Cafe Rio Copycat Recipes

May 11, 2024

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Our Cafe Rio Copycat Recipes has been a huge hit, so we thought we would compile them ALL in one post! Our salad, beans, rice, soup, burritos, and more!

Tall collage of Cafe Rio Recipes featuring salad, burritos, soup, and sweet pork

Featured with this post

What is Cafe Rio
Meat Choices
Cafe Rio Burrito
Cafe Rio Salad
Enchiladas
Tacos
Cafe Rio Soup
Cafe Rio Copycat Recipes

Here they are! All our Cafe Rio copycat recipe dishes all in one easy-to-find post! You will find quite a few Cafe Rio copycat recipes floating around out there, however, we are proud to be the home of the ORIGINAL Copycat Cafe Rio Recipes. Cooking them is simple with an instant pot, crock pot, or oven. All the Mexican flavor with quick and easy recipes!

We love Cafe Rio and it can be expensive going there often. When we start craving the sweet pork burrito or the tortilla soup we just get the recipe and create it right at home! Now we have several more options to choose from and make when we have that craving! Cafe Rio pork recipes have been one of our favorite family meals!

What is Cafe Rio

Cafe Rio is a quick-serve Mexican grill where you can create burritos, salads, enchiladas, and more. You start with the tortilla or lettuce, then choose your meats, and toppings. It is delicious and a great experience to individualize your meal while everyone enjoys the same eating place. It is similar to Chipotle or Costa Vida but served enchilada style not wrapped in foil and hand-held.

Meat Choices

Most of the menu items at Cafe Rio or Costa Vida begin with some kind of meat. Your meat choices consist of sweet pork, shredded chicken, grilled chicken, shredded beef, or grilled steak. All the meats are flavorful, tender, and juicy!

Sweet pork – The most popular meat at Cafe Rio is shredded sweet pork. Take a pork shoulder, pork roast, or pork butt to make this sweet pork. This is made with enchilada sauce, brown sugar, and coke soda ingredients. We love this recipe in the slow cooker.
Beef – Our Mexican Shredded Beef is very similar to the shredded beef they serve at Cafe Rio. Any time we make Cafe Rio recipes using shredded beef we will use this recipe.
Shredded chicken – You can find our Cafe Rio Shredded Chicken recipe in our first cookbook but we will be adding it soon to the website! Keep an eye out for it!

Cafe Rio shredded pork, beef, and chicken.

Cafe Rio Burrito

Cafe Rio burritos are made with a giant homemade tortilla and served with lettuce and pico de gallo. They are filled with your favorite meat, cilantro lime rice, black bean or pinto beans, enchilada sauce, and Mexican blended shredded cheese. The enchilada sauce comes in red enchilada sauce, medium green, or mild green flavors.

Once your burrito is assembled, you can make it “enchilada style” by adding more enchilada sauce, topping it with more cheese, and heating it in the oven until the cheese is melted. Add shredded lettuce and pico de gallo to the side and you are ready to go!

A homemade cafe rio sweet pork burrito with lettuce and pico de gallo

Cafe Rio Salad

Cafe Rio Salads also start with a large tortilla on the bottom. This is a fun twist that I love. It is always nice to have a little more substance with the lettuce. As you are enjoying the salad you can pull some tortilla bites off to give more texture. It also is a blocker from the liquid of the meat seeping out. Add a little cheese to the tortilla and place in the oven until the cheese melts.

Start by adding your favorite meat, cilantro lime rice, black bean or pinto beans, chopped green or romaine lettuce, guacamole, pico de Gallo, tortilla strips, and cotija cheese. Garnish with cilantro and lime wedges. They have these three dressings tomatillo ranch, cilantro ranch dressing, or cilantro lime vinaigrette which is always hard to choose from. Blend them for a zesty, light, and tasty dressing over your salad!

A homemade cafe rio sweet pork salad in a metal tin

Enchiladas

If you are making enchiladas for your family, it is more practical to make enchiladas family-style. We just call them Family Style Burritos. You can assemble a bunch at once and then serve! This is our favorite way of making them.

If you are wanting to stay authentic to Cafe Rio, you can make them individually by assembling them with your favorite meat, enchilada sauce, and cheese wrapped in a flour enchilada-sized tortilla. The beans and rice are served on the side along with lettuce and pico de gallo.

Tacos

The tacos are served with your favorite meat in a small flour tortilla and topped with lettuce, pico, and cheese. The rice and beans are served on the side. You can order or make these with softened corn tortillas as well.

Cafe Rio Soup

The tortilla soup at Cafe Rio is one of my very favorite soups EVER! It is so easy to make! You just get a bowl and add in chicken, pico de Gallo, guacamole, pinto beans, cheese, and chicken broth. Top with tortilla strips, cilantro, and lime for a garnish.

A bowl of cafe rio chicken tortilla soup topped with tortilla chips, cilantro, and lime wedges

“Love these recipes!! So tasty & love to make these when we don’t feel like going out!”
-Jennifer