Menu Description: "Breaded chicken breast tossed in spicy wing sauce. Served with cool bleu cheese dressing."

My Chili's Boneless Buffalo Wings recipe re-creates the piquant flavor of traditional Buffalo chicken wings, but the bones and skin are left back in Buffalo. That's because these "wings" are actually nuggets sliced from chicken breast fillets, then breaded and fried, and smothered with the same type of spicy wing sauce used on traditional wings. If you like the flavor of Buffalo wings, but wish you could use a fork, your spicy dreams have come true. Serve up your copycat Chili's Boneless Buffalo Wings with some celery sticks and bleu cheese dressing on the side for dipping.

Try more of my Chili's copycat recipes here.

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 2 by Todd Wilbur.

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Menu Description: "Here they are in all their lip-smacking, award-winning glory: Buffalo, New York-style chicken wings spun in your favorite signature sauce."

Since Buffalo, New York was too far away, Jim Disbrow and Scott Lowery satisfied their overwhelming craving in 1981 by opening a spicy chicken wing restaurant close to home in Kent, Ohio. With signature sauces and a festive atmosphere, the chain has now evolved from a college campus sports bar with wings to a family restaurant with over 300 units. While frying chicken wings is no real secret—simply drop them in hot shortening for about 10 minutes—the delicious spicy sauces make the wings special. There are 12 varieties of sauce available to coat your crispy chicken parts at the chain, and I'm presenting clones for the more traditional flavors. These sauces are very thick, almost like dressing or dip, so we'll use an emulsifying technique that will ensure a creamy final product where the oil won't separate from the other ingredients. Here is the chicken wing cooking and coating technique, followed by clones for the most popular sauces: Spicy Garlic, Medium and Hot. The sauce recipes might look the same at first, but each has slight variations make your sauce hotter or milder by adjusting the level of cayenne pepper. You can find Frank's pepper sauce by the other hot sauces in your market. If you can't find that brand, you can also use Crystal Louisiana hot sauce.

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 2 by Todd Wilbur.

Since McDonald's doesn't sell onion rings, these crunchy, golden hoops from the world's number two restaurant chain are the most popular onion rings in the world. There are more than 12,000 Burger Kings in 61 countries these days, and after French fries, onion rings are the second-most popular companion to the chain's signature Whopper sandwich. Check out how simple it is to clone a whopping four dozen onion rings from one onion, using this triple-breading process. When frying, trans fat-free vegetable shortening makes for the best Burger King Onion Rings recipe, but you can get by fine using vegetable oil if that's the way you want to go.. (For a great dipping sauce—similar to Outback's Bloomin' Onion sauce—check out my clone recipe for Burger King's Zesty Onion Ring Dipping Sauce.)

Source: Top Secret Recipes Unlocked by Todd Wilbur.

Menu Description: "Jumbo butterflied shrimp hand-dipped in batter flavored with Captain Morgan Parrot Bay Rum & coconut flakes. Served with piña colada dipping sauce."

Fans of this dish say the best part is the piña colada dipping sauce. And it's true. That sauce is so good you could eat it with a spoon. But the coconut shrimp is pretty awesome too, just on its own. Red Lobster's secret formula includes Captain Morgan's Parrot Bay rum, which sweetens the batter and adds a great coconut flavor (plus you can whip up a nice cocktail with it while you're cooking). Panko breadcrumbs—which give a nice crunch to the shrimp—can be found in the aisle of your market where all the Asian foods are parked. My Red Lobster Parrot Bay coconut shrimp copycat recipe makes two times the size of a serving you get at the Lobster, so there should be enough for everyone. The real thing comes with salsa on the side in addition to the piña colada sauce, but you may not even want to include it.

Find more of your favorite Red Lobster copycat recipes here.

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 2 by Todd Wilbur.

In early 1985, restaurateur Rich Komen felt there was a specialty niche in convenience-food service just waiting to be filled. His idea was to create an efficient outlet that could serve freshly made cinnamon rolls in shopping malls throughout the country. It took nine months for Komen and his staff to develop a cinnamon roll recipe he knew customers would consider the "freshest, gooiest, and most mouthwatering cinnamon roll ever tasted." The concept was tested for the first time in Seattle's Sea-Tac mall later that year, with workers mixing, proofing, rolling, and baking the rolls in full view of customers. Now, more than 626 outlets later, Cinnabon has become the fastest-growing cinnamon roll bakery in the world.

Use my Cinnabon Cinnamon Rolls copycat recipe below to make delicious homemade Cinnabon, or try my improved recipe here, which I perfected with the help of Cinnabon HQ.

Source: More Top Secret Recipes by Todd Wilbur.

Once a regular menu item, these sweet, saucy wings are now added to the KFC menu on a "limited-time-only" basis in many markets. So how are we to get that sticky sauce all over our faces and hands during those many months when we are cruelly denied our Honey BBQ Wings? Now it's as easy as whipping up my KFC honey BBQ wings recipe that re-creates the crispy breading on the chicken wings, and the sweet-and-smoky honey BBQ sauce. "Limited-time-only" signs—we laugh at you.

How about some famous coleslaw or wedge potatoes? Check out my collection of KFC clone recipes here.

Source: Even More Top Secret Recipes by Todd Wilbur.

These "Limited-Time Only" wings from KFC may be gone now, but since this clone duplicates the sweet-and-spicy sauce on this amazing finger food, the great taste of this Dead Food lives on. In each store wings are coated with a KFC-style breading before they get fried up and tossed in delicious Cajun sauce. The sauce is da bomb on wings, but you can also put it to work on ribs or other chicken parts like breaded tenders or baked nuggets. This recipe calls for Emeril's Bayou Blast Cajun Seasoning, but it will also work with any other Cajun seasoning blend you find in your local market.

