Vegan options at Chipotle: the full order guide

Chipotle is one of the most vegan-friendly chains in the United States, but the front-of-house workflow is fast enough that mistakes happen. Cheese gets dropped in by reflex, sour cream lands on a bowl that did not ask for it, and the difference between vegan and vegetarian quietly matters when half of the toppings are dairy. Here is the full order playbook so your bowl, burrito, or salad ships clean every visit. The expanded sections below cover the cost-per-bowl calculus that makes vegan-at-Chipotle one of the cheapest fast-casual lunches in the country, the cross-contamination risks that the visible assembly line lets you spot in real time, and the kid-friendly modifications for parents who want one stop that feeds the whole family without a separate trip.

What is vegan on the Chipotle menu
Sofritas are the headlining vegan protein - shredded organic tofu braised with chipotles and spices. Fajita veggies (sauteed peppers and onions) are vegan. Black beans are vegan; pinto beans contain bacon at some locations and not others, so confirm.

Rices: cilantro lime white rice and cilantro lime brown rice are both vegan. Salsas: every salsa on the line is vegan, including the corn salsa, the tomatillo green, and the tomatillo red. Guacamole is vegan and worth the upcharge.

Tortillas: the flour tortilla and the soft corn taco shells are vegan. The crunchy taco shells are vegan as well.

What is not vegan: cheese, sour cream, queso blanco, the chicken/steak/barbacoa/carnitas proteins, and the chipotle-honey vinaigrette (it has honey, which most vegans skip).

The default vegan bowl order
The bowl that hits hardest for the price: cilantro lime brown rice, black beans, sofritas, fajita veggies, fresh tomato salsa, corn salsa, romaine lettuce, guacamole. Skip cheese, skip sour cream. The brown rice plus beans plus sofritas stack lands somewhere around 35 grams of protein.

If you want spice: add the tomatillo red. If you want crunch: add a side of chips. The chips at Chipotle are fried in sunflower oil and salted with lime, vegan as written.

Exact phrasing at the counter
Try this script: Hi, can I get a bowl, brown rice, black beans, sofritas, fajita veggies, fresh tomato salsa, corn, lettuce, guac. No cheese, no sour cream.

If a worker asks vegan? you can simply say yes. They are trained to handle it - they will change gloves and use a clean scoop for the protein. If they do not, you can ask politely.

Burrito instead of bowl: same ingredients, just say burrito instead of bowl at the start of the order. Confirm the flour tortilla is the standard one - it is at every Chipotle location we have checked.

Combos that surprise people
Sofritas in a quesadilla works at most Chipotle locations - just ask for it without cheese, with extra sofritas instead. Some locations push back; some accept it without comment. Your mileage varies by store.

Sofritas tacos: three soft corn tacos (vegan), sofritas, fajita veggies, corn salsa, guacamole. Cheaper than a bowl and easier to share.

Salad: same components as the bowl, swap rice for extra romaine. The chipotle-honey vinaigrette is not vegan, so build the dressing yourself: salsa plus a squeeze of lime plus a scoop of guac is a good replacement.

Things to confirm
Pinto beans: confirm at your specific location - some still cook with bacon, most have switched to a meatless recipe. The black beans have always been vegan everywhere we have checked.

Allergens: Chipotle posts a public allergen sheet at chipotle.com/allergens that lists every ingredient and its sources. If you want a printable reference, that is the canonical document.

When sofritas is sold out
Sofritas runs out at the front-of-house bin more often than other proteins because the demand is uneven by store. When the prep team has not pulled a refill yet, you have three options: ask whether a fresh batch is in the kitchen (it almost always is, just not yet on the line), accept a no-protein bowl with extra beans, or come back in five minutes.

The extra-beans build holds up if you do not want to wait: cilantro lime brown rice, double black beans, extra fajita veggies, fresh tomato salsa, corn, lettuce, guacamole. The double bean order pushes the protein number into a similar range as the sofritas build (~30 grams) and the cost is the same as a single-protein bowl.

If you would rather not gamble: the Chipotle mobile app shows real-time stock for sofritas at most locations. Order from the parking lot. If sofritas is out at one location and a second store is on your route, the app filters by availability so you can route to the next one without showing up to an empty bin.

Online ordering and app defaults
The Chipotle app defaults are friendlier to omnivores than vegans. 'No cheese' and 'no sour cream' are not preselected, so a quick mobile order on autopilot can still ship with both. The customize screen is the canonical place to toggle dairy off before checkout.

The app's Vegan filter at the top of the menu screen is the cleanest entry point - it filters to sofritas-compatible builds and pre-selects the dairy-free configuration. Use the filter rather than building from the omnivore default.

Loyalty rewards and free guac codes apply on vegan orders too, but the customizations sometimes drop the loyalty discount on the first attempt; if it does, close the app and rebuild the order from the rewards screen rather than the menu screen and the discount usually applies cleanly the second time.

Lifestyle bowls vegans should know about
Chipotle has a Lifestyle Bowls menu of pre-configured options. The Plant-Powered Bowl is the only one that ships fully vegan as written: brown rice, black beans, sofritas, fajita veggies, tomato salsa, romaine, no cheese, no sour cream, guacamole included. Ordering by Lifestyle Bowl name skips the customization screen and saves a few taps.

The Whole30 Bowl is vegetarian-but-not-vegan (the included sauce is egg-based mayo). The Vegetarian Bowl includes cheese and sour cream by default. The Keto Bowl includes cheese and sour cream. None of those three are vegan as written, even though the marketing groups them together with the Plant-Powered Bowl.

If you want a faster mobile order: tap the Plant-Powered Bowl from the Lifestyle Bowls section instead of building from the bowl-customize flow. Same ingredients, fewer taps, same price.

