The real Costco muffins taste great, but they may not be as wholesome as you would like them to be. The dough has been conditioned with gums to thicken, ingredients to emulsify, and to preserve shelf-life the muffins contain no butter. Plus, the flavors you taste—including butter, almond, and vanilla—are all artificial.

I attempted to stay true to the original formula in my first take on the famous muffins with this copycat recipe for Costco’s Blueberry Muffins. In that hack, I chose to avoid butter like the real muffins do, opting instead for margarine. And since the Costco muffins contain no buttermilk, I also stayed away from that ingredient, even though I love its magical properties for baking.

This time, for my Costco Almond Poppy Muffins recipe, I’m taking a different approach to hacking the muffins with more whole egg, real butter, and, yes, buttermilk to bring great flavor and a better crumb to our finished product. Without all the dough conditioners found in the original, these home-cloned muffins are less rubbery and slightly crumblier than Costco’s, and the flavor is better, because it’s real.

Find more favorite famous bread recipes here. 

Over the years I've hacked a bunch of items from Chili's menu, including their Fajitas, Baby Back Ribs, Salsa, Chili Queso, Southwestern Eggrolls, Chicken Crispers, Boneless Wings, and more, but it wasn’t until recently that I got the chance to create a recipe for the Chili's award-winning Original Chili. Why it took so long, I have no idea.

The chili served at Chili’s is a Texas-style con carne recipe, which traditionally means no beans and no tomato. You won’t find any beans in this recipe or chunks of tomato, but their chili does have a tomato base to boost flavor, so I’m adding that into the mix by including one 6-ounce can of tomato paste. As it turns out, that small can is just the right amount.

The preparation technique for my Chili's Original chili copycat recipe is simple: brown the beef, drain off the fat, then add some of the fat back to the empty pan to sauté the onions and peppers in. When those are done, you add the beef back to the pan along with the remaining ingredients and simmer for 1½ hours. That will be just long enough to braise the beef and tenderize it, and to thicken the chili to a perfect consistency.

When the chili’s done, top each serving with a cheddar/pepper Jack blend, and some crispy tortilla bits. Then pass out the spoons.

Check here more of my Chili's copycat recipes.

Use my recipe for P.F. Chang’s incredible Kung Pao sauce and toss it with fried Brussels sprouts, peanuts, and Thai chilies and you get one of this Chinese bistro’s most popular new starters. And now, with this exclusive Top Secret Recipe, you'll have possibly one of your new favorite ways to serve Brussels sprouts. 

You’ll get a half cup of the secret kung pao sauce—that will be enough to sauce 1 pound of Brussels sprouts in 2 separate batches.

Oven baking, like other "hackers" recommend, will not give you the crispy texture of the original. These must be deep-fried. Even though you’ll be frying 8 ounces of Brussels sprouts at a time, you’ll want a wide-mouthed pan like a large saucepot, Dutch oven, or a deep fryer so that you don’t crowd the Brussels sprouts. Also, they will spatter for about 30 seconds when they first hit the oil, so a lid or a spatter guard will definitely come in handy.

Once the oil is hot and the sauce is made, it takes just 5 minutes to get this delish dish on your table. Try my P.F. Chang's Kung Pao Brussels Sprouts copycat recipe below and find more P.F. Chang's recipes here.

The family recipes of Rao’s Italian restaurant have been enjoyed for over 125 years, but it’s only been since 1992 (starting with the marinara sauce) that the chain has been selling the ultra-popular bottled sauces under the Rao’s Homemade label, which is on track to become a billion-dollar company.

One of the many popular sauces now available from Rao’s Homemade is the Bolognese sauce, a blend of tomatoes, veggies, crumbled meatballs, and pancetta. Like my Rao’s Marinara Sauce clone recipe, this hack starts with canned San Marzano tomatoes with the famous red, white, and green San Marzano label. Those are true San Marzano tomatoes grown in the San Marzano region of Italy, and they are superior to other San Marzano-style canned tomatoes in my local grocery stores, many of which aren’t from Italy.