How about some famous coleslaw or wedge potatoes? Check out my collection of KFC clone recipes here. 

Source: Top Secret Recipes Unlocked by Todd Wilbur.

The first Auntie Anne's pretzel store opened in 1988 in the heart of pretzel country—a Pennsylvanian Amish farmers' market. Over 500 stores later, Auntie Anne's is one of the most requested secret clone recipes around, especially on the internet. 

Many of the copycat Auntie Anne's soft pretzel recipes passed around the Web require bread flour, and some use honey as a sweetener. But by studying the Auntie Anne's home pretzel-making kit in my secret underground laboratory, I've created a better Auntie Anne's copycat recipe with a superior way to re-create the delicious mall treats at home. For the best quality dough, you just need all-purpose flour. And powdered sugar works great to perfectly sweeten the dough. Now you just have to decide if you want to make the more traditional salted pretzels, or the sweet cinnamon sugar-coated kind. Decisions, decisions.

Find more of my copycat recipes for famous muffins, bagels, and rolls here. 

Source: Even More Top Secret Recipes by Todd Wilbur.

The automated process for creating Krispy Kreme doughnuts, developed in the 1950's, took the company many years to perfect. When you drive by your local Krispy Kreme store between 5:00 and 11:00 each day (both a.m. and p.m.) and see the "Hot Doughnuts Now" sign lit up, inside the store custom-made stainless steel machines are rolling. Doughnut batter is extruded into little doughnut shapes that ride up and down through a temperature and humidity controlled booth to activate the yeast. This creates the perfect amount of air in the dough that will yield a tender and fluffy finished product. When the doughnuts are perfectly puffed up, they're gently dumped into a moat of hot vegetable shortening where they float on one side until golden brown, and then the machine flips them over to cook the other side. When the doughnuts finish frying, they ride up a mesh conveyor belt and through a ribbon of white sugar glaze. If you're lucky enough to taste one of these doughnuts just as it comes around the corner from the glazing, you're in for a real treat—the warm circle of sweet doughy goodness practically melts in your mouth. It's this secret process that helped Krispy Kreme become the fastest-growing doughnut chain in the country. 

As you can guess, the main ingredient in a Krispy Kreme doughnut is wheat flour, but there is also some added gluten, soy flour, malted barley flour, and modified food starch; plus egg yolk, non-fat milk, flavoring, and yeast. I suspect a low-gluten flour, like cake flour, is probably used in the original mix to make the doughnuts tender, and then the manufacturer adds the additional gluten to give the doughnuts the perfect framework for rising. I tested many combinations of cake flour and wheat gluten, but found that the best texture resulted from cake flour combined with all-purpose flour. I also tried adding a little soy flour to the mix, but the soy gave the dough a strange taste, and it didn't benefit the texture of the dough in any way.  I excluded the malted barley flour and modified food starch from my Krispy Kreme Doughnuts recipe, since these are difficult ingredients to find. These exclusions didn't seem to matter because the real secret in making these doughnuts look and taste like the original lies primarily in careful handling of the dough.

The dough will be very sticky when first mixed together, and you should be careful not to over mix it, or you will build up some tough gluten strands, and that will result in chewy doughnuts. You don't even need to touch the dough until it is finished with the first rising stage. After the dough rises for 30 to 45 minutes, it will become easier to handle, but you will still need to flour your hands. Also, be sure to generously flour the surface you are working on when you gently roll out the dough for cutting. When each doughnut shape is cut from the dough, place it onto a small square of wax paper that has been lightly dusted with flour. Using wax paper will allow you to easily transport the doughnuts (after they rise) from the baking sheet to the hot shortening without deflating the dough. As long as you don't fry them too long—1 minute per side should be enough—you will have tender homemade doughnuts that will satisfy even the biggest Krispy Kreme fanatics.

Find more recipes for your favorite iconic treats here.

Source: Top Secret Recipes Unlocked by Todd Wilbur.

Menu Description: "Roasted garlic and Parmesan sauce with Italian herbs."

Buffalo Wild Wings had a record day on Super Bowl Sunday 2007 when the chain sold 3.4 million wings! One year later the chain announced the opening of its 500^th store. As the biggest buffalo wing chain in the country continues to grow, so does its selection of delicious sauces. Creamy, and slightly spicy, this Parmesan Garlic Sauce is one of several new sauces BWW added to its menu. Our Top Secret clone starts by roasting a few peeled garlic cloves in your oven. Add mayo and Parmesan cheese to the soft, roasted garlic, plus some corn syrup, lemon juice, red pepper flakes and an assortment of dried herbs and you've got yourself an addictive sauce that's as good on finger food as it is on a salad. Bake up some breaded chicken nuggets or fry up some wings, then simply toss 'em in some of this delicious sauce and serve.

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 3 by Todd Wilbur.

Menu Description: "Tender, crispy wild gulf shrimp tossed in a creamy, spicy sauce."

Bonefish Grill proudly refers to this appetizer as the "house specialty." And why not, it's an attractive dish with bang-up flavor, especially if you like your food on the spicy side. The heat in my Bonefish Grill Bang Bang Shrimp recipe comes from the secret sauce blend that's flavored with chili garlic sauce, also known as sambal. You can find this bright red sauce where the Asian foods are in your market—and while you're there, pick up some rice vinegar. Once the sauce is made, you coat the shrimp in a simple seasoned breading, fry them to a nice golden brown, toss them gently in the sauce, and then serve them up on a bed of mixed greens to hungry folks who, hopefully, have a cool drink nearby to mellow the sting.

You might also like my recipes for Bonefish Grill's Saucy Shrimp and Citrus Herb Vinaigrette.

