Are Trader Joe's Iconic Carne Asada Burritos Pre-Cooked?

The grocery aisles at Trader Joe's are bursting with high-quality, ready-to-eat options. Frozen dinners can be a toss-up between healthy and unhealthy, as well as delicious or inedible. Trader Joe's is one of the rare cases where it seems to hit its mark with the majority of its convenient, ready-made options.

Among Trader Joe's most well-loved foods are the frozen carne asada burritos. The frozen food is sold in packs of two and features a heavy serving of marinated beef, onions, poblano chiles, and cilantro wrapped in a tortilla. The best part about this food is that it is essentially ready-to-eat the moment you leave the store. 

The burritos are frozen, so most folks will want to reheat them, but the carne asada inside comes precooked. This means that all it takes is a brief "cooking" period to bring it to an ideal temperature before it's ready to be enjoyed.

Beyond the obvious (it'd be pretty hard to take a bite out of a frozen burrito), Trader Joe's carne asada burritos need to be reheated correctly for two other reasons.

According to Trader Joe's, the tortillas that keep the carne asada under wraps are specifically designed to be reheated for the best taste and texture. "Where most tortillas take on a hard or even crispy texture when microwaved, after 1 to 1.5 microwave minutes, this tortilla remains soft, with a pleasant chew," reads the Trader Joe's product description. The brand promises that these tortillas will have the same pleasant, chewy texture you'd expect from a fresh tortilla.

It's also not safe to let meat defrost at inconsistent temperatures. The USDA says that letting food sit out at room temperature to thaw can leave some parts of the food in the temperature "danger zone." This is the temperature zone where bacteria are most capable of spreading and reproducing on your food. So, even though the beef inside these burritos has been pre-cooked, it still wouldn't be safe to consume without properly reheating it.

According to the packaging on the Trader Joe's carne asada burritos, the best way to reheat them is to use a microwave or a conventional oven.

The microwave is (as always) the quickest option. It should only take two to two-and-a-half minutes to bring these burritos from frozen to finished. The oven, on the other hand, takes about twenty minutes at 450 degrees Fahrenheit to come up to a safe cooking temperature. And reviewer What's Good at Trader Joe's? says that even the full 20 minutes wasn't enough time to warm the burrito's interior.

Air fryers are another favorite appliance for quickly reheating food. Wrapping a frozen burrito in aluminum foil and heating it for 15 minutes at 400 degrees Fahrenheit should be enough to reheat Trader Joe's carne asada burritos. This method lands in between the other two in terms of timing. But air fryers are well known for creating phenomenally crispy and delicious results, so it might be worth the extra time.