle orders shows how quickly the rice, beans and protein pile on.
Enchilada totals climb through cheese, sour cream and cream-based sauces. The answer to whether a plate of enchiladas counts as a healthy meal depends more on those toppings than on the corn tortilla.
Choosing Between Enchiladas and Burritos by Situation
Burritos for anything you eat standing up, enchiladas for the table. If you want a bit of both, order a wet burrito.
For eating on the move, the burrito wins because it survives a bag and needs no utensils. When you’re feeding a table, enchiladas can be assembled ahead in one pan and baked once guests sit down.
Want sauce and a big filling together? Go with the wet burrito, and order it by that name so the kitchen doesn’t send out a dry one. And if you’re counting calories, compare plates rather than dish names.
Cooking for a table is easier with a step-by-step guide to making enchiladas that covers sauce, filling and bake time.
Enchilada trays scale with the pan. With burritos you’re rolling one wrap at a time.
Enchiladas vs Burritos FAQ
Is a chimichanga just a fried burrito?
Yes. A chimichanga is a burrito deep-fried until crisp, then topped with salsa and cheese (VinePair, 2024).
Tucson’s El Charro Cafe and Phoenix’s Macayo’s Mexican Kitchen both claim to have invented it.
What is a Taco Bell Enchirito?
Taco Bell’s take on the enchilada-burrito crossover was the Enchirito, a flour tortilla filled with seasoned beef, beans and diced onions, covered in red sauce and cheddar, and served with a plastic spork.
Taco Bell dropped it in 2013, then brought it back for limited runs in November 2022, May 2023 and again from June 18 to July 22, 2026.
Are enchiladas or burritos gluten-free?
Enchiladas often are, and burritos usually are not. Plain corn tortillas contain no wheat, while flour tortillas are made from it.
Sauces can break the pattern, since a Tex-Mex chili gravy is thickened with flour. A gluten-free label means under 20 parts per million of gluten, per the FDA.
Which is spicier, an enchilada or a burrito?
Neither, by definition. Heat comes from the chile in the sauce or salsa, so a mild red enchilada sauce can be gentler than a burrito loaded with hot salsa, and the reverse.
Ask for the sauce’s heat level, not the dish.
How do you reheat leftover enchiladas?
Cover the dish and reheat it in the oven or microwave until the center reaches 165 degrees F on a food thermometer, the USDA FSIS standard for leftovers.
Covering keeps moisture in, and this guide to reheating enchiladas gives the full method.
Can you freeze burritos and enchiladas?
Yes. The USDA says food held at 0 degrees F stays safe indefinitely, though quality drops with long storage.
Wrap burritos one by one, and see freezing enchiladas for the tray version.
What goes in a breakfast burrito?
Scrambled eggs anchor it, along with cheese and potatoes, and most versions add bacon, ham or sausage.
New Mexico claims the style, and Santa Fe’s Tia Sophia’s says it was the first to put “breakfast burrito” on a menu, in 1975. Its owner has since said his father did not invent the dish itself (Santa Fe New Mexican, 2022).
How is a burrito bowl different from a burrito?
Take the tortilla away and you’ve got a burrito bowl, which gets eaten with a fork.
USDA FoodData Central (2024) lists a beef or pork bowl at 213 calories per 100 g against 267 for a beef-and-cheese burrito, but the bowl item weighs 225 g, so one serving lands near 479 calories.
How to Tell Which Dish a Menu Means
When you’re sorting enchiladas vs burritos on a menu, start with how the ends are finished, open or sealed.
Ends lead because both corn and flour tortillas appear in enchiladas, and sauce tops enchiladas and wet burritos alike. After that, look at the tortilla, corn or flour, and then at whether sauce sits on top or is absent.
The sequence fails on hybrids built to blur the line. Taco Bell’s original 1970s Enchirito used a corn tortilla, and the version relaunched around 2000 used flour (Wikipedia, citing Los Angeles Times coverage), so a tortilla check alone files one product under both names.
Order by construction, and treat a menu name as a hint rather than a definition.