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 3 by Todd Wilbur.

Menu Description: "Spicy, shredded beef, braised with our own chipotle adobo, cumin, cloves, garlic and oregano."
 
The original Mexican dish barbacoa was traditionally prepared by cooking almost any kind of meat goat, fish, chicken, or cow cheek meat, to name just a few, in a pit covered with leaves over low heat for many hours, until tender. When the dish made its way into the United States via Texas the word transformed into "barbecue" and the preparation changed to incorporate above-ground techniques such as smoking and grilling.

The good news is that we can re-create the beef barbacoa that Chipotle has made popular on its ginormous burritos without digging any holes in our backyard or tracking down a local source for fresh cow faces. After braising about 30 pounds of chuck roasts, I finally discovered that the secret to making perfect barbacoa is a taste-alike adobo sauce that fills your roast with flavor as it slowly cooks to a fork-tender delicacy on your stovetop over 5 to 6 hours.

Part of the secret for great adobo sauce is toasting whole cumin seeds and cloves and then grinding them in a coffee grinder (measure the spices after grinding them). Since the braising process takes so long, start early in the day and get ready for a big dinner, because I've also included clones here for Chipotle's pico de gallo, pinto beans, and delicious cilantro-lime rice to make your burritos complete. You can add your choice of cheese, plus guacamole and sour cream for a super-deluxe clone version. 

Try my Chipotle Barbacoa copycat recipe below, and check out my clone recipe for Qdoba Grilled Adobo Chicken.

Source: Top Secret Recipes Unlocked by Todd Wilbur.

Menu Description: "Wok-seared with Chang's barbecue sauce."

One of the most popular eats on P. F. Chang's appetizer menu is the Chinese spare ribs that arrive slathered with Asian-style barbecue sauce. The Asian flavor comes from the addition of sweet hoisin sauce to a fairly rudimentary barbecue sauce formula. Chang's menu says these ribs are spare ribs, although they appear to be much smaller, more like baby backs. You can certainly use either for my P.F. Chang's Spare Ribs recipe below. Just be sure to trim the ribs first, since the restaurant version is lean, clean ribs with no extra meat or fat hanging off. T

There are several ways to cook pork ribs—P. F. Chang's boils theirs first, then fries them. After that, the ribs are tossed with the sauce in the wok and served piping hot. A serving of these ribs at the restaurant is 6 individual ribs, but since a full rack is as many as 12 ribs, this recipe will make twice what you get in a serving at the bustling bistro chain.

Find more of your favorite P.F. Chang's dishes here.

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 2 by Todd Wilbur.

In the early 90's Boston Chicken was rockin' it. The home meal replacement chain's stock was soaring and the lines were filled with hungry customers waiting to sink their teeth into a serving of the chain's delicious rotisserie chicken. The chain was so successful with chicken, the company quickly decided it was time to introduce other entrée selections, the first of which was a delicious barbecue sauce-covered ground sirloin meatloaf. 

Offering the other entrées presented the company with a dilemma: what to do about the name. The bigwigs decided it was time to change the name to Boston Market, to reflect a wider menu. That meant replacing signs on hundreds of units and retooling the marketing campaigns. That name change, plus rapid expansion of the chain and growth of other similar home-style meal concepts, sent the company into a tailspin. By 1988, Boston Market's goose was cooked, and the company filed for bankruptcy. Soon McDonald's stepped in to purchase the company, with the idea of closing many of the stores for good, and slapping Golden Arches on the rest. But that plan was scrapped when, after selling many of the under-performing Boston Markets, the chain began to fly once again.  Within a year of the acquisition Boston Market was profitable, and those meals with the home-cooked taste are still being served at over 700 Boston Market restaurants across the country.

Use my Boston Market Meatloaf copycat recipe below to copy the flavor of that first non-chicken dish, a delicious barbecue sauce-covered ground sirloin meatloaf. You might also like to try my Boston Market side-dish recipes here.

Source: Even More Top Secret Recipes by Todd Wilbur.

Before he became America's sausage king, Jimmy Dean was known for crooning the country hit "Big Bad John." That song came out in 1962 and sold more than 8 million copies. His singing success launched a television career on ABC with The Jimmy Dean Show, where Roy Clark, Patsy Cline, and Roger Miller got their big breaks. The TV exposure led to acting roles for Jimmy, as a regular on Daniel Boone, and in feature films, including his debut in the James Bond flick Diamonds are Forever. Realizing that steady income from an acting and singing career can be undependable, Jimmy invested his show-biz money in a hog farm. In 1968 the Jimmy Dean Meat Company developed the special recipe for sausage that has now become a household name. Today the company is part of the Sara Lee Corporation, and Jimmy retired as company spokesman in 2004.

My Jimmy Dean breakfast sausage copycat recipe re-creates three varieties of the famous roll sausage that you form into patties and cook in a skillet. Use ground pork found at the supermarket—make it lean pork if you like—or grind some up yourself if you have a meat grinder.

Check out more of my famous breakfast food clone recipes here.

Source: Top Secret Recipes Unlocked by Todd Wilbur.

While most restaurant chains attempt to keep their menus simple so as not to tax the kitchen, the Cheesecake Factory's menu contains more than 200 items on a 17-page menu. And at the end of the meal there are 40 cheesecakes to choose from for dessert, including the delicious Pumpkin Cheesecake hacked here for you.

Use an 8-inch springform pan for my Cheesecake Factory Pumpkin Cheesecake recipe. If you don't have one, you should get one. They're indispensable for thick, gourmet cheesecake and several other scrumptious desserts. If you don't want to use a springform pan, this recipe will also work with two 9-inch pie plates. You'll just end up with two smaller cheesecakes. 

Find more of your favorites from Cheesecake Factory here.

