Mexican food is among America’s top three favorite foods and is available in restaurants from California to Maine and everywhere in between. Variety abounds! Types of Mexican eateries range from independent and authentic to the more typical moderately priced sit-down chains, such as Chevys, Don Pablos, Chi-Chi’s, Pepe’s, and On the Border Mexican Grill & Cantina. You’ll also see upscale sit-down Mexican restaurants. These days, most Mexican restaurants are boasting about the freshness of their food.
Then there are fast-food Mexican restaurants, with Taco Bell leading the pack. And depending on where you live, you may also find other chains: Del Taco, El Pollo Loco, or Taco John’s.
Finally, there is a newer breed of so-called “fast casual” Mexican chains growing in popularity, including Baja Fresh, Chipotle, Qdoba Mexican Grill, Moe’s Southwest Grill, and Rubios Fresh Mexican Grill. Yes, these are in the walk-up-and-order genre of restaurants where you’ll pick your own fixings from a fixings bar or you’ll instruct the server on how to assemble your menu item. These restaurants are great for healthier eating because you can pile on the healthier items and avoid the unhealthy ones.
On the Menu
Mexican food in the United States has a rich history. Historically, most Mexican restaurants served a sub-cuisine known as Tex-Mex—an Americanized version of a few items from Mexico’s diverse culinary landscape. Tex-Mex dishes include nachos, tacos, burritos, and chimichangas. But over the past decade or so, things have changed. Traditional Mexican herbs and spices are now more readily available in the U.S. and chefs are increasingly exploring and using these bold flavors. Plus, Mexican Americans, who make up a large and growing percentage of the U.S. population and now live all over the country, have influenced menus and helped to shape a new culinary landscape that embraces the complexities of Mexico’s various regional cuisines.
The result is a wide variety of Mexican restaurants, which, naturally, offer diverse menus. Specific dishes may vary, but Mexican cuisine typically features five essential ingredients: rice, corn, beans, tomatoes, and a wide array of chilies. The good news is that these ingredients are healthy, at least before being prepared. They are all high in vitamins and minerals and low in fat. Plus, spicy toppings—red or green salsa, pico de gallo, and chilies—can increase your vegetable count and add zip for nearly zero calories.
There’s even more good news: in Mexican cuisine, there’s minimal focus on animal protein compared to a typical American meal. Compare the small quantity of protein, 1–2 ounces, in one enchilada to the familiar 8- or 10-ounce (or more) steak served in most steakhouses. This has its roots in the old Mexican practice of making a small amount of meat feed many mouths (a common thread in many ethnic cuisines). Soft tacos filled with beans and vegetables, chicken enchiladas, grilled fajitas, and fresh salads are just a few of the healthier dishes you can choose from. But don’t get carried away. The health attributes of traditional Mexican ingredients can be quickly squashed if the ingredients are fried, refried, or smothered with cheese or sour cream, as they often are in Mexican cuisine. Think of dishes such as loaded nachos, quesadillas, chimichangas, and Mexican salads served in the fried tortilla bowl. You should probably pass on these high-fat and calorie-rich dishes.
Fat is clearly the villain in Mexican cuisine. There are many fried items on Mexican menus, and many Mexican recipes traditionally call for the use of lard or animal fat drippings. Animal fat contains cholesterol and saturated fat. Due to pressure to improve the healthiness of their foods, large restaurant chains have switched to using healthier liquid oils.
Mexican food can also be high in sodium. Salt is used in many recipes and sauces, and a lot of the prep work, such as spicing the meats, is done in advance. This makes it difficult to request that salt be omitted. However, if you order a dish such as grilled chicken, fish, or beef in an upscale Mexican restaurant, you might be successful with a hold-the-salt request, as these restaurants often cook from scratch. Chips, salsa, and large amounts of cheese can also contribute to raising the sodium level of a dish or meal. Due to its zesty taste, green or red salsa can be used to add punch to salads or chicken and fish dishes. Tomato-based salsa is fine to use in small amounts, like 2 tablespoons, without counting.
Portion sizes can be quite large and your carbohydrate count can escalate quickly with tortillas, beans, rice, and those hard-to-resist chips. The best healthy eating strategies to use at Mexican restaurants include watching your portions, saying no to high-fat toppings, such as cheese and sour cream, and avoiding anything deep-fried.
