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You love our Cafe Rio Copycat Recipes, so we wanted to make it easy and put them all in one place! Here, you will find the Cafe Rio Copycat burrito, salad, beans, rice, salad dressings, and more!
Table of Contents
We love Cafe Rio, but it can be expensive going there often, or you may not live close to one. The amazing thing about copycat recipes is that it gives you the ability to create whichever recipe you are craving right at home! It started with Cafe Rio Sweet Pork, but now we have several more options to choose from and make when we have that hankering!
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.
Cafe Rio Burrito
“Best recipe ever!!” -Nellie
The Cafe Rio Burrito is made with a giant homemade tortilla and served with lettuce and pico de gallo. Fill with your favorite meat, Cafe Rio Sweet Pork, Mexican Shredded Chicken, Carne Asada Steak, or a Roasted Vegetable Medley. Add cilantro lime rice, black beans or pinto beans, enchilada sauce (red, mild or medium green), and Mexican blended shredded cheese.
Make your burrito “enchilada style” by adding more enchilada sauce, topping with more cheese, and heating it in the oven until the cheese is melted. Add shredded lettuce and pico de gallo to the side to complete the plate.
Cafe Rio Salad
“Loved it! Tried it for the first time today. Cafe Rio is just down the hill from us but I think we’ll be cooking at home! Thanks for the great recipes!” -Jill
A Cafe Rio Salad starts with a large tortilla at the bottom, who doesn’t love that? It gives more substance to the salad, a little more than just lettuce. As you eat your salad you can pull off bits of tortilla to enjoy, as well.
After the tortilla, add your favorite meat, some options include Cafe Rio Sweet Pork, Mexican Shredded Chicken, or Carne Asada Steak, next add black or pinto beans, chopped lettuce, guac, pico de gallo, tortilla strips, and cotija cheese. Garnish with cilantro and lime wedges. We have to Cafe Rio dressings, a cilantro ranch dressing and a cilantro lime vinaigrette. It’s hard to choose, but you can always blend them together for a zesty, light, and tasty dressing over your salad!
Cafe Rio Cilantro Ranch Dressing
“Love this ranch dressing it was such a great added addition to my salad. Can’t wait to make and use again!” -Brandy
You can’t have a Cafe Rio experience without a side of Cilantro Ranch. To dip, to dunk, to pour over. It’s necessary.
Spicy, tangy, and so so good, it’s more than just a salad dressing. This ‘dressing’ comes together easily with a few ingredients. If you are making any copycat recipe off the menu, you’ll need to make this one too. Sometimes it’s the simple things that are the best.
Cafe Rio Cilantro Lime Vinaigrette
“Best dressing on the planet!! We use it on so many things! It’s so easy to make!” -Natalie
Looking for a fresh, zesty dressing? This is it. A perfect pair to the Cafe Rio Salad, or any salad, for that matter, this dressing is a healthy alternative to bottled salad dressings. Made with bright and acidic tomatillos, this dressing has a light and zingy flavor you’ll love.
Cafe Rio Tortilla Soup
“I moved to a state that does not have any Cafe Rio and have been craving this soup. This recipe hit it right on the head and I’ll be making it many times again.” -Brittney
Cafe Rio’s Tortilla Soup is a fan favorite. I think you’d be surprised how easy it is to make! Follow our recipe for ultra flavorful tortilla soup that you are guaranteed to love! It doesn’t have to be hard to make food you love!
Cafe Rio Sweet Pork
“This truly is THE copycat recipe. Wow. I live on the east coast, so I don’t have access to Cafe Rio as often as I’d like. This recipe helps transport me there, and it’s incredible. My whole family loves it, and we’re forever obsessed. LOVE! Thanks for this!” -Hannah
This Cafe Rio Sweet Pork recipe tastes JUST like what you’d find at the restaurant. It has been a fan favorite on our site since 2007. When you make it you will see why!
This recipe opens the door to many other recipes for you, filling enchiladas, burritos, salads, and more. If you aren’t a pork person, or want other options, check out our recipes for Mexican Shredded Chicken, Mexican Shredded Beef, and Carne Asada Steak.
Cafe Rio Cilantro Lime Rice
“My favorite rice ever!! It’s light, fluffy, & I love the flavor! We eat it with everything!” -Kristyn
You can make Cafe Rio Cilantro Lime Rice as a filling for your burritos, enchiladas, salads, and more! It also makes a great side for any Mexican-inspired feast. This unassuming side dish is key to rounding out your perfect meal. Bursting with flavor, it’s fresh, flavorful, and so delicious!