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes by Todd Wilbur.

Popeyes Famous Fried Chicken and Biscuits has become the third-largest quick-service chicken chain in the world in the twenty-two years since its first store opened in New Orleans in 1972. (KFC has the number-one slot, followed by Church's Chicken). Since then, the chain has grown to 813 units, with many of them overseas in Germany, Japan, Jamaica, Honduras, Guam, and Korea.

While making my Popeyes Fried Chicken recipe, I tested several spices and I found that the right blend of cayenne and white pepper bring the same heat as the original. Try my recipe below and see what you think. 

You might also like to get your hands on my recipes for Popeyes Chicken Sandwich and Popeyes biscuits.

Source: More Top Secret Recipes by Todd Wilbur.

I got lucky on the day I picked up a box of chow mein from this huge Chinese chain because they had just run out. This meant that I could watch from the sidelines as they whipped up a fresh batch in a giant wok over a high flame in the completely visible kitchen, and I was able to take plenty of mental notes. The whole dish took just a few minutes for the enthusiastic chef to prepare, and before I knew it I was out the door with a huge box of hot chow mein ready for hacking. 

Just like the real Panda Express Chow Mein, the beauty in this re-creation is its simplicity. There are only seven ingredients, and the prep work is low-impact. I used dry chow mein noodles (also called Chinese stir fry noodles) which are easy to find and cheap, and dark soy sauce to get that great caramel color. And if you don’t have a wok for this, a large skillet with sloped sides for tossing will work just fine.

This recipe was our #1 most popular in 2021. Check out the other four most unlocked recipes for the year: Qdoba 3-Cheese Queso (#2), Panda Express Fried Rice (#3), Outback Baked Potato Soup (#4), Chipotle Carne Asada (#5).

You might also like my #1 recipe of 2020, Rao's Homemade Marinara Sauce.

The problem with adding sauce to fried food is that the wet sauce makes the crunchy fried food not so crunchy. Panda Express manages to keep the crispy beef in Beijing Beef crispy even though it may be sitting for over 20 minutes in the sauce on its way to a hungry you. My early attempts at hacking my favorite dish at the massive Chinese food chain all resulted in gummy, soggy beef pieces that were more like flat dumplings than the delicious, crunchy strips of joy they were meant to be.

Then finally, on one batch, I decided to fry the coated beef for much longer than I intuitively felt it should be cooked, resulting in dark browning on the cornstarch coating and an even darker piece of meat beneath it. I anticipated a beef jerky experience, but when I took a bite, I found it to be delicious! It wasn’t tough and chewy as I expected it to be. And when this seemingly overcooked beef was stirred into the sauce, it stayed crispy until served, just like the real thing. Now, with the soggy beef problem solved, we’ve finally got a great Panda Express Beijing Beef copycat recipe.

Try more of my Panda Express copycat recipes here.

Anyone who loves Olive Garden is probably also a big fan of the bottomless basket of warm, garlicky breadsticks served before each meal at the huge Italian casual chain. My guess is that the breadsticks are proofed, and then sent to each restaurant where they are baked until golden brown, brushed with butter and sprinkled with garlic salt. Getting the bread just right for a great Olive Garden breadstick hack was tricky—I tried several different amounts of yeast in all-purpose flour, but then settled on bread flour to give these breadsticks the same chewy bite as the originals. The two-stage rising process is also a crucial step in this much requested Olive Garden breadstick copycat recipe.

Complete the bottomless experience with my Olive Garden Italian salad dressing recipe.

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 3 by Todd Wilbur.

Menu Description: "Sweet meets heat: A chili pepper, soy and ginger sauce."

Here's a clone for one of the newer sauces that the wing masters at Buffalo Wild Wings added to the menu. When I get over to BWW, I order up a tall Foster's on tap, and 12 boneless wings covered in this great sauce. It's sweet-and-sour with a kick, and the kick is what the beer's for. Next time you're at the market grab yourself some chili garlic sauce in the aisle with the other Asian foods. That's the crucial ingredient to this Buffalo Wild Wings Asian Zing Sauce recipe that gives this sauce its heat, along with its deep red color. Once this sauce is made it'll store for weeks in a sealed container in your fridge. Now you've got a quick dip for eggrolls, wontons and spring rolls. Cook up some wings, nuggets or breaded tenders and toss 'em in the gooey goodness until well-coated, then serve hot. And don't forget the beer.

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 3 by Todd Wilbur.

Menu Description: "Wild gulf shrimp sauteed in a Lime Tomato Garlic sauce with Kalamata olives and Feta cheese."

Restaurateurs Tim Curci and Chris Parker opened the first Bonefish Grill in St. Petersburg, Florida in 2000, and, with at least eight species of fresh oak-grilled fish to choose from on any given day, the chain has since exploded to over 100 units in 24 states. Yes, the fish is very good, and the oak grill is a nice touch, but you should also know that this is a restaurant that likes to have fun with sauces. This appetizer clone is a good example of that. The tartness of the lime works beautifully with the sweetness of the sundried tomato to create a scampi sauce unlike any you may have tasted before. Lay this simple dish on the troops before your main course and you will be tonight's kitchen hero.

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 3 by Todd Wilbur.

This cheesy little number is one of the most popular side salad choices at America's favorite steakhouse chain. Cinnamon Pecans and fried angel hair pasta are tossed with salad greens and a delicious sweet and sour blue cheese vinaigrette. The crunchy angel hair pasta pieces are made by first boiling 24 sticks of uncooked pasta for half of the usual cooking time. When the pasta is cool, fry it in a bit of oil until light brown and crispy. The cinnamon pecans are easily candied in a small saucepan with a few basic ingredients. 

