When we vegans think Chili's restaurant, we visualize unhealthy Mexican food like Texas-Size Baby Back Ribs, Big Mouth Burgers, and Full-on Fajitas laden with animal products.
Read on to find out how, by getting creative, you can enjoy The 15 Awesome Vegan Options at Chili's in 2023.
What is Chili's restaurant?
Chili's is a well-known restaurant chain owned by Brinker International, an American hospitality industry multinational.
According to Wikipedia Chillis has its roots in Dallas,
where it was founded by some guy called Larry Lavine in the Seventies.
Brinker also owns Maggiano's Little Italy restaurant chain. Chili's operates in over 35 countries worldwide, with over 1200 chain restaurants in the United States alone.
If you enjoy Chili's, you're probably aware of their well-known menus. Their menus provide options for practically everyone, including sizzling fajitas, fresh salads, grilled vegetables, burgers, and pasta.
People frequently visit Chili's restaurant for casual eating outings and special occasions like Valentine's Day, birthdays, anniversaries, and graduations, with their families, friends, and coworkers. However, vegan customers might find it challenging to enjoy decent vegan options on Chili's menu in most regions.
If you prefer a vegetarian diet, stay tuned for our Vegetarian picks for the health-conscious Chili's customer in the last section of this article. There are plenty of vegetarian-friendly options on Chili's menu if you know where to look.
Ordering Tips and Tricks at Chili's
Chili’s Vegan Menu Options
Chili's offers a few vegan options that, when combined, can provide a full meal. Chili's vegan menu isn't the most extensive, but we share the best Chili's vegan options. Check out all of the choices below! They are all free of meats and dairy products.
Vegan Appetizers
Enjoy some delectable vegan snacks with the entire group! You'll be pleasantly surprised by the variety of delicious, tempting vegan items available.
Bottomless Tostada Chips
1 Bottomless Tostada Chips
Chili's bottomless chips with vegan salsa are a great option for chip lovers. Chili's vegan, salty, and just-right crunchy bottomless tostada chips are delicious when dipped in fresh dairy-free salsa.
2 Fresh Guacamole and Chips
Chili's adds fresh,daily-prepared guacamole to their renowned tostada chips. Besides avocado, traditional ingredients in guacamole include tomatoes, green onions, and garlic. You may also order guacamole on tacos, or fajitas.
3 Fried Pickles
Pickle lovers, take note. Chili's fried pickles are just perfect. To keep the pickles vegan, get them without ranch dressing.
Vegan Side Salads
Since most salads at Chili's are cheese or meat-heavy, there aren't many vegan menu items. But we list two vegan salad options for the vegan food lover to add to our 15 Awesome Vegan Options at Chilli’s List.
4 Caribbean salad without dressing
The Caribbean salad combines honey-lime dressing with fresh ingredients like sweet pineapple, red bell peppers, mandarin oranges, and green onions. Order it without the honey sauce for a delicious vegan salad. If you are a vegetarian, then you can go ahead and add the honey-lime dressing.
5 Chili's side house salad
You can enjoy the house salad as long as you ask for it without the cheese, salad dressing, or garlic croutons. The ingredients in this salad are greens, cucumbers, onions, and tomatoes. Because Chili's lacks a vegan cheese option and only offers the Citrus Balsamic Vinaigrette as a vegan dressing, their vegan salad options are somewhat sparse.
Vegan Sides
Chili's offers a wide variety of vegetarian and vegan sides and add-ons. When you're a vegan, this menu section is where you can put most of your vegan meals together!
You can include these dishes in any order or eat them by themselves. Make your plate of add-ons and sides! Ask your server which options are available in your local restaurant.
6 Avocado Slices
An avocado slice order is a perfect companion for any vegan meal.
Avocados offer multiple benefits for your health and go along with nearly any meal.
7 Fresh Pineapple
You can find pineapple on the kid's menu. It is a great option when you have a craving for fresh fruit.
8 French fries
Enjoy and sate your hunger for ketchup or BBQ sauce-topped, crispy fries. The good news is that Chili's fries are vegan, even though not all of their fried items are.
9 Mandarin Oranges
When you want a dose of fresh fruit, you can add juicy, delicious mandarin oranges from the kids' menu to your order. High in vitamins and natural fiber, they are always a good option.
10 Steamed Broccoli
Any meal would benefit from the addition of tender steamed broccoli! Make sure to order the broccoli if you want to add color to your meal!
11 Chili's Black beans
Black beans from Chili's are vegan. For a high dose of protein, get a dish of black beans. Black beans are a good choice as the main dish. They go well with Mexican rice, salads, corn tortillas, and other dishes. One of Chili's best vegan options. Combine your beans with Mexican rice, steamed broccoli, salad, and roasted asparagus to create a healthy, satisfying, and complete vegan dinner.
12 Mexican Rice
Authentic Mexican rice prepared with white rice, tomato sauce, garlic, chili powder, and Caldo de Tomate. The perfect companion for black beans and any other vegan sides. As Hispanics our family are great fans of rice with beans, so we prepare it at home also.
13 Roasted Asparagus
With oil, salt, and pepper, fresh roasted asparagus is delicious, crisp, and flavorful. A fantastic vegan choice!
14 Garlic Dill Pickles
Indispensable add-on for pickle lovers.
15 Salsa
Fresh salsa is typically vegan-friendly and goes well with rice, black beans, tortilla chips, and any other Mexican cuisine.
Vegan Main Courses
Sadly, none of the Chii's main course entrees are vegan. However, you may make your main course by assembling veggie fajitas, Chili's chips, burrito bowls, or plates with black beans, corn on the cob, fries, asparagus, rice, broccoli, flour tortillas, or any other of the 15 vegan options listed above.
