Kansas City just got a little more exciting.
Starting today, the city’s 33 restaurants will be the test markets for Chipotle’s newest protein option: chorizo, the Kansas City Star reports. The fresh, crumbly version of the pork and chicken sausage, popular in Spain and Mexico, is seasoned with toasted cumin and chipotle peppers “and then charred to perfection on the grill,” according to the company announcement. Chorizo is something the company’s culinary team has been wanting to do for awhile, “thinking that it would be a really good fit within the rest of our menu,” says communications director Chris Arnold.
For $6.95, the chorizo can be added to any Chipotle burrito, bowl, taco or salad in the city. Kansas City locals should get it while they can: Arnold told Quartz there’s no specific timeline on the new item. “We’ll see how it goes and take it from there,” he says.
For those carnitas-starved Chipotle customers wondering why their precious humanely raised pork, still in short supply, is being diverted to chorizo, take a breath—the two are unrelated. (Chipotle’s carnitas problem began in January when it removed a supplier that wasn’t meeting its humanely raised standards.)
“The chorizo doesn’t use the same cuts of pork that we use for carnitas,” says Arnold, “so that’s not at all an issue.” While the carnitas are made with pork shoulder, the pork in the chorizo is ground, which is “easier to get than specific cuts.”
The chain, Arnold says, hopes to have the carnitas back in full force in all restaurants in the fourth quarter. No word on when chorizo will be coming to your local branch.