My Outback Steakhouse Blue Cheese Chopped Salad copycat recipe makes two large salad servings, which will require only half of the dressing. This way, if you want to serve more salads you can easily double up on the other ingredients, and you'll have just the right amount of dressing for a couple more servings.

I've cloned a ton of famous dishes from Outback Steakhouse. See if I hacked your favorites here.

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 3 by Todd Wilbur.

Menu Description: "Breaded boneless chicken breast is delicately spiced and covered in a spicy-sweet orange glaze. Served in a big bowl over almond rice pilaf and a flavorful mixture of mushrooms, broccoli, red pepper, sugar snap peas, and shredded carrots. Topped with toasted almonds and crispy noodles."

In a dish like this, it's important to get the sauce tasting just right or the whole hack will be off. Simmering a secret blend of orange juice, brown sugar, marmalade, and few other ingredients will give you a sauce that's sweet, tangy, spicy and really, really freakin' good. Rather than going to the trouble of breading and frying the chicken from scratch, I've cut time off your prep by including frozen breaded chicken fingers that you simply bake in the oven when you're ready to assemble the dish. I used Claim Jumper brand chicken tenderloins for this recipe since one 20-ounce box was perfect for the two servings this recipe yields. However, these are mongo-huge restaurant-size portions, so you'll be able to divide this recipe up into four more modest servings if you like.

Make more of your favorite dishes from Applebee's. 

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 2 by Todd Wilbur.

Put away the maple syrup. Next time you whip up pancakes or French toast, try something new with this clone that makes your stacks taste like freshly baked cinnamon rolls. Spread the cinnamon sauce on each pancake or on each slice of cinnamon toast as you stack 'em up. Then drizzle the delicious cream cheese icing over the top. 

As for the pancakes, we've got some great clone recipes here on the site:IHOP Pancakes, IHOP Country Griddle Cakes, and IHOP Harvest Grain 'N Nut Pancakes. And here's a simple clone for Denny's Fabulous French Toast. This mouth-watering new product from America's favorite pancake chain is a "limited-time-only" offering, but my IHOP Cinn-A-Stacks copycat recipe is yours to make whenever you crave it.

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 2 by Todd Wilbur.

Menu Description: "A true taste of the tropics. National award-winning recipe."

Many of the key lime pie recipes circulating, including the recipe found on bottles of key lime juice, have a glaring error: they don't make enough filling to fit properly into a standard 9-inch graham crust pie shell. That's probably because those recipes are designed around one 14-ounce can of sweetened condensed milk. But if we're going to make a beautifully thick key lime pie like the one served at Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville restaurants, we need to use something like 1 1/2 cans of sweetened condensed milk, or more accurately, two cups of the stuff. 

My Margaritaville Key Lime pie copycat recipe is a simple one, that's for sure, with only four ingredients including the pie shell. But don't stop there. I'm also including an easy way to make mango sauce by reducing a couple cans of Kern's mango juice. And there's a raspberry sauce recipe here that's made easily with frozen raspberries. These two sauces are used to jazz up the plate at the restaurant and are certainly optional for your clone version, even though I've made this recipe as easy as, um, you know.

Find more of your favorite Margaritaville copycat recipes here.

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 2 by Todd Wilbur.

Menu Description: "(Our most popular appetizer.) Parmesan, Cheddar & Monterey Jack cheeses, cilantro, onion, fresh dill & mashed potato lightly breaded and fried crispy topped with fresh cut chives. Served with herbed ranch salsa."

This top-seller is a versatile side dish alternative to mashed potatoes, but also stands well on its own as an appetizer. With cilantro, green onion, and three different cheeses in there, the flavor is the bomb. When you add a crispy breading and some herbed ranch salsa drizzled over the top, it's clear why this is the most popular appetizer on the huge Claim Jumper menu. Try dropping a pinch or two of cayenne pepper into the herbed ranch salsa for an extra spicy boost.

Try my Claim Jumper cheese potato cakes recipe below, and find more of your old Claim Jumper favorites here.

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 2 by Todd Wilbur.

Ah, chicken gizzard. It took me more than eighteen years to find a recipe that requires chicken gizzard -- not that I was looking for one. But I've seen the ingredients list on the box that comes from the supplier for the Cajun gravy from Popeyes, and if we're gonna do this one right I think there's got to be some gizzard in there. The gizzard is a small organ found in the lower stomach of a chicken, and your butcher should be able to get one for you. After you sauté and chop the gizzard, it is simmered with the other ingredients until you have a thick, authentic Southern gravy that goes great over the Popeyes Buttermilk Biscuits clone, or onto whatever begs to be swimming in pure flavor. Get ready for some of the best gravy that's ever come off your stovetop.

Try my Popeyes Cajun gravy recipe below, and complete your meal with my recipe for Popeyes Famous Fried Chicken.

Source: "Top Secret Recipes Unlocked" by Todd Wilbur.

In 2007 America's number one Cajun-style restaurant celebrated its 35th birthday with 1,583 stores worldwide. But Popeyes didn't start out with the name that most people associate with a certain spinach-eating cartoon character. When Al Copeland opened his first Southern-fried chicken stand in New Orleans in 1972, it was called Chicken On The Run. The name was later changed to Popeyes after Gene Hackman's character in the movie The French Connection. In addition to great spicy fried chicken, Popeyes serves up wonderful Southern-style buttermilk biscuits that we can now easily duplicate to serve with a variety of home cooked meals. The secret is to cut cold butter into the mix with a pastry knife so that the biscuits turn out flaky and tender just like the originals.

Source: "Top Secret Recipes Unlocked" by Todd Wilbur.

