A burrito is a rolled flour tortilla filled with whatever your heart desires. Fajitas are (is) grilled meat and veggies that can be eaten using tortillas as a vehicle. Flautas are thin rolled filled corn tortilla that are then deep fried.

About 600 calories. Stick with the Fajitas if you're watching what you eat.

don't know where youa re eating, but in my experience it's I find just the opposite...
A burrito is a flour tortilla filled with beans, shredded seasoned chicken or perhaps shredded beef..wrapped and topped with guacamole, pico degallo, sour cream...whatever.
A Fajita is marinated meat, grilled and served with flour tortillas, lettuce, beans, tomato, onions cilantro and cheese...or "whatever.
I get a lot less calories out of a burrito.
Linda C

I live in south Texas only 150 miles from Mexico. We eat Mexican food at least 4 or 5 times a week, sometimes more. We just love it.

A "burrito" is a large flour tortilla filled with ever you want, and then it is folded and completely enclosed. You can fill it with beans, meats, eggs, vegetables, whatever.

A "Fajita" is generally any meat, beef, pork, chicken, seafood, but it can also be just vegetables, that has been marinated and then grilled on a hot cast iron skillet with onions, garlic and green peppers. I have seen some places that grill it and then serve it, but it isn't as good as when it is grilled on the cast iron. It is then eaten, generally but not always, wrapped in a soft flour or corn tortilla and topped with sour cream, guacamole, pico de gallo, cheese, etc. It can also have refried beans added along with whatever you desire.

If you are on a diet, Mexican food isn't something that will help you lose weight!

A burrito is a package made by wrapping and folding a large flour tortilla around a combination of fillings, which are chopped up or spreadable, such as frijoles refritos, chopped meat, shredded cheese or rice, allowing the package to be a compact, fully enclosed cylinder.

Fajitas is a pile of sliced, grilled meats, vegetables amd sauces served with tortillas. The eater wraps the various ingredients and sauces in tortillas or pieces of tortilla as desired. It's a messy business. Fajitas are the Tex-Mex equivalent of Moo Shi, for those more familiar with Chinese food.

A burrito usually comes out of the kitchen fully assembled. Fajitas are eaten willy nilly however the eater sees fit. Fajitas are a messy business.

Jim

What Jim and Lt said, with this additional note. There's usually a big price difference, too, with fajitas being much more expensive than burritos.

Sally

Hey Sally,

I haven't heard from you for a while. Yes, fajitas are generally more expensive because they are usually made with meat whereas the burritos are more often made with beans, cheese, eggs! I love a good breakfast burrito!

And fajitas are messy, but then that's half the fun of eating them piled high with your favorite toppings!

Linda

Aside from breakfast burritos which I'll eat on occasion, I almost never eat burritos. They are most commonly filled with beans and rice and a little bit of meat and sometimes, other assorted items. Not necessarily messy to eat but a mess just the same. I like beans & rice OK but for what they usually charge for a burrito, 1.5 oz of meat along with rice, beans, and sour cream doesn't appeal to me.

Originally the term fajita referred specifically to skirt steak, prepared as mentioned above: sliced into strips, marinated and grilled on a cast iron steak with onions and green peppers. Of course, now it has come to mean that actual method of preparation, regardless of the kind of beef, chicken, seafood or veggies used.

Sometimes fajitas are served as "tacos al carbon" which just means the fajita meat is already rolled up in a flour tortilla for you. Sometimes you can order a fajita salad which most often means a green salad of some kind topped with fajita strips (beef or chicken).

"...messy, but then that's half the fun of eating them..."

Exactly!

Jim

That should read
... on a cast iron skillet
Not
... on a cast iron steak
Eek.

Given the fact that a burrito is pretty much anything stuffed into a big tortilla and folded/wrapped and a fajita is pretty much anything that is placed into a tortila that is then folded -- or even wrapped -- I'd say that neither has to be more expensive nor more nutritious than the other.

Joe

Joe, tell that to the restaurant!

So just order a burrito, Joe.

Jim

Thanks! I usually make fajitas (love them!) and thought I'd try burritos or enchiladas for a change and was wondering about the difference.

Sometimes, in my neck of the woods, you can get your burrito "wet" or "dry."

I think jimster has the definition down, but I would add that burritos are Mexican and fajitas are Texan. I've never found fajitas in Mexico (although they might be common in Northern Mexico, which I almost never visit), but I do find burritos in almost all Mexican cookbooks and in many parts of Mexico. Fajitas are very much a Northern dish, with respect to Mexico, and I think they are a relatively new addition - like in the late 1960s or early 1970s. I never heard of them before that period, but burritos have been around for a very long time, as least 100 years. I think they probably started in Northern Mexico (but not Texas) since flour tortillas were not common in central Mexico that long ago. I still associate flour tortillas with Northern Mexico, although it is easy to find them in Mexico City today, along with other Norteño food items.