The Menu Profile
Drinks
If you are in a sit-down restaurant, your server will likely try to entice you with a knock-you-on-your-behind margarita. Beware! Margaritas are often served in super-sized portions and are quite calorie-dense. One 8-ounce Margarita can run 500 calories. This drink isn’t just loaded with a high dose of tequila, it also typically contains a hefty dose of simple syrup (aka sugar water) and lime juice. If the drink is created from scratch by a bartender rather than from a sugar-dense mix, request that it be made without the simple syrup to save some calories and carbohydrate. Skip the frozen fruit margaritas, which are loaded with even more carbohydrate. If you’re watching your blood pressure, don’t order salt on the rim. If you choose to have an alcoholic beverage, a healthier bet is a light beer or a glass of wine.
Several nonalcoholic beverages are also available in Mexican restaurants. If you’re at a traditional Mexican restaurant, horchata may be on the menu. This is a cinnamon-rice milk that can have up to 1/4 cup of sugar per serving. Yikes! You may also find a variety of fruit-based drinks; licuados (smoothies) and aqua frescas (fruit juice blends) are popular. It’s best to avoid all of these high-sugar beverages. Learn more about all kinds of beverages in Chapter 9.
Appetizers
The first foods to greet you in a sit-down Mexican restaurant are usually chips and salsa. It’s easy to empty the basket before you know it and have it quickly refilled. Remember, tortilla chips are deep-fried and often salted (to boost the number of margaritas or beers you’ll sip). Exercise the utmost willpower by promising yourself that you’ll limit the number of chips you eat. Easier yet, ask the waitperson not to bring you chips and salsa.
Salsa is the winning half of the chips-and-salsa partnership. Salsa, either red or green, is usually made with tomatoes, onions, garlic, chilies, cilantro, and salt. It has almost no fat and very few calories. Best yet, it’s a topping with plenty of pizzazz and flavor. Request extra salsa to use on the salads or entrées you order. Most restaurants will gladly oblige. Pico de gallo, often found on Mexican menus, is basically just chopped tomatoes, onions, and cilantro and can be used similarly to salsa. Guacamole is the other common partner to chips. Guacamole has a healthy mix of ingredients, but it is high in fat and calories. Yes, there’s a good bit of fat in avocados, albeit a good bit of the healthy monounsaturated fat. Limit the amount of guacamole you eat so you don’t overdo it on calories and fat before your meal even arrives.
Beyond chips and dips, Mexican appetizers offer a few healthy choices, but there are also many high-fat, fried items. The healthier choices are soups and salads or ceviche, a raw fish appetizer popular at upscale restaurants. Empanadas, savory turnovers filled with meat or vegetables, can be an acceptable appetizer option when they are baked instead of fried. The appetizers to avoid or limit are nachos, chili con queso, queso fundido, flautas, and quesadillas, which often combine at least two high-fat foods and often have more calories than any other foods on the menu. If your dining partners order high-fat appetizers, start with a cup of soup or salad.
Soups and Salads
Five types of soups or stews are frequent finds at Mexican restaurants: chili, tortilla soup, black bean soup, sopa de fideo, and posole. They’re all typically broth or tomato-based soups, making them healthier choices than the cream-based soups. These soups often feature fiber-rich beans, which makes them healthy and filling. Mexican soups are certainly a better option than chips or most other appetizers you’ll find on the menu; however they can be high in sodium. Also be mindful of portion sizes. Servings are generally quite large, even when split, so you’ll want to keep a close eye on your overall food intake.
A variety of salads are available. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that a salad is always healthy. Take the Quesadilla Explosion Salad at Chili’s, which will set you back 1440 calories. You are better off ordering the Grilled Chicken Salad from the lighter choices menu at Chili’s, which has a much more respectable 440 calories. Always ask that the tortilla shell in which some Mexican restaurants serve their salads be left in the kitchen. At Qdoba, the crunchy tortilla bowl will cost you 465 calories, 22 grams of fat, 48 grams of carbohydrate, and 525 milligrams of sodium before you even put anything in it!
