Not Regular Butter Or Mayo: Use This Spread To Give Breakfast Burritos A Delicious, Crunchy Exterior

Breakfast burritos originated in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and have now become a popular way to start the day across the U.S. — they are even available at McDonald's! The typical combination of eggs, meats, and cheese wrapped in a tortilla is not only packed with flavor and protein but is also a conveniently portable food. 

There are many variations on a breakfast burrito recipe, such as changing up the type of cheese or switching up the meats, but these ignore what holds it all together: the tortilla. You can just wrap your fillings in one and call it a day, but you know that it's much better (and crunchier) when you toast it, and you need a little fat to get the job done. Butter is a great solution, but using garlic butter will impart so much additional flavor to your finished breakfast burrito.

Garlic butter isn't some type of fat made from garlic, though. Instead, it's part of a larger category of foods called compound butters, which consist of regular dairy butter blended with a variety of seasonings and other ingredients to add flavor. Since many herbs and spices contain fat-soluble flavor compounds, the butter becomes infused with the aromas of whatever is added to it, including garlic. So, when you toast your breakfast burrito in garlic butter, the fat itself has a garlicky kick that will get transferred to your tortilla. It will also save you the hassle of frying garlic in butter to get a similar effect.

To make your breakfast burrito extra crispy with garlic butter, you simply need to wrap your burrito in a flour tortilla, which is the most flexible for making this breakfast favorite and tends to come in larger sizes compared to corn tortillas. You can assemble several burritos this way if you want to meal prep. Then, melt about a tablespoon of garlic butter in a pan over medium heat and place your burrito in the pan seam-side down to seal it. Turn it over to toast the other side, and promptly remove it from the pan. For more even browning, you can place a flat tortilla in the pan, add all your fillings, and then remove it to roll up, making sure to tuck in the sides. You can also grease a muffin tin with garlic butter to make breakfast burrito bites.

There are many commercially available garlic butters you can find at supermarkets, including one made by Kerrygold, but they can often be more expensive per ounce than regular butter, even from premium brands. Fortunately, compound butters — including variations on plain garlic butter — are very easy to make at home. David Guas' roasted garlic compound butter, for example, can be frozen for up to three months and is customizable. You can add finely minced herbs, like parsley and thyme. If you don't have fresh herbs, you can also use dried versions, though give your compound butter some extra time for the flavors to marry.