Cost engineering: the cheapest vegan bowl that actually fills you up
A standard sofritas bowl with guacamole runs around $12 to $14 depending on region (urban Northeast skews higher; Midwest and South skew lower). The price math compares favorably to most fast-casual lunches once you account for portion: a sofritas bowl is north of 700 calories with 30 grams of protein, which is roughly twice the calorie density of a Sweetgreen entree at the same price. Per-calorie, it is one of the cheapest hot meals on a national menu.

Three levers reduce the bill. First: skip guac and use double salsa instead - drops the price by about $3 and the salsas (especially fresh tomato plus corn) carry more flavor than the same dish with bare guac alone. Second: swap the bowl for three soft tacos with the same fillings - usually a dollar or two cheaper because the rice line item drops and the lettuce becomes optional. Third: use the loyalty program's free-guac code, which fires after about 10 visits in most rewards tiers; on a vegan order the free guac is the difference between a $14 bowl and an $11 one.

Where the cost stops being competitive: kids' meals (covered in the next section), drink upcharges (the bottled aguas frescas are $4 each at most locations - a glass of water from the soda fountain is free and the lime wedge from the chip caddy gets you 80 percent of the way to a horchata), and the queso blanco upcharge that would not apply to a vegan order anyway. The order to memorize for the cheapest filling vegan bowl: brown rice, double black beans, sofritas, fajita veggies, fresh tomato salsa, corn salsa, lettuce, no guac. Lands around $11 in most markets, hits 35 grams of protein, and clears 800 calories.

Cross-contamination, the 'made for you' workflow, and what to watch
Chipotle's visible assembly line is one of the rare advantages a vegan diner gets at a fast-casual chain: you can see the gloves change, the scoops move, and the cheese sprinkle skip from three feet away. Most cross-contamination here is reducible to noticing what you can already see. The cleanest order arrives when you say 'vegan' once at the start of the order rather than calling out 'no cheese, no sour cream' as separate corrections - 'vegan' triggers the worker to change gloves before touching your bowl, and they will use clean scoops for the protein and the salsas.

Where it goes sideways: the protein scoop sometimes gets used for sofritas right after a chicken or carnitas pull, especially during peak rush. The visible signal is the same scoop being placed back into the sofritas bin without being rinsed; the right correction is a polite 'could I get a clean scoop for the sofritas, please' said at the moment you see it, not after the bowl is already built. Workers will swap the scoop without comment - this is in their training. The other point of failure is the salsa station: the spoons that live in the salsas can travel between bins, and sour-cream residue on a tomato-salsa spoon is the most common silent dairy contact at peak hours. If a worker reaches for a spoon that has visible white residue on it, ask them to grab a fresh one - they keep clean spoons in a small caddy below the line.

Allergen-grade clean assembly is a separate workflow Chipotle staff are trained on for documented allergies. If you have a confirmed dairy allergy and not just a vegan diet, ask for the allergen protocol explicitly - the manager comes over, the line is paused for your bowl, and the assembly happens with fresh gloves and tools at every station. This is slower than a normal vegan order (figure five extra minutes), so it is worth saving for actual allergy cases rather than vegan-by-choice diets where ordinary glove-changing is sufficient.

Kid-friendly vegan orders for parents who want one stop
The Build-Your-Own Kids Meal is the vegan-friendliest path: it lets a parent assemble a smaller portion of any combination on the regular menu (a single soft taco or a small bowl) plus a side of fruit or chips and an organic milk drink. The vegan adaptations: pick the soft taco shell or kid's bowl base, add black beans, fajita veggies, mild tomato salsa, and skip the cheese and sour cream. Sofritas works for kids who like the flavor, but most younger kids prefer the plain-bean build - the spice level on sofritas is closer to a mild adult chipotle flavor than a kids' palette. The included drink can be swapped to apple juice or water at no extra cost; the included organic milk is dairy and the Horizon brand carton at the kids' counter is not the dairy-free version.

Three parent-friendly tweaks. First: ask for the kid's bowl portion of rice and beans on a regular adult tortilla folded as a quesadilla-style fold (no cheese) - the kid eats it with their hands without rice spilling and the parent saves a fork. Second: order the parent's meal at the same time and request that the kids' meal goes in a separate paper bag rather than a tray - cuts down on table real-estate during a meal at home. Third: chips and salsa from the parents' meal cover the kids' fruit-or-chips choice if the kid does not like the canned-fruit options. Most stores will swap the fruit cup for an apple slice on request if asked nicely.

What does not work as a kids' vegan meal: the kids' Quesadilla (cheese is the entire dish; no cheese leaves a folded tortilla with butter on the inside surface from the press, so it is not quite vegan even after the cheese drop), the Crispy Corn Taco (the shells are vegan but the default fillings push toward cheese-and-meat which most kids will spot and reject), and any of the burrito options (too large for most kids under 8, and the rice-to-bean ratio gets harder to dial in at a kids' portion). Stick with the bowl or the taco builds and you will get a clean order in under three minutes at the counter.

Chipotle is one of those rare chains where the vegan order is not a fight - it is just a script. Memorize the bowl above, drop cheese and sour cream, add guac, and you are done. The Plant-Powered Bowl gives you a one-tap mobile-order shortcut, the sofritas-out fallback covers the one common bin-empty case, and the app's Vegan filter saves customization clicks. The new sections in this guide cover the per-bowl economics that make vegan-at-Chipotle one of the cheapest filling fast-casual meals in the country (around $11 for the cost-engineered build), the visible cross-contamination signals you can spot in real time on the assembly line, and the kids' menu adaptations that let one Chipotle stop feed an omnivore-and-vegan family without a second trip. If you want the same level of clarity at the next twenty restaurants you visit, paste any menu URL into Vegan Recon and the app will run this same kind of audit for you in under a minute.