At fast casual restaurants like Qdobo or Chipotle, a salad can be one of the healthier options on the menu if you order with care and specificity. That’s in part because the salads at these restaurants are relatively small. At this breed of restaurants, take advantage of watching your salad being made. Choose exactly what you want on it and control how much of each ingredient is being loaded on by speaking up. These restaurants can be a great place to grab a healthy salad. Consider a salad at Chipotle. If you start with lettuce, chicken, black beans, fajita vegetables, and fresh tomato salsa, you have a very healthy meal with 350 calories, 9 grams of fat, and 32 grams of carbohydrate. The only downside is the sodium count at just over 1200 milligrams. You may be tempted to add more toppings to your salad, but think twice. Little changes can make a big difference. For example, if you add sour cream, cheese, and guacamole, the salad skyrockets to 735 calories, 42 grams of fat, 42 grams of carbohydrate, and 1875 milligrams of sodium.
At traditional or fine dining Mexican restaurants, salads likely aren’t a major focus of the menu. You may find a salad composed of greens, jicama, avocado, and lime. Or you may find a Nopalitos salad: a popular Mexican salad made with strips of the prickly pear cactus. These are all healthy options and can be a great low-calorie way to start your meal. Refer to Chapter 15 for more tips on ordering a healthy salad.
Entrées
Mexican entrées frequently include beans, tortillas (corn or flour), lettuce, tomatoes, onions, and chilies. All are healthy ingredients. Keep them in mind as you decide what to order. On the flip side, many high-fat and high-calorie ingredients are also found in Mexican entrées—cheese, sour cream, avocado, and chorizo (Mexican sausage). You’ll want to watch out for these items no matter what you order.
Chicken, beef, fish, or vegetarian soft tacos are often your best option for an entrée. Chipotle now offers a vegan option (spiced and shredded tofu), which they call sofritas. Carnitas—a shredded and seasoned pork—can be a good taco filling as well, but it’s often a bit higher in fat and sodium than other protein options. Enchiladas can be good choices too, as long as they aren’t stuffed or topped with loads of cheese and sour cream. Burritos can be good choices as well, but beware of the portion sizes. Some restaurants brag about serving burritos as big as your head. For example, at Taco Bell, the Steak Burrito Supreme has 400 calories, while the Steak Cantina Burrito has 750 calories. What’s the difference? Mostly the serving size. The Cantina Burrito is nearly twice the size of the Burrito Supreme, plus it adds rice and guacamole. Rather than ordering something as big as your head, use your head to choose a smaller version of a dish or plan to share or take home half of a large meal.
Chimichangas are similar to burritos but they are deep-fried and doused in cheese. Avoid these. And don’t be deceived by quesadillas’ flat profile. They are loaded with cheese, often making them among the highest calorie options on Mexican menus. The quesadilla options at Taco Bell and Qdoba are both around 950 calories!
Fajitas are a healthy option, and you can choose from chicken, shrimp, beef, or a combination of meats as fillings. One order often is enough for two, so definitely plan to share or take home half. Another ordering trick with fajitas is to request extra vegetables and less meat. This is a great way to get in an extra serving of vegetables.
If you’re worried that all of the entrées on a particular menu will break the calorie bank, you can create your own entrée by ordering à la carte. The ability to order à la carte is a big perk of Mexican restaurants. A bowl of chili con carne (hold the cheese, but load on the onions) is a good choice to pair with a side salad. A single chicken enchilada or bean burrito, paired with a dinner salad, will enable you to avoid the high-fat accompaniments of Mexican cuisine. Steer clear of combination plates unless you plan to share, as they offer too much food and too many foods that should be avoided.
At upscale Mexican restaurants, you’ll often find a grilled steak, chicken, or fish dish served with a sauce, such as a complex mole (pronounced mo–-lay). There are dozens of mole variations that differ based on region and family recipes, but each kind of mole typically has at least 20 different ingredients, often including chocolate, nuts, and various spices. Moles are very flavorful and are a healthier choice than any cheese- or cream-based topping.
You’ll also find a wider variety of vegetables, beyond the fajita-style blend, at upscale Mexican restaurants; look for delectable mushrooms, squashes, and jicama. Fruit is often used more frequently in these restaurants too, often in toppings such as mango- and papaya-based salsas and garnishes. Finally, herbs, such as garlic and cilantro, are heavily used, offering lots of flavor for next to no calories.
