Chili's

Menu Description: "Breaded chicken breast tossed in spicy wing sauce. Served with cool bleu cheese dressing."

My Chili's Boneless Buffalo Wings recipe re-creates the piquant flavor of traditional Buffalo chicken wings, but the bones and skin are left back in Buffalo. That's because these "wings" are actually nuggets sliced from chicken breast fillets, then breaded and fried, and smothered with the same type of spicy wing sauce used on traditional wings. If you like the flavor of Buffalo wings, but wish you could use a fork, your spicy dreams have come true. Serve up your copycat Chili's Boneless Buffalo Wings with some celery sticks and bleu cheese dressing on the side for dipping.

Try more of my Chili's copycat recipes here.

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 2 by Todd Wilbur.

This conversion for Chili's new appetizer give us the spicy flavor of traditional Buffalo chicken wings without the bones or fatty skin, and a way to bake the chicken, rather than fry it, so that we eliminate even more of those pesky fat grams. These "wings" are actually nuggets sliced from chicken breast fillets that have been breaded and fried and smothered with the same type of spicy wing sauce used on typical wings, but without the butter. If you like Buffalo wings, you'll love my reduced-fat Chili's boneless buffalo wings recipe, which can be served up with some celery sticks and fat-free bleu cheese dressing on the side for dipping.

Use my Chili's Boneless Buffalo Wings recipe here to duplicate the original wings from Chili's.

Nutrition Facts
Serving size–3 pieces
Total servings–4
Calories per serving–200 (Original–280)
Fat per serving–5.5g (Original–15g)

Source: Low-Fat Top Secret Recipes by Todd Wilbur.

Menu Description: "Crispy breaded chicken breast topped with sweet and spicy ginger-citrus sauce. Served with spicy-cool wasabi-ranch dressing for dipping."

So you're into boneless wings, but you need a break from the traditional cayenne flavor of the Buffalo style. If fresh ginger-laced sweet-and-sour sauce sounds seducing, here is a variation worth snacking on. In my Chili's Boneless Shanghai Wings recipe below, I'll show you how to make the boneless wings, the secret sauce, and an easy way to fabricate a carbon copy of Chili's great wasabi-ranch dipping sauce just by adding a few ingredients to Hidden Valley Ranch dressing. I suggest adding one drop of green food coloring to the sauce to give it the same green tint of the original. The wasabi powder won't add much color, so this is the trick. You can find the dry powdered form of wasabi horseradish in the supermarket aisle with the other Asian foods.

Check out more of my recipes for Chili's famous dishes here. 

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 2 by Todd Wilbur.

Menu Description: "12 oz. ribeye steak seasoned with Cajun spices and topped with roasted herb jus and spicy Cajun butter."

Three secret formulas must be hacked before we can consider this dish a complete culinary carbon copy of Chili's signature Cajun Ribeye. The Cajun seasoning, the herb jus, and the Cajun butter comprise the flavorful hat trick that earns this dish its signature-item status. 

Use my Chili's Cajun Ribeye recipe below to make each component from scratch. Everything is pretty easy. Rustle up some ribeyes from your favorite butcher, and fire up the grill. Sprinkle the seasoning on the steak before it's grilled, and then add the jus and herb butter just before serving. That's it. Once you've assembled these three simple secret recipes below, you're just minutes away from an impressive, flavor-filled steak.

Find more of your favorite Chili's copycat recipes here.

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 3 by Todd Wilbur.

Ever order one of those expensive specialty drinks off the shiny, full-color restaurant table-stand cards and wish you had a clone recipe? This is one of those drinks, off of one of those cards. And below is my Chili's Calypso Cooler recipe that's just like the original.

Find more of your favorite famous drink recipes here.

Source: Top Secret Recipes Sodas, Smoothies, Spirits & Shakes by Todd Wilbur.

Menu Description: "Strips of hand-battered chicken fried to perfection. Served w/sweet corn on the cob, honey-mustard dressing and homestyle fries."