Lars

One final post on the "Fajitas vs Burritos" post. My granddaughter ordered a burrito tonight! It was great with refried beans, beef fajitas, rolled and topped with cheese and pica de gallo! Oh boy, I almost switched dishes with her.

sushipup said: "Joe, tell that to the restaurant!".

I know what you mean. My experience is that restaurants that serve burritos (and enchiladas and frijoles refritos and etc.) have low prices. Restaurants that serve fajitas (and ceviche and memeles and maybe some Tex-Mex) have higher prices. And that's why I said "neither has to be more expensive nor more nutritious...". I did not assume that khandi wanted to know what to order at a restaurant; I was thinking that maybe she was considering the options for a homemade meal. I didn't want to discourage her from either.

As for me ordering in a restaurant or making at home, I go for both. It's not the cost or the nutrition that sways me -- it's the flavors I want.

In reading some history of fajitas, they do come off as a Texas specialty. But fajitas are basically a popularized version of street tacos that I've eaten almost everywhere I've been in Mexico and Central America. Some kind of flattened marinated beef is grilled, then cut into strips and then slippedinto a soft torilla (maize or harina) along with grilled vegetables. That's "fajitas", as I see it.

Joe

The reason for the difference in price is quite simple.
Fajitas are meat, usually beef skirt steak. Can also be pork or chicken. It's marinated, then grilled, and sliced very thin. It is served with grilled onions & peppers, often on a sizzling platter, and is eaten by placing it in a tortilla that is folded in half with the meat & vegetables placed inside, & eaten out of hand. Eating with a knife & fork is also allowed, in which case the tortilla is eaten as you would a slice of bread or a roll with your dinner.
A burrito is usually mostly beans, cheese, sometimes rice, and maybe a little meat. The filling is completely enclosed in the tortilla 'package'. Sometimes they are served with a sauce of some kind, but usually served and eaten like a sandwich.
The amount of meat in each pretty much determines why fajitas are more costly than burritos.
Burritos are lunch and fajitas are dinner.
Of course, this is Texas.

Rusty

We have a wonderful chain of taquerias between San Jose, Hollister and Salinas. But they call it a taco, soft corn tortilla prepared as Joe describes. They'll laugh you out of the place is you try to order "fajitas". It's all about the meat off the grill, and that's how you order, by the meat choice. And it's good and VERY cheap, too.

Here is a link that might be useful: Super Taqueria

Although I've been to California many times, I never ordered Mexican food there. I can always get my Tex-Mex here. But some family and friends have told me that the California Mexican food is very different from our Tex-Mex food. It's like all foods which vary so much from region to region. When I was in Italy, we drove from Germany to Positano. Wow what a change in the Italian cuisines. Northern Italy is totally different from southern Italy. The same holds for all regions. Anyway, I'll just keep eating my good old Tex-Mex.

Hi, Lt, I've been around the cooking forum for quite a while, now, but don't have time to post much.

Anyway, you're right about the difference in the regions in the U.S. for Mexican food. New Mexico has it's own style, too, as, I'm sure, does Arizona. I'm most familiar with Tex Mex, also, since that's where I live.

I just mentioned the cost difference as a kind of joke, but also because in restaurants, it usually is true that fajitas are more expensive than burritos. I don't eat meat, so the meat thing is not an issue. If I get fajitas at a restaurant, I'll get the veggie ones, which usually have portabella mushrooms, and they're more expensive than burritos, also.

I think it's great that food is open to interpretation, and can be tweaked as the chef or cook or diner wishes to tweak it.

Sally

Here, in spite of our large hispanic population, burritos are nearly always made with beans and cheese, some ground beef, few spices. They're "wet" or "dry", wet has some bland red sauce on them and a lot of orange cheese, but it's not cheddar, probably colby because that's cheap here.

Fajitas just started being available a couple of years ago and they are simply strips of beef or chicken, sometimes marinated but more often sprinkled with some "mexican" spices, and grilled with onions and peppers. Served with flour tortillas and copious amounts of sour cream.

I think maybe the Mexican owners of local restaurants are trying to appeal to the more Americanized palate and instead are appealing to no one at all.

Deep fry that burrito, add the sauce, the cheese, enough sour cream to keep a small dairy in business and it's the stomach wrenching, artery filling fat laden gut bomb called a chimachunga.

Nope, I don't order Mexican anywhere in my area, although I understand some decent Mexican food can be found in Grand Rapids.

A local hispanic grocery used to sell tamales, freshly made and hot in their "deli" and Ashley loved them, but they started getting them commercially and now they're not good.

I guess I should have gotten some Tex-Mex while I was in Texas, but I was focusing on seafood and BBQ!

Annie