Chili’s Vegan Dessert Menu
Sadly, there are no vegan dessert options on the Chili’s menu! Sweets are never a good dietary choice, anyhow. They are laden with loads of unhealthy fat, sugar, eggs, and dairy.
Chili’s Vegetarian Menu Options
As a bonus for our vegetarian friends, we quickly go over the many extra options you have as a vegetarian when you pick up the Chili's menu. The 15 options offered initially are safe for you all, but we offer some more.
Vegetarian Appetizers
Awesome Blossom Petals
This dish, once known as the Awesome Blossom, is made with individual portions of fried, breaded onions rather than the complete onion. The fried petals have a good balance of sweetness and savory flavor and are flaky.
Crispy Cheddar Bites
These crunchy cheddar bites are sure to be a favorite among cheese lovers. These mouthwatering cheesy nibbles are made with yellow and white Wisconsin cheese curds and are excellent for large groups.
Vegetarian Side Salads
In addition to the vegan salads above, vegetarians can also enjoy the delicious Cheese Quesadilla Explosion Salad. You'll adore this side salad if you like Mexican food. Cheese quesadillas come with a citrus-balsamic sauce, corn and black bean salsa, crunchy tortilla strips, and fresh tomatoes. Order it without the meat to keep it vegetarian.
Vegetarian Sides
Chili's offers a wide variety of vegetarian sides and add-ons.
Fajita Toppings
Chili's offers a variety of fajita toppings for your rice, black bean patties, tortillas, and other dishes. Grilled fresh vegetables like bell peppers and mushrooms are some of the fajita toppings available.
Sauteed Mushrooms
Sautéed mushrooms are a tasty side dish or an excellent add-on. Oh, the buttery taste and exquisite tenderness of mushrooms!
Chili's Black Bean Patty
For a plant-based option, order a black bean patty alone, with a salad or wrap, with veggie burger buns, or in a sandwich. Chili's veggie burger made with Black bean patties is an excellent source of fiber and protein. The patties contain egg and milk products, so sorry, no vegan burgers.
Mashed Potatoes
Enjoy these deliciously creamy and fluffy mashed potatoes as a side dish if you're a vegetarian. Because the gravy is not vegetarian, order the potatoes without it.
Side Salad with Ranch
When you have a craving for a salad coated in creamy ranch dressing, try Chili's crisp, fresh salad.
Garlic Toast
Garlic toast is fantastic and goes well with lunch or dinner. It is crunchy, buttery, and delicious.
Roasted Street Corn
In Mexico, sweet roasted Corn sells on the streets everywhere. Chili's Roasted Corn allows you to taste that street flavor. Enjoy corn on the cob topped with cotija cheese, cilantro, and lime flavoring. So good.
Fresh Coleslaw
Fresh coleslaw that is both creamy and crunchy is delicious on sandwiches and vegetarian burgers.
Cheese Slices
Vegetarian Main Courses
Black Bean and Veggie Fajitas
Flavorful black bean and vegetable fajitas serve sizzling hot with aromatic ingredients. This dish comes with rice, bell peppers, black beans, fresh cilantro, and slices of fresh avocado. Perfect if you're hungry for Mexican food.
Chiplote Bowl
Request without meat to make it vegetarian and meat-free. The Chipotle bowl includes rice, black beans, corn, cheddar, salsa, pico de gallo, and avocado. Seasoned with ranch and a creamy pesto with lime zest, Chiplote makes the perfect veggie lunch.
Cheese Pizza
You can't go wrong with a warm, cheese, crunchy pizza when you want a quick, tasty veggie meal. Look for it on the kid's menu.
Vegan and Vegetarian Sauces Table
Vegan | Vegetarian |
|---|---|
The Original BBQ Sauce | Honey Mustard |
The House BBQ Sauce | Ranch Dressing |
Citrus Balsamic Vinaigrette | Ancho Chile Ranch |
Avocado Ranch | |
Honey Lime Dressing | |
Honey Lime Vinaigrette | |
Sante Fe | |
Thousand Island | |
Honey Chipotle Sauce |
Vegetarian Desserts
Cheesecake
Original creamy cheesecake filler on a sweet graham cracker crust for a sweet treat. Served over strawberry puree.
Molten and Mini Molten Chocolate Cake
Rich, delicious chocolate cake with cool vanilla ice cream and a crunchy chocolate shell topped with gooey, melted chocolate. A must-try for Chocolate enthusiasts.
Skillet Chocolate Chip Cookie
Topped with vanilla ice cream, and hot fudge. Whatever you choose to call it: a cookie sundae or a skillet cookie, warm cookie + ice cream equals the ideal dessert!
Does Chili's have vegan options?
Yes. Check out Chili's vegan options on this very page above here.
Veggie burgers include dairy and eggs among their ingredients, so they are vegetarian but not vegan.
Is the black bean burger at Chili's vegan?
The black bean patties contain egg and milk products, so they are not an option for vegans.
Is a plant-based diet 100% vegan?
While they are similar and have both recently gained attention for their health advantages, there are distinctions between the two meal plans: Vegan diets exclude all animal products, but plant-based(vegetarian) diets emphasize consuming primarily plants, such as fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds, without necessarily excluding animal items completely.
Resources
Chili's Menu: Access Menu
Chili's Gluten-Free Menu
Chili's PDF Nutritional Information Guide
YouTube Video: "The 15 Awesome Vegan Options at Chili’s 2023 Updated Guide"