Cafe Rio Black Beans
This is really easy to follow, loved this black beans recipe! It’s really tasty and very flavorful! Will surely have this again! Highly recommended!” -Alyssa
Inspired by the always delicious Cafe Rio Black Beans, these beans are great! Made with canned beans, it’s easy to make this recipe, no soaking, no waiting. These are perfect with every Cafe Rio recipe. You’ll love the simple but fresh flavors.
More Mexican-Inspired Recipes
Looking for more Mexican-inspired recipes? Sides and dips to complete your perfect meal? Look no further!
Just had the pollo asada at the new Cafe Rio in Meridian by Costco. OMGoodness, amazing! It’s my new favorite besides the sweet pork
That is great to hear! I am so glad that you all loved it. Thanks for letting us know!
Love these recipes!! So tasty & love to make these when we don’t feel like going out!
Cafe Rio chicken is my favorite! I am so glad I can make it at home. It’s delicious!
I gotta try this restaurant! These recipes are so delicious and easy! I gotta try this restaurant to see what else I’m missing! But LOVING on these delicious recipes!! Those enchiladas are SO good! And LOVE the soup!!
We just made the sweet pork salad with the dressing and cilantro rice and it was so delicious! Thank you for sharing these recipes!
I see the Cilantro lime vinaigarette recipe. Do you have one for their house dressing? It is more of a ranch type dressing?
Sure do! https://www.favfamilyrecipes.com/cafe-rio-cilantro-ranch-dressing/
What about their Fideo?
Hi Kip, We haven’t tried duplicating the Cafe Rio Fideo yet – but we definitely need to! We’ll work on it!
Oh my gosh! You guys saved me! I lived in Utah for a year, and I miss it so much! My favorite place to eat out was at Cafe Rio, but here in Denmark there is nothing that can compare! So I’m so happy, that now I can cook my favorite food here! Thanks a lot guys!
Thanks Lisa! I think you will LOVE these recipes. They taste just like the food at Cafe Rio. They are some of the most popular recipes on our site. I’m glad you found us. Erica’s husband lived in Denmark for two years. He loves Danish food! Please share your Danish recipes with us! We have a few on our site, but would love more!
I am not seeing a link in the top right hand corner of your website here to order your Café Rio cookbook. Can you please help me out?
The Cafe Rio recipes are a part of our current cookbook. There isn’t a separate one for Cafe Rio recipes. Hope this helps!
Hi, I was hoping to make both the sweet pork and the cilantro rice tonight; however, it says that the links are not working! Have you moved these pages?
They should still be there.. if the links are broken try searching for them in the search box above. The recipes are for sure here on the site!
Yes, links still don’t seem to be working!
Sorry about that! I will try to get on those today and get them working again!
Yeah, they still aren’t working. :/
Hey Amber! I got them all fixed tonight! They are definitely all working now, try refreshing the page and they should all work! Thanks for letting us know about the broken links.
Do you have a recipe for Cafe Rio’s queso dip?
not yet 🙂
How about the Friday special of Fideo? Missed that since we moved away
Yes Fideo please! I pinned specifically for that recipe
How do I buy a book or two or three?
I don’t see an Amazon link.
Maybe send me the link to your site. I am seeing this on Face Book.
How can I purchase your cookbook???
In the top right-hand side of our site you will see an image of our book. You can click on that and link you to Amazon where you can buy it! Thanks for your interest!
I saw the guacamole recipe, you mentioned barbacoa. I love that place. Have you come up with their salsa verde and chips recipes?
We have a recipe for salsa verde but I’m not sure if its the same as Barbacoas…
It was mentioned on your site that you can buy a cookbook with all the Cafe Rio recipes. How do I go about ordering one rather than print each recipe out? Thanks, Shelly
It’s on amazon, there is a link on the top right hand corner of the site.
I make these recipes all the time…Everyone loves them..so happy you made them available to us.
I cannot access any of these recipes. I keep getting error messages. Thanks for any help getting them back on the web!
Is it working now?
Recipe #s 1, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, & 11 don’t work. Hope they work soon!
Ummm. YIKES! I will get on that! Thanks for catching that. I don’t know what happened.
It’s still not working 🙁 i’ve used these recipes a number of times and never had a problem, now I cant access them! These are the only cafe rio recipes that are actually good!
Ok I will work on these today and try to get them working– thanks for letting us know!
Do you know about how much the beans, dressing, and pork this will feed? I am planning on cooking this for a group of about 25 people.
There are three recipes I would love to see on here, since they are part of our favorite Cafe Rio dishes (perhaps I missed them though): Shredded Roast beef, green mild enchilada sauce, and the red hot sauce. Thanks for what is already here!
haha pretty much the 3 things we don’t have of Cafe Rio’s. I will see what I can do!