Of course, along with Mexican dinners—whether at fast-food or fine dining restaurants—come starches, namely Mexican rice and beans. Beans (usually pinto, kidney, or black beans) are high in vitamins, minerals, and soluble fiber, which means that they may allow your blood glucose to rise a bit more slowly and perhaps not as high. This makes them a great carbohydrate side to accompany your meal. However, if the beans are fried in lard, just say no. While many traditional Mexican restaurants still use lard, most fast-food and fast casual restaurants use a healthier vegetable oil. Either way, it’s a better idea to skip the refried beans and order a side of black beans, instead.
Desserts
The list of desserts in Mexican restaurants often involves fried dough. For example, sopapillas and churros are both deep-fried dough topped off with a heavy dose of something sugary: honey, sugar, or chocolate. They are decadent, high-fat, high-sugar disasters and they should be avoided. Flan, an egg custard with caramel topping, is another familiar Mexican dessert and is not a bad choice, but it should be avoided if you’re watching your cholesterol numbers. Another decent choice is the pastel de tres leches, a traditional sponge cake that is soaked in three types of milk. It’s best to skip the fried ice cream, which often is a bowl of ice cream topped with fried coconut and chocolate. Think about splitting whatever dessert you order to minimize your carbohydrate and fat intake. If you want something nearly calorie-free to top off your meal, opt for a flavorful cup of Mexican coffee.
Nutrition Snapshot
Green-Flag Words
Ingredients:
• Avocado
• Black beans, pinto beans
• Chilies
• Enchilada sauce
• Lettuce, tomatoes, onions
• Mole sauce
• Salsa (green or red)
• Shredded spicy chicken, beef, or ground beef
• Soft tortilla (corn or flour)
Cooking Methods/Menu Descriptions:
• Burritos
• Fajitas (best to share)
• Grilled
• Guacamole
• Marinated
• Served with spicy tomato sauce
• Simmered
• Soft tacos
• Wrapped in a soft tortilla
• Arroz con pollo
• Tamales
• Tostadas
At the Table:
• Salsa
Red-Flag Words
Ingredients:
• Bacon
• Black olives
• Cheese (any style: topped, stuffed, covered, shredded)
• Chorizo (Mexican sausage)
• Sour cream
Cooking Methods/Menu Descriptions:
• Cheese quesadillas
• Cheese sauce
• Chili con queso
• Chimichangas
• Cream sauce
• Crispy
• Fried or deep-fried
• Layered with refried beans
• Nachos with cheese
• Queso fundido
• Served in a tortilla shell
• Served over tortilla or nacho chips
• Tacos
At the Table:
• Sour cream
• Tortilla chips
Healthy Eating Tips and Tactics
• Avoid the chips on the table. They can be addicting, especially when your waitperson is adept at refilling a bottomless basket. Before you know it, you can easily eat more than 500 calories. Avoid them altogether by asking your server not to bring them. Or if your dining partner(s) isn’t game for that plan, just put a small portion of chips on your plate. Then work to keep the basket out of arm’s reach.
• Choose grilled items when you can. Most Mexican restaurants have healthier grilled items, including fajitas and fish, chicken, or beef dishes. Add flavor to these dishes with salsas and grilled vegetables.
• Take advantage of ordering à la carte. Choose from appetizers and side dishes to control your portions and make your own healthy, balanced meal.
• Be careful with guacamole. It’s certainly healthier than a cheese dip, but its calories can add up quickly.
• Drink wisely. A typical margarita is loaded with sugar and calories, and drinking alcohol has a tendency to make people worry less about eating a healthy meal. Choose sparkling water with fresh lime instead. If you want alcohol, a light beer or skinny margarita, available in some restaurants, is a better choice.
Get It Your Way
• Choose soft tacos instead of hard tacos. Choose corn tortillas instead of flour tortillas because corn is a whole grain.
• Hold the guacamole, cheese, and sour cream or ask for them on the side.
• Request that the kitchen avoid topping your dish with cheese. Or at least ask them to only give you a light helping.
• Substitute black beans (if available) for refried beans to limit fat.
• Ask for extra salsa, tomatoes, lettuce, and onion to use as low-calorie, flavorful toppings.
• Order salads without the fried tortilla shell or fried tortilla strips. You can replace the fried tortilla with a warmed, soft tortilla if you want to.