I would suspect that the meatballs crumbled into Rao’s Bolognese sauce are the famous Rao’s meatballs, which Rao’s sells in the restaurants and frozen food aisles, and which I hacked here. For my Rao’s Bolognese Sauce recipe, you’ll need ½ cup of crumbled meatballs using either this top secret recipe, or a bag of frozen Italian meatballs found in most stores. Obviously, my Rao’s meatball hack will give you the best ingredients for this recipe, but I found that the frozen meatballs still work great, as long as they’re good meatballs. This sauce will only be as good as the meatballs you choose.

The slow simmer marries the flavors, and after about an hour you’ll have a great Bolognese to spoon over tagliatelle, tortellini, gnocchi, or whatever you want.

In 2023, IHOP introduced some creative new eggs Benedict dishes, including one made with bacon jam and another with shredded beef and poblano hollandaise sauce. I can certainly appreciate the chain’s novel approach to the traditional recipe, but your taste buds may not be quite ready for those big flavors in the early a.m. That’s why, for this hack, I'm turning to the classic version of the chain’s Benedict, which will be extremely kind to your palate, no matter what time of the day it is.

For my IHOP Classic Eggs Benedict copycat recipe, I’ll show you how to make hollandaise sauce from scratch in just a few minutes, and how to easily poach perfect eggs just as quickly. Hopefully, this recipe is one that you return to whenever you want an impressive breakfast that doesn’t take much work. 

Once the poached eggs are done, stack them on black forest ham (a much better choice than Canadian bacon) and English muffins, douse them with the great hollandaise, and serve the dish with crispy hash browns or fruit on the side.

Menu Description: “Our house specialty with cream, jalapenos and cheddar cheese.”

These slightly spicy au gratin potatoes are cooked at a low heat several hours in advance of the dinner house’s evening opening. When an order for the signature side comes into the kitchen a generous serving of the potatoes is portioned out, topped with grated sharp cheddar cheese, and baked again at a high temperature until browned. The real trick to this Fleming's potato au gratin recipe is to slice the potatoes very thin—1/16 of an inch to be exact—and the only way to do that is with a slicer, such as a mandoline. The rest of the prep involves making a basic béchamel sauce using cream, and then carefully layering the sauce and sliced potatoes in the baking dish. The potatoes are baked for 2 hours and then chilled in the restaurant, so this can be a great make-ahead dish for entertaining. You can also serve the potatoes immediately by topping them with cheese, cranking up the oven, and heading straight into the second baking step.

Update 10/17/23: Recently, I set out to snag a sample of the au gratin potatoes from Bonefish Grill to clone it, but discovered that the dish had been taken off the menu. However, the friendly wait staff informed me that the au gratin potatoes at Fleming's and Bonefish Grill are the same recipe, created by the parent company that owns both chains. So, this recipe is a hack for the great side served at each of the restaurants.  

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 3 by Todd Wilbur.

Chick-fil-A becomes the first fast food chain to feature pimento cheese—a traditional Southern spread made with cheddar cheese, mayonnaise, and pimentos—on a sandwich. The chain’s Honey Pepper Pimento Chicken Sandwich features a regular or spicy crispy chicken breast fillet­ stacked on sliced jalapeños, then drizzled with honey and topped with a healthy portion of their exclusive pimento cheese formula.

For the chicken fillet, I was able to use my previous Chick-fil-A chicken sandwich copycat recipe, but the chain’s excellent pimento cheese spread is a new creation that needed to be hacked from scratch. Rinsing the real spread through a strainer revealed some hidden secrets, including tiny bits of green pepper, which I copied by adding a small amount of minced jalapeño.

The chicken requires four hours to brine, and that’s a good time to make the pimento cheese so it can rest for a bit to improve its color and flavor. The recipe included here is for the original chicken fillet, but if you prefer the kicked-up spicy version of the sandwich, I’ve got the tweak for that variation down in the Tidbits.

Try my Chick-fil-A Honey Pepper Pimento Chicken Sandwich copycat recipe below, and find more of my Chick-fil-A copycat recipes here.