With spice grinder in hand, Gustav Brunn traveled to America from Germany, and settled down in Baltimore on the Chesapeake Bay, where steamed crabs are a staple. Gustav began grinding. In 1939, after trying many different combinations, Gustav found just the right mix for a top secret blend of spices that would be the most-used seasoning on steamed crabs, shrimp, lobster, and other tasty seafood dishes for generations to come. But McCormick & Co., which purchased Old Bay in 1990, insists that the celery salt based blend is not just for seafood. You can also use the seasoning on chicken, French fries, popcorn, baked potatoes, deviled eggs, hamburgers, and even pizza.

Try your homemade Old Bay on my recipe for jumbo lump crab cakes from Joe's Stone Crab. 

Source: Top Secret Recipes Unlocked by Todd Wilbur.

You've got a hankerin' for pancakes or biscuits, but the recipe calls for Bisquick, and you're plum out. Not to worry. Now you can make a clone of the popular baking mix at home with just four simple ingredients. Store-bought Bisquick includes shortening, salt, flour, and leavening, so that's exactly what we need to duplicate Bisquick perfectly at home. 

My Bisquick recipe makes about 6 cups of the stuff, which, just like the real thing, you can keep sealed up in a container in your pantry until it's flapjack time. When that time comes, just add milk and eggs for pancakes or waffles, or only milk if it's biscuits you want. You'll find all those recipes below in the "Tidbits."

Source: Top Secret Recipes Unlocked by Todd Wilbur.

We love to eat salad because it seems so healthy. But add just a couple tablespoons of salad dressing and you've gone from no fat to lots of fat, before your main course has even hit the table. If the salad dressing is delicious, as is Olive Garden's, you might be pouring on more than just a couple tablespoons. Here's a way to eliminate the fat grams from the dressing, but keep all the flavor.

We'll take out the oil, and add dry pectin to thicken the dressing, along with more water than used in the original version of this recipe. We can add a decent amount of Romano cheese and a single serving of the dressing still comes in under 1/2 gram of fat. Add some vinegar, a little corn syrup and lemon juice, some spices—mission accomplished.

Nutrition Facts
Serving size–2 tablespoons
Total servings–11
Calories per serving–42 (Original–90)
Fat per serving–0g (Original–8g)

Click here for my original version of Olive Garden Salad Dressing. 

Source: Top Secret Recipes Lite by Todd Wilbur. 

You've got to hand it to him. Alan Stillman thought that if he opened his own restaurant, it might be a great way to meet the flight attendants who lived in his New York City neighborhood. Not only did the dude follow through on his plan in 1965 with the first T.G.I. Friday's, but today the company is 387 units strong. 

Friday's kitchen came up with a delicious blend of barbecue sauce and apple butter for coating the deep-fried chicken wings. For our reduced-fat clone, we'll re-create the same taste of the barbecue sauce, but we'll strip the skin from the chicken wings and bake the wings to cut the fat way down.

Nutrition Facts
Serving size–3 pieces
Total servings–4
Calories per serving–150 (Original–235)
Fat per serving–6 g (Original–16 g)

Source: Low-Fat Top Secret Recipes by Todd Wilbur.

What is it about Stouffer's Macaroni & Cheese that makes it the number one choice for true mac & cheese maniacs? It's probably the simple recipe that includes wholesome ingredients like skim milk and real Cheddar cheese, without any preservatives or unpronounceable chemicals. The basic Stouffer's Mac and Cheese ingredients are great for kitchen cloners who want an easy fix that doesn't require much shopping. 

I created my Stouffer's Macaroni and Cheese copycat recipe to work as an exact duplicate of the actual product: a frozen dish that you heat up later in the oven. This way, you'll get slightly browned macaroni & cheese that looks like it posed for the nicely lit photo on the Stouffer's box. 

Since you'll only need about 3/4 cup of uncooked elbow macaroni for each recipe, you can make several 4-person servings with just one 16-ounce box of macaroni, and then keep them all in the freezer until the days when your troops have their mac & cheese attacks. Be sure to use freshly shredded Cheddar cheese here, since it melts much better than pre-shredded cheese (and it's cheaper). Use a whisk to stir the sauce often as it thickens, so that you get a smooth—not lumpy or grainy—finished product. 

If you're still hungry, check out my copycat recipes for famous entrées here.

Source: Top Secret Recipes Unlocked by Todd Wilbur.

This quickly growing chicken wing chain sells each of its 12 signature sauces in the restaurant because many of them work great as a baste or side sauce for a variety of home cooked masterpieces. The Caribbean Jerk sauce is a favorite for that reason (ranking at the top of the list with Spicy Garlic as the chain's best-seller), so I thought creating a Buffalo Wild Wings Caribbean Jerk Sauce recipe would be a useful clone that doesn't require you to fill up the fryer to make chicken wings. You can use this sauce on grilled chicken, pork, ribs, salmon or anything you can think of that would benefit from the sweet, sour and spicy flavors that come from an island-style baste.

Find more Buffalo Wild Wings copycat recipes here.

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 2 by Todd Wilbur

T.G.I. Friday's engineered a system-wide rejuvenation by upgrading the look of the restaurants and replacing many old menu items with new, creative dishes, including several Atkins-approved low-carb selections. Though not low-carb (because of the potatoes) this new menu addition is still a healthy entrée choice, and the presentation is cool with the dish coming to your table in a sizzling iron skillet just like fajitas. 

My T.G.I. Friday's Sizzling Shrimp recipe re-creates that same sizzling presentation in a large serving for two. If you want to serve more, add another 8 to 10 shrimp to the recipe—there are plenty of peppers and other stuff in there, so the recipe will still work. Pop an oven-safe skillet into the oven as the potatoes are baking. This way, when the dish is ready to serve, you transfer it to this blazing hot pan just before bringing it to the table. Ah, listen to that sizzle. Since this pan will be heating up in a very hot oven, be sure not to use a skillet with a plastic handle that could melt. A large cast-iron skillet is the best choice, if you've got one. If you don't have an oven-safe pan, you can always heat up your skillet on the stove top.

