What Does 'SkinnyLicious' Actually Mean At The Cheesecake Factory?
When you arrive at The Cheesecake Factory, put on your reading glasses, and buckle down to study the hefty menu, you may notice some sections with the descriptor "SkinnyLicious." Started in 2011 with a selection of around 50 dishes and drinks, and now with around 30 items, the "SkinnyLicious" section alone is bigger than most restaurant menus. All it means is that the dishes are lower calorie — main courses are at most 590 calories; small plates, appetizers, and flatbreads are at most 490 calories; and the cocktails are 150 calories or less.
The way the restaurant chain makes the dishes lower in calories is just through simple ingredient substitution. Compare the 590-calorie SkinnyLicious Chicken Pasta to the similar Tomato Basil Pasta, but with 1,720 calories. The option from the regular menu includes fresh mozzarella and has 88 grams of fat (compared to 13 grams of fat in the other version), presumably coming from the amount and types of oils used in the sauce. For a dish that exceeds some people's recommended amount of calories per day, you'd think it would score higher on our ranking of The Cheesecake Factory's pasta dishes.
Are SkinnyLicious dishes actually healthy?
Items on the "SkinnyLicious" menu at The Cheesecake Factory can still be high in sodium, cholesterol, and sugar. The American Heart Association recommends most adults stick to around 1,500 milligrams of sodium a day; none of the "SkinnyLicious" burgers, sandwiches, tacos, or specialty plates are under 1,000 milligrams of sodium. Most of the salads and shared plates are also over 1,000 milligrams. Even the dishes on our list of healthiest options at The Cheesecake Factory are high in sodium, making "healthiest option" a relative term.
Paying too much attention to the calories has shown to lead to eating disorders in some people, and doesn't take into account other aspects of nutritious food and a healthy life. Sure, limiting your calories can help some people lose weight, but it's meals like this — where your weight may go down but your blood pressure will rise — that lead fewer experts to recommend it. Unless your doctor is instructing you to limit your intake of sodium, sugar, or cholesterol, The Cheesecake Factory is a place to occasionally enjoy over-the-top dishes like the ones on our list of the five best new items of 2026.