Chili’s new Chicken Parm Big Crispy stacks fried mozzarella on fried chicken
Chili’s has done the very literal thing: it took its Big Crispy fried chicken sandwich, parked a slab of fried mozzarella on top and drowned the whole stack in marinara. The new Chicken Parm Big Crispy launched nationwide on October 20, after an early run in Florence, Kentucky; Rome, Georgia; and Venice, Florida.
Delish writer Steven Morea, a self-described longtime Chili’s lover, treated the debut like a “sacred holiday” and went in expecting a heavy bite. He was right. “There’s a giant piece of crispy chicken, an equally substantial piece of fried mozzarella, and marinara covering the whole thing,” he wrote. “There was really no universe in which this was going to be a light lunch.”
The first bite erased any doubt. “This literally tastes like a chicken Parm,” Morea said, “and I mean a genuinely good chicken Parm.” The chicken kept its crunchy Big Crispy texture while staying tender and juicy inside, but the fried mozzarella is what sends the sandwich somewhere else entirely.
Morea’s mozzarella arrived steaming hot, with a crisp shell around molten cheese, and the pull could have “stretched across the restaurant” if he had let it. He was most nervous about the marinara, since chain-restaurant tomato sauce is where sandwiches often fall apart. Chili’s version held up — tangy enough to cut through all that fried chicken and cheese without drowning either one.
The verdict: delicious, with a nap chaser
The bun deserves credit for knowing its role: light and soft enough to hold the stack together without making every bite heavier. The sandwich comes with fries and white cheddar mac and cheese, plus sides of marinara and house-made ranch — so nobody is leaving hungry.
Morea’s final call is an enthusiastic yes with a warning. “This is absolutely not the sandwich I’d order before doing anything remotely athletic,” he wrote. “Would I order it again? Easily, but I just might need a minute afterward.” If the goal was to turn chicken Parm into something unmistakably Chili’s, he says, they nailed it.