Tips and Tactics to Help Kids Eat Healthy
• Avoid the chips. If chips are the first thing to hit the table, your child will likely fill up on them and be less interested in the healthier options that are to come. Remember, you’re the parent. It’s your job to make these executive decisions.
• Order à la carte. Sometimes, kids’ meals aren’t available at Mexican restaurants. This is a good thing! Go to the à la carte section of the menu and get creative. Choose a soft taco, a side order of rice and beans, and perhaps some guacamole for a colorful, flavorful, nourishing meal.
• Share a small portion. If a healthy food is new to your child, give them just a small portion to taste so they aren’t overwhelmed. For example, order black beans for yourself, then share just a few beans with your child so they can experience the flavor without feeling pressured to eat the whole dish if they don’t like it.
• Be bold. Sometimes kids like a little kick with their meal! Order a variety of salsas, ranging from mild to medium, and let your child experiment by using them as dips or toppings. You know they love dipping.
Tips and Tactics for Gluten-Free Eating
• Many traditional Mexican foods prepared from scratch are gluten-free. Ask about the preparation of mole sauce, enchiladas, and cheese sauces to make sure they are not contaminated by gluten.
• Flour tortillas and dishes made with flour tortillas such as burritos, chimichangas, and quesadillas, are not gluten-free. Many other Mexican dishes are deep-fried and contain wheat flour.
• Ask if the restaurant makes their corn tortilla chips on site or orders them from a food vendor. Corn tortillas fried at the restaurant in dedicated fryers are gluten-free. If provided by a vendor, ask your sever if the package says “gluten-free” or not.
• Rice, beans, salsas, guacamole, and fresh meats and poultry are gluten-free but some seasonings may not be gluten-free. Tamales made from corn are typically gluten-free, but double-check the ingredients and preparation methods with staff.
What’s Your Solution?
Every Friday, you and your co-workers grab lunch at a fast casual Mexican restaurant. You normally order a burrito filled with steak, rice, cheese, sour cream, and salsa, along with a side of chips and guacamole. But you know this isn’t the best way to manage your waistline and your glucose levels. You’re ready to commit to a change.
How could you change your order to still get all the flavor of your favorite burrito, but with fewer fat grams and calories?
a) Order the burrito, but request that they just use half the amount of cheese and sour cream.
b) Order the burrito with brown rice instead of white rice (if available). Ask for half the amount of cheese. Instead of ordering a side of chips and guacamole, skip the chips and put the guacamole directly in the burrito. Skip the sour cream.
c) Order the burrito exactly how you like it. But take half home.
d) Order two soft tacos filled with steak, black beans, salsa, and a sprinkle of cheese. Ask for the sour cream on the side. Share the chips and guacamole with a co-worker.
See the end of the chapter for answers.
Menu Samplers
Mexican Menu Lingo
• Arróz: the Spanish word for rice. Mexican rice is made from long-grain white rice with sautéed tomatoes, onions, and garlic added for flavor.
• Burrito: a wheat-flour tortilla (soft, not fried) filled with chicken, beef, cheese, and/or beans and served rolled up. Some quick-serve restaurants have begun to serve tortilla-free burritos. It’s just the burrito fixings in a bowl.
• Carne: the Spanish word for meat.
• Carnitas: a Mexican version of pulled pork, in which the pork is slowly cooked then shredded and spiced.
• Cerveza: the Spanish word for beer.
• Ceviche: raw seafood (usually shrimp or scallops) marinated or “cooked” in lime or lemon juice for many hours and served as an appetizer or light meal.
• Chilies: types of peppers that come in a variety of different shapes, sizes, colors, and flavors. There are over 100 different types of chilies native to Mexico. They vary in level of spiciness from mild to hot, hotter, and hottest. Chilies are available fresh and dried.
• Chili con carne: a thick soup, usually called “chili” in America, made with tomatoes, onions, peppers, beans, and, of course, chilies for kick. Con carne means “with meat.” The meat can be ground, shredded, or in chunks. Vegetarian chili contains no meat. Chili is often served with chopped raw onions and shredded cheese.
• Chimichanga: a flour tortilla filled with beef, chicken, cheese, and/or beans, then deep-fried and served topped with tomato-based sauce.
