The best El Chubby’s dishes for winter in Aurora are the ones built around our green chili: smothered burritos, smothered combination plates, and green chili by the quart to take home. Add a bowl of menudo, a dozen homemade tamales, a hot breakfast plate on a snowy morning, and fried ice cream or sopapillas to finish, and you have a pretty good plan for getting through a Colorado winter.
We’ve been feeding Aurora from the same address on S Abilene St since 1991. That’s 35 winters of snow days, early sunsets and people coming in from the cold looking for something hot. Some dishes just make more sense when it’s 20 degrees outside, and these are the ones we’d point you toward.
Why is smothered everything the best winter order?
When the temperature drops, smothered is the word to know. Our green chili is made fresh every day, it’s what we are best known for, and you can choose hot green, mild green or red. On a cold night, a plate covered in fresh green chili and melted cheese is about as warm as food gets.
Start with a burrito. Every burrito on our menu comes five ways, and the two winter favorites are at the top of the scale. Smothered covers the burrito with green chili and cheese. Deluxe does the same and then adds lettuce and tomatoes on top. Pick your filling, whether that’s beef and bean, chicken, carnitas, carne asada or the Mexican Hamburger, and make it smothered.
The combination plates are made for this season too. Several of them come smothered: smothered tamales, smothered rellenos, a smothered beef and bean burrito, and two smothered burritos. All of our combination plates come with rice and beans, and our beans are made in the pot. That’s a full, hot meal on one plate.
Not sure about the heat? Mild green gives you all the comfort with less burn, and you can always ask for chili on the side. If you want to know why we take our chili so seriously, read why El Chubby’s green chili stands above the rest.
Can you take El Chubby’s green chili home for a snow day?
Yes, and on a snow day it’s one of the smartest things you can keep in the fridge. Chili is on our sides menu in sizes from a side up to a quart.
A quart of green chili turns a lot of ordinary home cooking into a winter meal. Spoon it over scrambled eggs on a lazy morning. Heat it up and dip warm tortillas in it. Smother a burrito you rolled at home, or pour it over potatoes, rice or a bowl of beans. When the forecast calls for snow, grabbing a quart on the way home is a good way to make sure dinner is covered.
Pair it with a few more sides and you’ve got a spread: our beans, rice, chips and salsa, guacamole, or queso con chorizo with chips. It all travels well and warms up nicely.
What else warms you up in winter at El Chubby’s?
Menudo is on our menu, and for a lot of people it’s the first thing they think of when the weather turns cold. Menudo is a traditional Mexican soup with a long history as a comfort food, often eaten on cold mornings and weekends. If you’re planning a visit around a bowl, give us a call at 303-755-1414 before you head over.
Tamales are another winter classic. In many Mexican and Mexican American families, tamales are a holiday tradition, and the season between Thanksgiving and the new year is when a lot of people want them by the dozen. Ours are homemade, and you can order them by the half dozen or the dozen to take home. In the restaurant, you can have them plain or smothered. If you’re curious where tamales come from, we’ve written about the history of tamales.
And when you want something hearty that isn’t a burrito, look at the specialties menu. Carne Asada Fries is our signature dish. Our carne asada is thin strips of steak grilled with jalapeños, onions and tomatoes, and over a pile of fries it makes a meal that will hold you through any cold evening. Chicken Asada Fries, Smothered Fries and the Carne Asada Bowl are all good cold-weather picks as well.
What’s the best winter breakfast at El Chubby’s?
A cold morning calls for a hot plate. We open at 7am Monday through Saturday and 9am on Sunday, and the breakfast menu has plenty to choose from. Huevos Rancheros, Huevos con Chorizo, Steak Rancheros, Ham Steak and Eggs and Flo’s Gringo Breakfast are all made to order and served hot.
Breakfast burritos are the other way to go. Pick from fillings like potato and chorizo, potato and bacon, sausage or steak, then order it smothered with hot green chili. It’s the kind of breakfast that makes scraping the windshield feel a little more worth it.
On the coldest mornings, the drive-thru is your friend. You can stay in a warm car, order your breakfast burrito the way you like it, and be on your way.
What’s the best winter dessert to finish with?
Winter is the right time for something warm and sweet. Our sopapillas come out of the kitchen hot, and they’re a simple, satisfying way to end a meal. Fried ice cream gives you the best of both worlds, a crisp outside and cold ice cream inside, and the sopapilla sundae splits the difference. Churros (cinnamon or Oreo), doughnuts and mini apple empanadas are on the dessert menu too, and every kids meal comes with a sopapilla.
However you get through the season, we’re here at 1191 S Abilene St every day, with dine-in, takeout and a drive-thru. If the roads are bad and you’d rather stay put, you can order online for pickup or delivery through DoorDash, and we’re on Uber Eats as well. Come hungry, stay warm, and let us handle dinner this winter.
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