Want more T.G.I. Friday's at home? Find more of my recipes here.

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 2 by Todd Wilbur.

Menu Description: "Lightly-dusted, stir-fried in a sweet Szechwan sauce." (Our version of General Chu's.)

The delicious sweet-and-spicy secret sauce is what makes this dish one of P. F. Chang's top picks. Once the sauce is finished, all you have to do is sauté your chicken and combine. You'll want to cook up some white or brown rice, like at the restaurant. If you can't find straight chili sauce for my P.F. Chang's spicy chicken recipe, the more common chili sauce with garlic in it will work just as well.

Check out my other P.F. Chang's clone recipes here.

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 2 by Todd Wilbur.

Menu Description: "Quickly-cooked steak with scallions and garlic."

Beef lovers go crazy over this one at P.F. Chang's. Flank steak is cut into bite-sized chunks against the grain, then it's lightly dusted with potato starch, flash-fried in oil, and doused with an amazing sweet soy garlic sauce. The beef comes out tender as can be, and the simple sauce sings to your taste buds. 

I designed my P.F. Chang's Mongolian Beef recipe using a wok, but if you don't have one, a sauté pan will suffice. You may need to add more oil to the pan to cover the beef in the flash-frying step. 

P. F. Chang's secret sauce is what makes this dish so good, and it's versatile. If you don't dig beef, you can substitute with chicken. Or you can brush it on grilled salmon.

I've cloned some of the best dishes from P.F. Chang's. Click here to see if I coped your favorite.

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 2 by Todd Wilbur.

Menu Description: "Six pot stickers filled with fresh ground turkey meat seasoned with ginger, water chestnuts, red pepper and green onions.They are fried and served in a basket with spicy hoisin."

Pot stickers are a popular Asian dumpling that can be fried, steamed, or simmered in a broth. Planet Hollywood has customized its version to make them crunchier than the traditional dish, and it's a tasty twist. The spicy hoisin sauce is made by adding a little cayenne pepper to store-bought hoisin sauce. Try my Planet Hollywood pot stickers recipe below. I know you'll dig it.

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes by Todd Wilbur.

Just 15 minutes after the very first Cheesecake Factory opened in Beverly Hills back in 1978, the lines began forming. These guys know how to make a dang good cheesecake! 

You'll love this yummy twist on Key lime pie. Since Key limes and Key lime juice can be hard to find, I decided to use standard lime juice in my Cheesecake Factory Key Lime Cheesecake copycat recipe, which can be purchased bottled or squeezed fresh. If you can find Key lime juice, bear in mind that Key limes are more tart, so you'll need only half as much juice. You'll also need a springform pan. If you don't have one, you can use two 9-inch pie pans and make two smaller cheesecakes.

Try more of my Cheesecake Factory hacks here.

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes by Todd Wilbur.

The little red packets of viscous hot sauce at the fast food giant have a cult following of rabid fans who will do whatever it takes to get their hands on large quantities. One such fan of the sauce commented online, "Are there any Wendy's employees or managers out there who will mail me an entire case of Hot Chili Seasoning? I swear this is not a joke. I love the stuff. I tip extra cash to Wendy's workers to get big handfuls of the stuff." Well, there's really no need to tip any Wendy's employees, because now you can make as much as you want in your own kitchen with my Wendy's Hot Chili Seasoning copycat recipe below. 

The ingredients listed on the real Hot Chili Seasoning are water, corn syrup, salt, distilled vinegar, natural flavors, xanthan gum, and extractives of paprika. We'll use many of those same ingredients for our clone, but we'll substitute gelatin for the xanthan gum (a thickener) to get the slightly gooey consistency right. For the natural flavor and color we'll use cayenne pepper, cumin, paprika, and garlic powder, then filter the particles out with a fine wire-mesh strainer after they've contributed what the sauce needs.

My recipe makes 5 ounces of sauce— just the right amount to fit nicely into a used hot sauce bottle—and costs just pennies to make.

Try your Wendy's hot chili seasoning clone on a homemade bowl of Wendy's Chili.

Jerrico, Inc., the parent company for Long John Silver's Seafood Shoppes, got its start in 1929 as a six-stool hamburger stand called the White Tavern Shoppe. Jerrico was started by a man named Jerome Lederer, who watched Long John Silver's thirteen units dwindle in the shadow of World War II to just three units. Then, with determination, he began rebuilding. In 1946 Jerome launched a new restaurant called Jerry's and it was a booming success, with growth across the country. Then he took a chance on what would be his most successful venture in 1969, with the opening of the first Long John Silver's Fish 'n Chips. The name was inspired by Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island. In 1991 there were 1,450 Long John Silver Seafood Shoppes in thirty-seven states, Canada, and Singapore, with annual sales of more than $781 million. That means the company holds about 65 percent of the $1.2 billion quick-service seafood business.

These days, it seems there are less and less Long John Silver restaurants. Good thing you can follow my Long John Silver's Batter-Dipped Fish copycat recipe below and enjoy that same great flavor at home. 

Make my Islands French Fries copycat recipe for the classic fish 'n chips experience.

Source: Top Secret Recipes by Todd Wilbur.

The sweet bacon and onion sauce often used to dress up steaks and burgers is now a fantastic wing topper in this addictive new appetizer from the 215-unit West Coast chain. I've hacked the secret bacon jam recipe here along with a special 2-step cooking process so that you can make perfect wings with great flavor all the way through.