Break open a milk chocolate-coated Butterfinger candy bar and you’ll see flakey layers of candy inside, and it may not seem possible to duplicate that mysterious peanuty center at home without some sort of special equipment. But considering that candy bars as old as this usually start as a hand-made recipe, I figured there must be a way to craft a Butterfinger clone in your own kitchen from scratch.

Ownership of Butterfinger has changed hands a few times since Otto Schnering invented it in 1923 for his Illinois candy company, Curtiss. Standard Brands bought Curtiss in 1964, and then Nabisco merged with Standard Brands in 1981. Nestle purchased Butterfinger from Nabisco in 1990, then later sold it to Italian candy company Ferrara in 2018. Ferrara claims to have “improved” the formula in 2019 by removing preservatives, adding more cocoa to the chocolate, using better peanuts, plus a few other tweaks. And this is where the controversy starts. Posts on Butterfinger’s social media pages complain that the new Ferrara formula is not as good as the Nestle version, that it leaves a bad aftertaste, and that they should immediately bring back the old recipe.

The new label has fewer ingredients than the old label, but one omission that stood out was the removal of corn flakes. Corn flakes had been used in the Butterfinger recipe since the ‘50s, and that’s the Butterfinger most of us grew up on. Is a lack of corn flakes the reason why some Butterfinger fans don’t like the new recipe? I’m not sure if that’s all there is to it, but for this hack, I decided to go old-school and put the corn flakes back in the bar. The corn flakes need to be crushed before adding them to the candy, and you can easily do that by putting them in a small plastic bag and whacking on it with a rolling pin.

For the flakiness of the candy, we’ll use a laminating technique that creates layers in the bar, similar to laminating dough. But unlike dough where you can take your time, you’ll have to work quickly here to make as many layers as possible before it cools, which will be just a couple of minutes. Peanut butter is first spread over the candy, then it’s folded with a silicone spatula, flattened, and folded again, and again. When the candy begins to harden, it’s trimmed into bars, cooled, and dipped into milk chocolate.

Try my Butterfinger copycat recipe below, and find more of your favorite candy recipes here.

After the "Soup Nazi" episode of Seinfeld aired, Jerry Seinfeld and several members of his production crew went over to Soup Kitchen International in New York City for lunch. When owner Al Yegenah recognized Jerry he flew into a profanity-filled rant about how the show had "ruined" his business and he demanded an apology. According to writer Spike Feresten, Jerry gave "the most insincere, sarcastic apology ever given," Yegenah yelled, "No soup for you!" and immediately ejected them from the premises. Knowing that to upset Al was to risk being yelled at and possibly evicted like Jerry, it was with great caution that I approached the order window to ask the Soup Nazi a few questions about the November 1995 Seinfeld episode that made him famous. Needless to say, the interview was very brief.

TW: How do you feel about all the publicity that followed the Seinfeld episode?
AY: I didn't need it. I was known well enough before that. I don't need it.

TW: But it must have been good for business, right?
AY: He [Seinfeld] used me. He used me. I didn't use him, he used me.

TW: How many people do you serve in a day?
AY: I cannot talk to you. If I talk, I cannot work.

TW: How many different soups do you serve?
AY: (Getting very upset) I cannot talk! (Pointing to sign) Move to the left! Next!

Hopefully, you won't get this same treatment in your own kitchen. Whip up my Soup Nazi's Cream of Sweet Potato Soup copycat recipe for a peaceful rendition of this wonderful soup.

Check out my other Soup Nazi copycat recipes here.

Source: Top Secret Recipes Unlocked by Todd Wilbur.

You may never use traditional meatloaf toppings again once you taste how Outback Steakhouse kicks up its ground steak meatloaf entrée. Ketchup and barbecue sauce seem like mundane toppers after you taste these clones of the chain’s amazing Fresno chili jam and creamy peppercorn sauce—one sweet, the other savory—that take your meatloaf to the next level.

