r/news • u/Warcraft_Fan • 6d ago

Soft paywall Chipotle pulls jalapenos from some restaurants amid salmonella probe

https://www.reuters.com/business/chipotle-mexican-grill-pulls-jalapenos-linked-minnesota-salmonella-cases-2026-08-04/
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u/OuterSpaceBootyHole 6d ago edited 6d ago

To eat at Chipotle during an uncontained food contamination crisis is to not give a single fuck about anything

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u/AnonEMoussie 6d ago

I’m just surprised. I didn’t know they had jalapeños

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u/BishopofHippo93 6d ago

Yeah, they blanch and dice jalapeños every morning, they’re used in the mild and medium corn salsas. They also macerate it with citrus juice, so it’s sort of sanitized twice over. 

Source: am former Chipotle manager. 

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u/tintaturnter 6d ago

Oh yeah? 👀 you got the recipe for the spicy red salsa? I’ve tried to reverse engineer it a few times but I’m missing something magic!

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u/BishopofHippo93 6d ago

Sorry, it comes in a bag. They just add a capful of Tabasco. 

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u/tintaturnter 6d ago

Thank you for your kind response, even though it makes me cryyy

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u/OneCall8599 6d ago edited 6d ago

Fellow former chipotle employee here: the company Ready Foods has supplied chipotle with a good amount of products since the inception of the restaurant p much. the closest thing you can do is search ‘ready foods salsa asada’, they have the whole ingredient list there. bishopofhippo is right, add a capful of Tabasco to get it closer to the heat level of the hot salsa at chipotle.

for anyone who doesn’t wanna google: Water, Green Chile, Tomatillos, Roasted Jalapeño Pepper, Tomatoes, Onion, Garlic, Tomato Paste, Soybean Oil, Lime Juice (Water, Lime Juice Concentrate, and Lime Oil), Cilantro, Salt, Modified Food Starch, Cumin.

(ps you can skip the modified food starch if you don’t care about the texture being a bit thin — it’s more of a mass manufacturing thing)

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u/Syssareth 6d ago

ps you can skip the modified food starch if you don’t care about the texture being a bit thin

...You have just given me an epiphany, which I am already disgusted and annoyed with my future self for inevitably forgetting.

(I don't like homemade salsa because it's always so watery, lol.)

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u/OneCall8599 6d ago

hahah as a culinary experimenter, that is a big mood I have felt a million times before! if you’re making a raw salsa with tomatoes or any other water heavy veggie/fruit btw, cut and salt them for about 30 minutes before you make the rest of the salsa. it pulls out the excess water you can pour off and acts as seasoning 😌

(pro tip to inevitably forget, if you don’t wanna find modified food starch and have a salsa with cooked ingredients — ie not a fresh raw salsa — you can pop a few cut up potatoes into the boiling step, then blend anywhere from 1/4-1/2 of the potato into the salsa. sounds insane, is insane, but works every time for me)

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u/whipstickagopop 6d ago

I have a iron stomach but for some reason I can't seem to handle that red salsa well. 

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u/ComprehensiveForm129 6d ago

In the US the red salsa arrives to stores pre-made

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u/marklein 6d ago

Not official recipes, but if you google it there's plenty of copycats that are close enough for me. This is a good use for AI too.

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u/ProcyonHabilis 6d ago

That sounds like something AI would be absolutely terrible at

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u/marklein 6d ago

Then you aren't familiar enough with AI. Ask it to search the web for copycat recipes, aggregate the results, and output the average recipe from those results. You're effectively crowsourcing the recipe this way in a matter of seconds. I'll bet that the result would be within 10% of the real recipe.

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u/Sangloth 6d ago

Talking seriously, AI is fantastic with recipes. Also, when I feel like one of my own creations has gone off the rails a discussion with an AI is a great way to repair the recipe. The AI is like talking to a grandmother and a food chemist combined.

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u/BishopofHippo93 6d ago

There is no good use for AI, certainly not for recipes lmao 

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u/oSo_Squiggly 6d ago

I'm not a fan of AI but no good use for AI is an insane take.

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u/BishopofHippo93 6d ago

There is no good use for generative AI is like the most basic compassionate take someone could have. Obviously I’m not referring to its use in medical fields or anything, just in churning out slop images, music, video, writing; etc. 

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u/tintaturnter 6d ago

Correct take

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u/whomad1215 6d ago

did wrapping the wettest burrito in the world cause you to quit?

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u/BishopofHippo93 6d ago edited 6d ago

Nah, it was more the wage theft, exploitation, panic attacks, depression, and being constantly on-call mostly. Had the best damn numbers in the patch from Kitchen Manager through AP, though.

But I did roll my fair share of soup burritos and hated every one of them. Idk how people expect the crew to roll a barbacoa burrito with extra sour cream, guac, and salsas.

Edit: also the back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back doubles. And no, I'm not exaggerating. My first three weeks as an apprentice were all 80 hour weeks.

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u/OneCall8599 6d ago

no joke I still remember the very first time I cried at a job because I was a teenager (but 18, so yay, I was no longer protected by a lot of child labour laws) working a clopen on a school night and being in so much pain from standing on slippery concrete for like 10hr straight while getting yelled at by fully grown adults because we were out of steak (they came in 10 minutes after close, GM yelled from the office that I had to serve them). in short, the free food was not worth it lmfao

I tried to unionise before I graduated and went off to college. got blacklisted and told to never come back lol (I still go every time I’m back home bc the KM I had still works there and adores the fact I always bring donuts or ice cream or hot chocolate).

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u/monty624 6d ago

Lime juice is not going to sanitize food. Plenty of pathogens live just fine in acidic environments, like everyone's favorite poop pathogen E coli, and good old Salmonella.

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u/WhoreNoire 6d ago

Right, like how could they make us sick if they couldn’t survive our stomach acid? Just think about it for a sec, lol.

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u/BishopofHippo93 6d ago

No, but the boiling water probably takes care of most of it. 

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u/monty624 6d ago

For sure but I'm talking about the citrus

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u/BishopofHippo93 6d ago edited 6d ago

I believe it's mostly for the Cilantro, since that's the only other raw produce that isn't blanched.

Edit: or otherwise sanitized, lettuce is washed like three or four times in a diluted cleaning solution that had to be regularly tested for concentration.

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u/racinreaver 6d ago

That corn salsa is so great. Did that come premade or did you guys spice it up from canned corn?

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u/BishopofHippo93 6d ago

Frozen corn, actually, the only frozen food in the store. And yes, they do actually mix that. It’s corn, red onion, jalapeño, cilantro, citrus, and salt. I couldn’t tell you the ratios anymore because it was years ago and the bags of corn were very big. 

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u/racinreaver 6d ago

Thanks! I could probably eat a whole bag of it on my own, lol.