When biting into Chili's delicious trademarked Chicken Crispers, I detect the distinct flavor of MSG, or monosodium glutamate. Although there is no English word for it, the Japanese call this flavor "umami", and it delivers a taste sensation that is different from bitter, salty, sweet, or sour flavors. This "fifth flavor" is created naturally by glutamic acid, an amino acid, and it can be found in mushrooms, ripe tomatoes, fish and dairy products. But rather than adding something like Accent flavor enhancer—which is pure MSG—to this recipe, I thought of another approach. 

For my Chili's Chicken Crispers copycat recipe, I decided to bring canned chicken broth into the mix. Most chicken broths, including Swanson brand, contain autolyzed yeast extract. These yeast enzymes release flavor-enhancing compounds that work just like MSG, amplifying flavors in much the same way. Plus, the chicken broth is made with other goodies such as carrot, onion, and celery that will contribute to a tasty, crunchy coating. As for the frying, Chili's has recently switched to a shortening that contains no trans fat. So, if you want the best clone of Chili's Chicken Crispers, use shortening, but find the kind that has no trans fat. Crisco now makes a version, and so does Smart Balance. Shortening produces a superior clone, and it will release less "fry smell" into your house. You can also use vegetable or canola oil.

I've also included my Chili's Honey Mustard Dressing copycat recipe that's easy to make with just 5 ingredients.

Try more of my Chili's copycat recipes here.

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 2 by Todd Wilbur.

Chili's Chicken Enchilada soup happens to be one of the chain's most raved-about items, and the subject of many a recipe search here on the site. Part of the secret in crafting your clone is the addition of masa harina—a corn flour that you'll find in your supermarket near the other flours, or where all the Mexican foodstuffs are stocked.

Try my Chili's Chicken Enchilada Soup copycat recipe below, and complete your meal with more of my Chili's copycat recipes here.

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 2 by Todd Wilbur.

Menu Description: "Our appetizing cheese dip with seasoned beef. Served with warm tostada chips."

Take your chips for a dip in this chili queso that comes to your table in a small cast iron skillet along with a big bowl of tortilla chips. A popular recipe that's been circulating calls for combining Velveeta with Hormel no-bean chili. Sure, it's a good start, but there's more to Chili's spicy cheese dip than that. Try my Chili's Skillet Queso copycat recipe below that includes a few other key ingredients. After about 20 minutes you'll have a great taste alike dip for picnic, party, or game time.

Now, what's for dinner? Check out my other Chili's copycat recipes here.

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 2 by Todd Wilbur.
 

Menu Description: "We start with a warm, chewy bar layered with chocolate chips, walnuts and coconut. Topped with vanilla ice cream and drizzled with hot fudge and caramel."

One thing that makes this dessert special is the way it comes to your table sizzling in a cast iron skillet—just like fajitas. The chocolate chip cookie and graham cracker crust "pie" sits in a hot skillet on top of bubbling cinnamon butter. It's topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, and then finished with walnuts, chocolate and caramel syrup. If you're a cloning perfectionist and want to present this dessert exactly like they do at the restaurant, you'll need a small skillet for each serving. Small cast iron skillets are the best, but any 6- or 8-inch saute pan will do fine. Just be sure your pan is real hot to get that same Chili's "sizzle" when you lay in the goodies. If you've got a big crew to feed and don't have enough skillets for each serving, you can add the cinnamon butter to individual serving plates, microwave the plates until the butter melts, then build each serving on the warm plates. It may not have the sizzle of the real thing, but it'll still taste like paradise.

Now you've got dessert covered, what's for dinner? Try my recipes for famous entrées here. 

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 2 by Todd Wilbur.

Menu Description: "Tossed in our honey-chipotle sauce."

After cloning the plain version of these breaded, cripsy chicken fingers in Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 2, I received requests to knockoff this more flavorful sweet-and-spicy version. If you like big flavor and some heat, my Chili's Honey-Chipotle Chicken Crispers recipe is for you. The breading technique is the big secret: first use a wet batter and then toss the tenders in a dry breading. When the chicken tenders are fried to a golden brown they are gently tossed in the honey-chipotle sauce and served either as an appetizer, or with corn on the cob and French fries as an entrée.