The Fresno chili jam presented the biggest hacking challenge of the two sauces. I had to work through several batches to find the perfect ratio of red bell peppers to Fresno chilies to tone the heat down to an edible level. Also, I was not expecting tomato juice. My first batches left that ingredient out until I returned to Outback, where my helpful server provided valuable intel.

At the restaurant, this meatloaf is pre-baked and chilled. When an order comes in, a couple of slices are seared in a sauté pan or on a flat grill until browned and hot, then they’re topped with the two warmed sauces and served. You can use the same trick in my Outback Spicy Jammin' Meatloaf recipe below: make the meatloaf in advance of the meal, then just slice what you need and sear it before serving.

Find copycat recipes for more of your favorite Outback dishes here. 

Menu Description: "Gingerbread crispy crust, cranberry compote, spiced anglaise."

Every year, it's the same dessert at the Thanksgiving table: a triangular portion of pumpkin pie with a giant dollop of Cool Whip piled up on top. Sure, it's tasty and traditional, but maybe you want to step it up this year? I've got just the thing. Spago makes a semi-deconstructed pumpkin cheesecake in the fall that is the perfect upscale clone for your homemade holiday dessert. 

In my Wolfgang Puck Pumpkin Cheesecake copycat recipe, all four components are made separately, then when it's dessert time, you pipe the filing onto the crispy gingerbread crusts with a pastry bag (or you can just spoon it on), pile on the garnish, and serve it up with a smile. You make everything the day before, or on the morning of your celebration, and then you build each plate just before serving. If you want an extra garnish for your plates as in the restaurant, grab some vanilla sauce at the store, or follow the quickie recipe found below in "Tidbits."

If you're looking for a traditional pumpkin pie, try my clone for Marie Callender's, or this pumpkin pecan cheesecake from Cheesecake Factory.

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 3 by Todd Wilbur.

Taco Bell chefs worked for two years perfecting the birria-inspired shredded beef introduced nationwide in the summer of 2023 for the chain’s new Grilled Cheese Dipping Taco. According to a company press release, the new beef is slow-braised in spices, then it’s loaded into a white corn tortilla that’s freshly fried each day, with melted cheese inside the taco and more cheese grilled onto the outside.

For my Taco Bell Grilled Cheese Dipping Taco copycat recipe, you’ll slow-braise the beef like they do at the restaurant, but with a slimmed-down formula that won’t require you to chop vegetables as is called for in most birria recipes. One 2-pound chuck roast is all you’ll need to make enough tender shredded beef for at least 18 tacos. I’ve also got a great copycat formula here for the creamy jalapeno sauce that’s drizzled over the beef once it’s loaded into a freshly fried white corn tortilla.

After adding the sauce, a 3-cheese blend is added to the taco, more cheese is grilled onto one side of the shell in a hot pan, then it’s served with two sauces for dipping: nacho cheese sauce and the chain’s signature red sauce, which you can make from scratch with the easy recipe I’m including as well so you can get the full flavor effect of the real deal.

If shredded chicken is your thing, check out my Taco Bell Shredded Chicken Soft Taco copycat recipe here.

You might expect to find some sort of cheese in a product with “cheesecake” in the name, but that isn’t the case in this seasonal release from the famous bakery brand owned by Campbell’s Soup. There is real pumpkin in these chewy cookies that will appeal to lovers of the whole pumpkin spice thing, but the tiny drops in the cookies that I thought would taste like cheesecake, are just white chocolate chips. It’s up to us to imagine that white chocolate tastes like cheesecake, which it really doesn’t, but whatever. They’re still great cookies.

My Pepperidge Farm Pumpkin Cheesecake Soft Baked Cookies copycat recipe is a cinch and will produce around 32 cookies that look and taste like the originals, right down to the color which is re-created with red and yellow food coloring in a 1-to-3 ratio. The pumpkin adds some orange color to the cookies, but to re-create the bright orange of the real thing, the added colors are essential.

This hack re-creates the cookies with plain white chocolate chips just like the real thing, but if you want real cheesecake-flavored chips, I’ve got a quick recipe below in the Tidbits that combines cream cheese and melted white chocolate chips to make little cheesecake chunks. Mix these into your cookie dough and in a matter of minutes you’ll be serving pumpkin cheesecake cookies that truly live up to their name.

