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- Bonefish Grill Imperial Dip
It’s creamy and cheesy and doesn’t skimp on shrimp and scallops. Bonefish Grill’s Imperial Dip might very well be the best seafood dip at any chain, and after several visits in the early evening to take advantage of the Happy Hour price, I got even happier when I could construct a great clone.
Sitting at the bar allowed me to chat up the server and obtain several helpful preparation tips. That’s when I discovered that shrimp stock is the secret to the dip’s great taste. And that’s why my Bonefish Grill Imperial Dip copycat recipe starts with an easy way to make your own stock with the shells harvested from the shrimp that goes in the dip.
After sautéing the shrimp and scallops, it takes just minutes to prepare a sauce with the shrimp stock, cream, and cheese. Then, everything is combined and poured into a cast iron skillet. After a quick broil to brown the top, you’ll have a great match to the real thing, except your version will be three times bigger.
You might also like my recipes for Bonefish Grill's Saucy Shrimp and Citrus Herb Vinaigrette.
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- 8 ounces medium or large shrimp with shells
- 1 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons vegetable oil, divided
- ...
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Rao's Homemade Marinara Sauce
Read moreGetting a table at the 123-year-old original Rao’s restaurant in New York City is next to impossible. The tables are “owned” by regulars who schedule their meals months in advance, so every table is full every night, and that’s the way it’s been for the last 38 years. The only way an outsider would get to taste the restaurant’s fresh marinara sauce is to be invited by a regular.
If that isn’t in the stars for you, you could buy a bottle of the sauce at your local market (if they even have it). It won't be fresh, and it's likely to be the most expensive sauce in the store, but it still has that great Rao's taste. An even better solution is to copy the sauce for yourself using my easy Rao's Homemade Marinara Sauce copycat recipe.
The current co-owner of Rao’s, Frank Pellegrino Jr., told Bon Appetit in 2015 that the famous marinara sauce was created by his grandmother many years ago, and the sauce you buy in stores is the same recipe served in his restaurants. The ingredients are common, but correctly choosing the main ingredient—tomatoes—is important. Try to find San Marzano-style whole canned tomatoes, preferably from Italy. They are a little more expensive than typical canned tomatoes, but they will give you some great sauce.
After 30 minutes of cooking, you’ll end up with about the same amount of sauce as in a large jar of the real thing. Your version will likely be just a little bit brighter and better than the bottled stuff, thanks to the fresh ingredients. But now you can eat it anytime you want, with no reservations, at a table you own.
This recipe was our #1 most popular in 2020. Check out the other four most unlocked recipes for the year: Olive Garden Lasagna Classico (#2), King's Hawaiian Original Hawaiian Sweet Rolls (#3), Pei Wei Better Orange Chicken (#4), Chipotle Mexican Grill Carnitas (#5).
Check out this list of our most popular recipes of all-time.
You might also like my recipes for Rao's Bolognese sauce and Rao's Meatballs here.
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Panda Express Fried Rice
Read moreA 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).
Check out this list of our most popular recipes of all-time.
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The Old Spaghetti Factory Rich Meat Sauce
Read moreSince 1969, The Portland, Oregon-based Old Spaghetti Factory has been filling bellies with a comfort food menu full of fabulous pasta choices, and this signature meat sauce has been the sauce of choice at the 43-unit chain for more than five decades.
To reverse-engineer the sauce for my Old Spaghetti Factory Rich Meat Sauce copycat recipe, I started by rinsing the original sauce in a wire mesh strainer to see what secrets could be revealed. Once the solids were visible, I noted the size and ratios of ground beef, onion, celery, and garlic, and I also noticed that there were no bits of tomato left behind. This meant the tomato was puréed, but rather than using canned tomato purée, I opted for richer tomato paste. Lemon juice helped match the zing of the original, and I rounded out the flavor with just a bit of sugar.
This recipe will make 3½ cups of meat sauce, which is enough for several huge plates of pasta. Use it on spaghetti as they do at the restaurant, or whatever pasta shape you prefer.
Find more copycat recipes for famous sauces here.
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IKEA Swedish Meatballs
Read moreI've always known IKEA as a giant global furniture chain, but before researching these tasty little balls of meat, I wasn't aware that IKEA is also one of the world's largest food retailers. And at the very top of the list of the most popular menu items at the stores' cafeteria-style IKEA Restaurant & Bistro, are the Swedish Meatballs, which are consumed at a rate of 150 million each year.
The chain's secret Swedish meatballs are moist and delicious and come smothered in a cream sauce, with a side of lingonberry jam. But there's no need to work your way through the giant rat maze of furniture that is the ingenious layout of each store to get to the cafeteria when you can now duplicate them at home with my IKEA Swedish Meatball copycat recipe below, and very little effort.
The secret is to use ground beef that is 20 percent fat and a food processor to puree all of the ingredients. If you don't have a food processor, a blender works, too. Form the balls with a 1 1/4-inch dough scoop or teaspoon measure, and keep your hands thoroughly moistened to prevent the meat mixture from sticking.
After you make the meatballs, you'll probably want to make the secret cream sauce that goes over the top, and that recipe is here, too.
Try my IKEA Swedish Meatballs copycat recipe below. It was my #2 most popular of 2023. Check out the other most popular unlocked recipes of the year: Church's Chicken Original and Spicy Fried Chicken (#1), Chipotle Guacamole (#3), Subway Cookies (#4), IHOP Thick 'N Fluffy French Toast (#5).