Find my recipe for Chili's Chicken Crispers here.

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 3 by Todd Wilbur.

This big salad of mixed greens, fajita steak, pico de gallo, black beans, bell peppers, corn and guacamole comes slathered with two types of salad dressings plus fried tortilla chips, making the restaurant version a fat-filled fiesta.

In my reduced fat Chili's Fajita Salad recipe below, the two dressings here are made fat-free, knocking the fat grams down to around a third of what you'd down in the original. There are several components here in this conversion, but this recipe makes four of the huge entree-size salads, and the results are worth the effort. This recipe clones the steak version of the salad, but you can also replace the beef with chicken.

Nutrition Facts
Serving size–1 salad
Total servings–4
Calories per serving–591 (Original–784)
Fat per serving–15g (Original–45g)

Source: Low-Fat Top Secret Recipes by Todd Wilbur.

Menu Description: "A pound of steak, chicken or combination on a sizzling skillet. Peppers available w/Fajitas upon request."

Chili's is perhaps the restaurant most responsible for introducing the famous finger food known as fajitas to the mass market. Company CEO Norman Brinker discovered the dish at a small restaurant on a visit to San Antonio, Texas. When Chili's put the item on its menu in the early eighties, sales immediately jumped a whopping 25 percent. One company spokesperson told Spirit magazine, "I remember walking into one of the restaurants after we added them to the menu and all I could see were whisps of steam coming up from the tables. That revolutionized Chili's."

Today Chili's serves more than 2 million pounds of fajitas a year. If all of the flour tortillas served with those fajitas were laid end-to-end, they'd stretch from New York to New Zealand.

Today just about every American knows what fajitas are—the Southwestern-style grilled chicken, beef, or seafood, served sizzling on a cast iron skillet. And everyone has their own method of arranging the meat and onions and peppers in a soft tortilla with gobs of pico de gallo, cheese, guacamole, lettuce, sour cream, and salsa. The tough part is trying to roll the thing up and take a bite ever so gracefully without squeezing half of the filling out the backside of the tortilla. My Chili's Fajitas copycat recipe is guaranteed to be as delicious and messy as the original.

Try more awesome Chili's copycat recipes here.

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes by Todd Wilbur.

Menu Description: "A grilled tilapia fillet brushed with a sweet and spicy glaze and garnished with red chili tapenade, cilantro and sesame seeds." 

Here's a great way to prepare that next batch of fresh fish fillets when you're contemplating a new taste. If you and your diners love spicy food this is the perfect clone, since the top secret glaze and tapenade recipes I've included here both come packing heat. You can make the sauces several hours—or even days—ahead of time, and then when you're ready to eat, the fish will cook up in less than 10 minutes. Chili's calls this "grilled" tilapia on the menu, but don't expect to find grill marks on the fish. It appears the restaurant uses a flat griddle or saute pan to cook the fish, since the tender tilapia would fall through the grate on a barbecue grill. Don't limit this recipe to tilapia. The intense glaze and tapenade will perk up a variety of fish fillets, from sea bass to salmon.

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 3 by Todd Wilbur.

When I hacked this recipe on my TV show "Top Secret Recipe" I learned that the only way to make ribs taste just like the famous original version from Chili's is to smoke them with pecan wood chips. I had access to the development kitchen at Chili's corporate headquarters in Dallas, where I discovered that the chain uses a special commercial smoker made by Convotherm that is preprogrammed to first smoke the ribs and then steam them until tender. To stimulate the steam function in a home smoker, you will need to spray the ribs with a little water every half hour in the second half of the cooking process.

To make these delicious ribs at home, follow my Chili's Baby Back Ribs copycat recipe below. It's important to use the right kind of ribs if you want the perfect clone. Get well-trimmed baby backs that aren't too thick. Chili's ribs are trimmed pretty close to the bone to ensure even smoking and grilling. I also learned on the show that the chain wraps up the hot ribs in plastic wrap and foil immediately after they are smoked and before they are finished on the grill to help make them extra tender. You can skip this step if you are rushed, but if you have the time to work it in, the meat will fall off the bone on the way to your mouth. 