• Chorizo: Mexican pork sausage that is highly seasoned.
• Churros: a fried dough pastry, often dipped in hot chocolate or café con leche (coffee with milk).
• Cilantro: a leafy green herb with a distinctive flavor frequently used in Mexican cooking; it is also called coriander.
• Empanadas: a pastry turnover filled with savory ingredients, then baked or fried.
• Enchiladas: corn tortillas dipped in enchilada sauce, warmed on a flat grill with a small amount of oil, filled with either chicken, beef, or cheese, and then served topped with light tomato-based enchilada sauce.
• Fajitas: sautéed chicken or beef served with sautéed onions and green peppers, shredded lettuce, tomatoes, guacamole, sour cream, and a side of flour or corn tortillas. Usually you make your own fajitas at the table, and there’s often enough food for two.
• Flan: baked custard with a caramel topping. Flan contains mainly sugar, eggs, cream, and whole or condensed milk.
• Flautas: a rolled taco filled with beef, cheese, or chicken, then deep-fried. Sometimes called a taquito.
• Gazpacho: spicy, cold tomato-based soup containing puréed or chopped tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, and onions.
• Guacamole: mashed avocado, onion, tomatoes, garlic, lemon juice, and spices. Guacamole is served as a topping, as a dip with chips, or on the side. Avocado is high in fat: approximately 80 calories per one-quarter of a small avocado. The fat is mainly monounsaturated. Avocados contain no cholesterol.
• Jalapeño: a very small, spicy, green chile used to spice or top certain menu items.
• Mole: a traditional sauce used on chicken or meats or to top enchiladas. There are many varieties of the sauce, and each variety typically contains more than 20 different ingredients and seasonings.
• Nopalitos: a dish made with diced nopales—the flat stems of the prickly pear cactus. The nopales are often pickled.
• Pastel de tres leches: a sponge cake soaked in three types of milk: evaporated milk, condensed milk, and heavy cream.
• Quesadillas: a tortilla that is filled with cheese and heated. Other ingredients may include meats, vegetables, or beans.
• Queso fundido: a dish of hot melted cheese with spicy chorizo.
• Refried beans: pinto beans or black beans that have been cooked and then refried in lard and seasoned with onions, garlic, and chilies.
• Salsa: a hot red sauce made from tomatoes, onions, and chilies. Salsa appears automatically on the table of most Mexican restaurants.
• Salsa verde: a hot green sauce made from tomatillos, the Mexican green tomato, and other spices.
• Sopapillas: a deep-fried pastry typically eaten with sugar or honey.
• Taco: a corn or flour tortilla filled with meat or chicken, shredded cheese, lettuce, and tomatoes. In the United States, the tortilla is sometimes fried in the shape of a “U.”
• Tamale: a spicy filling of either meat or chicken surrounded by moist cornmeal dough, which is wrapped in corn husks or banana leaves and then steamed.
• Tortilla: the “bread” of Mexico, a very thin circle of dough made from either corn or flour. Corn tortillas are often fried into taco shells or chips and served with salsa.
• Tostadas: a crisp fried tortilla, which then may be covered with various toppings such as cheese, beans, lettuce, tomato, and/or onions.
What’s Your Solution? Answers
a) Good job identifying the high-fat items in your meal and requesting less of these. By asking for just half the cheese and sour cream, you’ll probably save about 100 calories. That’s a good start, but you’ll want to do more to meet your healthy eating goals.
b) Choosing brown rice over white rice, if available, will add about 2 grams of fiber to your meal and add a serving of whole grains, which may help you feel a bit fuller on fewer calories. Skipping the chips and sour cream will save you a few hundred calories.
c) Even a healthy burrito can come close to 1,000 calories, depending on the size and fillings. Taking half home is a smart way to get the flavors you crave with only half the calories.
d) The flour tortilla used to make burritos is often quite large, containing approximately 300 calories and 45 grams of carbohydrate. Two taco-size flour tortillas provide about 175 calories and 25 grams of carbohydrate, which makes ordering soft tacos a great portion-control strategy. Choosing beans instead of rice will give you more fiber, while requesting just a sprinkle of cheese will provide flavor without all the fat. Sharing the chips and guacamole is a great way to indulge without overdoing it. Set a goal for how many you will eat and stick to it.