Find more of your favorite Pepperidge Farm cookie recipes here. 

Them's the biscuits at America's most popular stop for breakfast, and my copycat McDonald's biscuit recipe is simple to make with Bisquick and buttermilk.

Psssst...there's a lot more McDonald's recipes over here.

Source: Even More Top Secret Recipes by Todd Wilbur.

Subway’s most popular freshly baked cookie will remind you of biting into a delicious slice of berry cheesecake. The cookie dough has a little cream cheese in it, and the cookie is embedded with creamy white chocolate chips and flavorful real raspberry baking bits.

The challenge for making a good clone was re-creating the raspberry bits found in the real cookie using easy steps that anyone could manage. I experimented with raspberry candy bits in the style of Turkish delight, gummies, and fruit rolls, but each of those techniques took much too long. Eventually, I mixed concentrated raspberry purée with white chocolate chips and got meltable real raspberry baking bits that were easy to make and tasted great.

I’ll show you how to make those raspberry bits here with simple steps and photos, and then you’ll combine those bits with white chocolate chips and other ingredients for a batch of 22 cookies that will come out of your oven crispy on the edges and chewy in the middle, just like the real ones at the world’s biggest sandwich shop.

Try my Subway Raspberry Cheesecake cookie recipe below, and find my recipes for Subway Chocolate Chip, Double Chocolate Chip, and White Chip Macadamia Nut cookies here.

My KFC gravy recipe here duplicates the tasty tan stuff that's poured over fluffy mashed potatoes at the Colonel's chain of restaurants. And since the original recipe contains MSG (as does their chicken), my recipe was designed with that "secret" ingredient. You may choose to leave out the MSG, which is a natural amino acid found in vegetables and other foods, but your clone won't taste like the real thing without it.

Try my KFC Mashed Potatoes & Gravy copycat recipe below, and check out more of my KFC hacks here.

Source: Even More Top Secret Recipes by Todd Wilbur.

This popular pick from Boston Market may be called a side dish, but it tastes more like dessert. With the brown sugar, cinnamon, and butter in there, and the oatmeal streusel on top, you will be reminded of sweet potato pie; yet the dish goes great alongside meals as varied as low-key chicken dinners or bigger-key holiday banquets. 

And the great part is, if you're planning to use my Boston Market sweet potato casserole copycat recipe for entertaining, you can make everything but the streusel a day ahead, so you won't be stressed at crunch time. Just cover the filled baking dish and pop it in the fridge. Take it out a few hours before you plan to bake it so the casserole can come close to room temperature, then you simply top it off with your streusel and pop the whole thing in the oven.

Check out my other copycat recipes for famous Boston Market dishes like butternut squash, and garlic new potatoes here.

Source: Top Secret Recipes Unlocked by Todd Wilbur.

Menu Description: “A baked blend of Italian cheeses, pasta, and our signature five-cheese marinara.”

Creating my Olive Garden’s famous baked ziti copycat recipe would not be possible without a perfect clone of the chain’s popular five-cheese marinara sauce. I started with my previous recipe of the plain marinara for Olive Garden’s Chicken Parmigiana and enhanced it with the addition of five kinds of Italian cheese and heavy cream.  

Determining which five types of cheese are in a prepared sauce is tough without some insider assistance, so before cooking I focused my efforts on convincing a server to ask the chef for the list…and I got it! The blend of cheese used here in the sauce comes straight from the kitchen of my local Olive Garden. When you taste it, you’ll know the intel was legit.

After the sauce is added to the pasta it’s topped with a cheese-and-breadcrumb mix called “ziti topping,” then it’s browned under a salamander (for the restaurant version) or a broiler (for your version). The result is a beautiful dish with great sauce and a cheesy topping that should satisfy even the pickiest baked ziti fanatics.

I've cloned a ton of dishes from Olive Garden. See if I hacked your favorite here.