If you don't have a smoker, you can still use the seasoning and sauce recipes here and turn out some great ribs on your grill. You can give the ribs their great smokey flavor using a smoking box found on some grills, or by folding pecan wood chips into a pouch made from foil. Follow my grilling directions in the Tidbits of this recipe.

I've cloned a ton of Chili's famous dishes. See if I hacked your favorites here. 

Source: Top Secret Recipes Step-by-Step by Todd Wilbur

Menu Description: "Grilled, marinated chicken breast, mixed greens, pico de gallo, pineapple chunks, tortilla strips & honey-lime dressing."

Larry Levine started building his chain of Chili's restaurants in Dallas in 1975. At that time, Chili's was basically a hamburger joint with a gourmet touch, dining room service and booze. Even though the menu then offered only eleven items, the restaurant was so popular that the throngs of hungry customers waited patiently in lines extending into the parking lots. This caught the eye of persuasive restaurateur Norman Brinker, who, in 1983, convinced Larry to sell his chain of Chili's restaurants, which by then had grown to a total of thirty.

Before Norman had stepped into the picture, more than 80 percent of Chili's business was in hamburgers. Today a much larger menu reflects the current trends in food, and salads are some of the best-selling items. These days, the Grilled Caribbean Salad with the tasty honey-lime dressing is the salad of choice. 

Of course, my Chili's Grilled Caribbean Salad copycat recipe would not be complete without a formula for homemade honey-lime salad dressing, so I've included that here as well.

Find more of my copycat recipes for Chili's favorites here.

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes by Todd Wilbur.

This salad was one of the first six selections offered when Chili's Guiltless Grill premiered on the chain's menu in 1993. You'll love the Southwestern flavors in this delicious and healthy salad clone. The marinated grilled chicken has a sweet, smoky taste, and the pico de gallo lends a nice zip to the dish. Top it all off with irresistible Southwest dressing and you'll have a meal-size salad that comes in at only 5 grams of fat.

Nutrition Facts
Serving size–1 salad
Total servings–2
Calories per serving–558
Fat per serving–5g

Find more copycat recipes of your favorite dishes from Chili's here.

Source: Top Secret Recipes Lite by Todd Wilbur.

Here's another item that has been on Chili's Guiltless Grill menu from the start. It's a chicken sandwich that gets its sweet smoky flavor from the marinated chicken that is grilled over an open flame. The chicken is stacked on whole wheat buns with lettuce and tomato; and a tasty, yet simple-to-make honey mustard sauce is drizzled over the top. If your chicken fillets are too plump, just give'em a few whacks with a tenderizing mallet and rejoice in the extra calories you work off.

Nutrition Facts
Serving size–1 sandwich
Total servings–4
Calories per serving–378
Fat per serving–8g

Source: Top Secret Recipes Lite by Todd Wilbur.

According to one Chili's spokesperson, "The Guiltless Grill selections are extremely popular. Guiltless Grill was a smash from the start." This clone recipe makes two huge dinner-size portions, just like the restaurant serves. The recipe should even be enough for three, perhaps four—if there's a big dessert coming.

Nutrition Facts
Serving size–1 dinner sized portion
Total servings–2
Calories per serving–600
Fat per serving–15g

Source: Top Secret Recipes Lite by Todd Wilbur.

One of America's favorite casual chains brings us a popular salad dressing that you can't buy in stores. Instead, buy these six simple ingredients at a store and use my Chili's Honey Mustard Salad Dressing recipe below to make your own version cheaply and quickly.

Find more of my Chili's copycat recipes here. 

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 2 by Todd Wilbur.

Menu Description: "Grilled Asian-spiced chicken w/carrots, water chestnuts, green onions & almonds. Served with crisp Bibb lettuce and sesame-ginger & peanut sauces for dipping."