My BJ’s Bacon Jam Wings copycat recipe starts by brining the wings, then baking them with moist heat to simulate the special CVap commercial moist ovens BJ’s uses to cook ribs and wings. When you’re ready to serve the dish, the wings are fried until crispy, tossed with the addictive bacon jam, and served with celery and ranch dressing on the side.

After you polish off your first pile of wings, you should have plenty of bacon jam left over for more wings or as a flavorful spread on burgers.

Find more incredible copycat recipes from BJ's Restaurant & Brewhouse here.

A popular staple of any Chinese chain is fried rice, so it better be good, and the version served at Panda Express most certainly is. Here's my easy Panda Express Fried Rice recipe for when you need a stress-free, low-cost side for your entrées. But I do suggest that you cook the white rice several hours or even a day or two before you plan to make the finished dish. I found that the cooked rice called for in this recipe works best when it's cold. 

As for a shortcut, bagged frozen peas and carrots will save you from the hassle of petite-dicing carrots since the carrots in those bags are the perfect size to produce an identical clone. And they're already cooked. 

This recipe was our #3 most popular in 2021. Check out the other four most unlocked recipes for the year: Panda Express Chow Mein (#1), Qdoba 3-Cheese Queso (#2), Outback Baked Potato Soup (#4), Chipotle Carne Asada (#5).

The Scoville heat rating of bhut jolokia, more commonly known as ghost pepper, is just over 1 million units, making it 200 times hotter than a jalapeno. But that didn’t stop Popeyes from creating an eye-watering breading for their scorching new crispy wings. Yes, these are seriously spicy wings, but they’re not so extreme as to be inedible, and the awesome flavor is guaranteed to tempt you back for more. Don't be scared.  

My Popeyes Ghost Pepper Wings recipe starts by brining the wing segments in a buttermilk and pepper sauce marinade. Salt, MSG, and cayenne pepper sauce will fill the wings with flavor, and the breading, with a decent amount of ground ghost pepper in it, will bring on the sting. Ghost pepper has been quickly growing in popularity over the last several years, and you should have no trouble finding ground ghost pepper online. Even brick-and-mortar grocery stores are stocking it.

Still, ghost pepper is crazy hot, so be careful with it. You may even want to use gloves when breading these wings. Especially if you’ll need clean fingers later for putting in a contact lens, holding a baby, or any other activity not favorable to ferociously spicy digits.    

Get my secret recipes for all your favorite Popeyes food here.

Korean chicken is famous for its extra crispy coating, and Bonchon’s recipe—especially the wings—is one of the best in the world. That chain's famous formula is why there are now over 340 Bonchon outlets in nine countries, including over one hundred in the US and more planned to open here in the near future. 

The biggest challenge when creating my Bonchon chicken wings recipe was finding the perfect magical mixture for the batter that fries to a golden brown, and with tender crispiness that stays crunchy long after the wings have been brushed with the flavorful glaze.

I knew that a traditional double-frying technique would help create the crunchy coating we needed, but it would take some trial and error to determine the best time splits. The wings are par-fried, rested, and then fried again until done, but just how long to give each stage was yet to be determined since every recipe I found for Korean chicken used different times and temps. Some recipes even changed the temperature between frying steps, but that extra step made the recipe too difficult to manage when frying multiple batches.

I eventually settled on 350 degrees F with most of the frying done up front in the par-fry stage. A three-ingredient batter is all that’s needed for crispy golden-brown wings, and the soy garlic sauce is a quick hack using your microwave oven. If you like your wings spicy like I do, it’s very easy to kick them up by adding Korean red chili paste (gochujang) and Korean red pepper powder (gochugaru) to the soy garlic recipe in the measurements listed below.

Click here for more delicious copycat appetizer recipes. 

If you feel like diving into a pile of wings with big flavor and no heat, you'll love this Wngstop Garlic Parmesan Wings recipe. At the restaurant, these wings are deliciously doused with a buttery garlic Parmesan baste and then sprinkled with grated Parmesan cheese. A home clone is easy when you toss crispy wings in this hack of the top secret baste and top them with a snowfall of good Parmesan cheese. 

To duplicate the baste, you clarify a stick of butter, then add a little oil so that the butter doesn’t solidify. Parmesan cheese, garlic, and salt are mixed in, then the sauce is set aside to cool and thicken.

Once the wings are fried to a golden brown, toss them with the baste in a bowl, then grab the grated Parm and make it snow.    

Check out my other Wingstop clone recipes here.  

The Wingstop menu offers nearly a dozen flavor variations of fried chicken wings, including original hot buffalo-style, Parmesan-garlic, and mango habanero, but it’s the lemon pepper wings that get the most raves. And even though they’re referred to as “dry rub” wings on the menu, the secret to a perfect Wingstop lemon pepper wings copycat recipe is in the wet baste that goes on first.

The lemon pepper won’t stick to the wings without making them wet, and that’s where the sauce, or baste, comes in. The baste is easy to make by clarifying butter and combining it with oil to prevent the butter from solidifying, then adding lemon pepper and salt.

I obtained a sample of Wingstop’s lemon pepper seasoning and took a few stabs at cloning the blend from scratch, but ultimately decided the task was a time-waster when pre-blended lemon pepper is so easy to find. I compared Wingstop’s lemon pepper with the blends from McCormick and Lawry’s—each is slightly different than what Wingstop uses. McCormick’s is lemonier than Wingstop’s blend, and Lawry’s version is chunkier and less lemony, but either blend is close enough to deliver a satisfying clone.

After the wings are fried, baste them with the sauce below and sprinkle them with your favorite lemon pepper. Now you've made homemade Wingstop's Lemon Pepper Wings like a pro.

Find my copycat recipes for Wingstop's original and Parmesan-garlic wings here.