Gluten-free tacos can be a delicious options when dining out but if you have celiac, you’ll need to be careful.
I personally love tacos and as a celiac who’s been gluten-free for 10 years, they’ve glutened me a lot. From cross-contact from corn tortillas pressed in the same tortilla warmer as the flour tortillas, to accidentally being served flour tortillas…
Below we will discuss how to prevent getting glutened from tacos, including how to order them to avoid cross-contact.
To address the elephant in the room, Tacos are not always gluten-free. Gluten can show up in tacos via:
For the most part, you often can find tacos that are gluten-free by ingredient, but if you have celiac. You can’t stop there. You’ll also need to avoid cross-contact.
So, now that we know how tacos can contain gluten, let’s taco-bout where to buy gluten-free tacos. There are many restaurants that serve tacos without gluten, below are some chains in the USA:
Please note: none the restaurants listed above serve as a guarantee or endorsement that your food will be safe. These are just restaurants that can serve gluten-free tacos. You will still need to verify safety and ask for cross-contact precautions yourself.
Gluten-free tacos may be gluten-free by ingredient but can quickly become unsafe for celiac if they come into contact with gluten. That’s because with celiac, we need to be careful to not only eat foods that are gluten-free by ingredient but also foods that have not come into cross-contact with gluten.
To avoid gluten cross-contact when ordering tacos consider the following questions:
Ordering GF tacos with these cross-contact points in mind might look like:
“Hi I have celiac disease, it’s like a severe gluten allergy, I’ll get exremely sick if gluten touches my food, can you please tell the chef? And is it possible to have the cook change their gloves, clean their work station and serve me the chicken tacos with lettuce and cheese in cold corn tortillas so that I don’t get sick?”
Dining out with celiac disease can be overwhelming and scary no matter the cuisine or food. I hope this post empowers you to explore the gluten-free restaurant world of tacos!
And if you need more help with dining out with celiac disease. If dining out scares you and you want to learn from a celiac dietitian how to reduce the chances of getting glutened at restaurants, check out my Gluten-Free Dining Course.