Chili's take on the appetizer made popular at P. F. Chang's Asian Bistro got diners across the country wrapping lettuce around chopped chicken. Now you can bring Chili's version of the Asian tacos home along with the mega-addictive sesame-ginger and peanut dipping sauces with my recipe for Chili's lettuce wraps.

After you make the sauces and prepare the chicken, assemble the wraps by arranging some sliced chicken into the center of a leaf of butter lettuce, sprinkle on some shredded carrot, perhaps a few crunchy bean threads, add a little dipping sauce, and open wide.

Find more of your favorite Chili's copycat recipes here. 

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 2 by Todd Wilbur.

A plateful of rice and black beans are topped with a corn tortilla, garlic aioli, lettuce, pico de gallo and a fresh tuna steak smothered with chipotle ranch dressing.

There are many opportunities to obliterate fat in this one, most easily in the garlic aioli and chipotle ranch dressing. The tuna you purchase may come in thick eight-ounce steaks. If so, slice the tuna through the center, making two thinner four-ounce pieces. With the rice, black beans, and toppings, this dish is an entire meal on its own. And it looks good on the plate.

Nutrition Facts
Serving size–1 entree
Total servings–4
Calories per serving–691 (Original–899)
Fat per serving–16g (Original–38g)

Source: Low-Fat Top Secret Recipes by Todd Wilbur.

Menu Description: "Warm chocolate cake w/chocolate fudge filling. Topped w/vanilla ice cream under a crunchy chocolate shell."

Get out your "easy" button for this one. The clone recipe for this top-requested Chili's dessert is easy to make—and can even be made days ahead of time. A chocolate fudge cake mix is all you need for the cake part of the recipe. The cake batter is poured into the large cups of a Texas-size muffin pan. When the cakes are done and cooled, you make a secret hole where the hot chocolate is loaded. Now you can keep the cakes chilled until dessert time. To serve, heat a cake, plop a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top, and top it off with some Magic Shell, (a chocolate topping that hardens on ice cream) that you can make from scratch with my recipe here. When your diners dig into the cake, the delicious hot fudge center oozes out of the warm chocolate cake.

For a live demonstration of this clone recipe check out this video.

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 2 by Todd Wilbur.
Try my improved version in Top Secret Recipes Step-by-Step.

Menu Description: "Nacho Ordinary Burger! Shredded lettuce, tortilla strips, chili queso and green onions. Served open faced w/sour cream, guacamole, jalapenos and pico de gallo."

This hack includes recipes for popular garnishes and sides offered at Chili's: Chili's Chili Queso, Chili's Pico de Gallo, and Chili's Guacamole. Now, in this one recipe, you'll learn how to clone all three components from scratch. You then pile everything on a hamburger with some jalapenos, crunchy tortilla chips and chopped green onion, and serve it open-faced with extra guacamole and queso on the side. 

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 2 by Todd Wilbur.

Over the years I've hacked a bunch of items from Chili's menu, including their Fajitas, Baby Back Ribs, Salsa, Chili Queso, Southwestern Eggrolls, Chicken Crispers, Boneless Wings, and more, but it wasn’t until recently that I got the chance to create a recipe for the Chili's award-winning Original Chili. Why it took so long, I have no idea.

The chili served at Chili’s is a Texas-style con carne recipe, which traditionally means no beans and no tomato. You won’t find any beans in this recipe or chunks of tomato, but their chili does have a tomato base to boost flavor, so I’m adding that into the mix by including one 6-ounce can of tomato paste. As it turns out, that small can is just the right amount.

The preparation technique for my Chili's Original chili copycat recipe is simple: brown the beef, drain off the fat, then add some of the fat back to the empty pan to sauté the onions and peppers in. When those are done, you add the beef back to the pan along with the remaining ingredients and simmer for 1½ hours. That will be just long enough to braise the beef and tenderize it, and to thicken the chili to a perfect consistency.

When the chili’s done, top each serving with a cheddar/pepper Jack blend, and some crispy tortilla bits. Then pass out the spoons.

Check here more of my Chili's copycat recipes.