Check out this list of our most popular recipes of all-time.
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Cheesecake Factory Shrimp Scampi
Read moreThis top entrée pick from Cheesecake Factory is a classic dish, but its preparation is far from traditional, and perhaps that's why it's so popular.
The creamy scampi sauce is flavored with a handful of whole roasted garlic cloves, plus shallot, basil, and tomato. The shrimp are lightly battered and fried until golden, then arranged upright around the plate to keep their crunchy coats from sogging.
In addition to all the secrets you’ll need to assemble two servings of my Cheesecake Factory Shrimp Scampi copycat recipe, I’ve also included a cool technique for easily roasting the garlic cloves in just 15 to 20 minutes, and you won’t even need to peel the cloves. After your garlic cools, the skins will slip right off.
Now, how about dessert? Find my copycat recipes for Cheesecake Factory's signature cheesecakes here.
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Rao's Traditional Meatballs
Read moreTweaking a classic recipe with a few special prep tricks leaked to me by a server was the key to developing this spot-on hack for the famous meatballs from the iconic 125-year-old Italian dining room. With just two locations in the U.S. (Los Angeles and New York), sinking your fork into a fresh meatball at the restaurant requires quite a trip for most people, but my Rao's Traditional Meatballs recipe, refined through multiple batches, will make you a meatball master in your own kitchen, producing ten 5½-ounce meatballs that look and taste like the real thing.
Fortunately, I could squeeze in a reservation at the Las Vegas Rao’s location a few weeks before it closed its doors forever at Caesar’s Palace in late November 2021. While there, I made sure to ask my server for any information about the recipe, and was informed about the secret two-step process described in this hack to create giant meatballs that are cooked through, but so moist that they practically crumble when cut with a fork.
Rao’s has shared a meatball recipe in the past, but don’t be fooled. That recipe produces decent meatballs, but they are not the same as what’s served in the restaurant. If you want to make meatballs that taste like the classic original, use my Rao's meatballs recipe below.
And when they're done, top the meatballs with your favorite marinara or use my hack here to re-create Rao’s famous sauce.
This recipe was our #1 most popular in 2022. Check out the other four most unlocked recipes for the year: Chipotle Pollo Asado (#2), Wendy's Seasoned Potatoes (#3), Cheesecake Factory Spicy Cashew Chicken (#4), McDonald's Chicken McNuggets (#5).
Check out this list of our most popular recipes of all-time.
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Cheesecake Factory Steak Diane
Read moreFans of Cheesecake Factory’s Steak Diane don’t seem to care that the dish isn’t a traditional take on the classic dish. The restaurant chain’s version is indeed served with mushrooms and medallions of beef tenderloin just like the old-school recipe, but you won’t find any Dijon mustard, Worcestershire sauce, cognac, or cream that one would expect in a true Steak Diane. Instead, the chain douses steak with the same Madeira sauce served with its Chicken Madeira entrée, and it's delicious.
I hacked the chain’s Chicken Madeira many years ago in Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 2 but was happy for the chance to go back and improve the great sauce. After some fiddling, I came up with an improved formula that calls for less wine and uses a more thorough reduction to intensify the flavors. When shopping for ingredients for my Cheesecake Factory Steak Diane copycat recipe, it's okay to pick the least expensive Madeira wine on the shelf. Just know that Madeira wines have different characteristics, so your final flavor may slightly vary from the restaurant version.
For your tenderloins, start with thick steaks, since you’ll be slicing the portions in half through the middle, making them thinner. You’ll need 7 to 8 small steak portions to be sliced in half for 14 to 16 medallions.
Now, how about dessert? Find my copycat recipes for Cheesecake Factory's signature cheesecakes here.
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Olive Garden Lasagna Classico
Read moreCrafting an Olive Garden’s signature Lasagna Classico recipe became the perfect opportunity to create a beautiful multi-layered lasagna hack recipe that uses up the whole box of lasagna noodles and fills the baking pan all the way to the top. This Top Secret Recipe makes a lasagna that tips the scale at nearly 10 pounds and will feed hungry mouths for days, with every delicious layer copied directly from the carefully dissected Olive Garden original.
I found a few credible bits of intel in a video of an Olive Garden chef demonstrating what he claims is the real formula on a midday news show, but the recipe was abbreviated for TV and the chef left out some crucial information. One ingredient he conspicuously left out of the recipe is the secret layer of Cheddar cheese located near the middle of the stack. I wasn’t expecting to find Cheddar in lasagna, but when I carefully separated the layers from several servings of the original dish, there was the golden melted cheesy goodness in every slice.
This clone recipe will make enough for 8 big portions, but if you make slightly smaller slices this is easily enough food to fill twelve lasagna-loving bellies. If you like lasagna, you're going to love this version.
This recipe was our #2 most popular in 2020. Check out the other four most unlocked recipes for the year: Rao's Homemade Marinara Sauce (#1), King's Hawaiian Original Hawaiian Sweet Rolls (#3), Pei Wei Better Orange Chicken (#4), Chipotle Mexican Grill Carnitas (#5).
Check out this list of our most popular recipes of all-time.
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Qdoba 3-Cheese Queso
Read moreThere are many acceptable ways to formulate good queso, but to make this specific queso the Qdoba way, the ingredients must be correct – and most copycat recipes seem to get it wrong. A few recipes get one of the peppers and two of the cheeses right, but pretty much every recipe out there is a bit of a mess that I will now save you from.
Quesos can be made with a variety of cheeses that include queso fresco, asadero, and Muenster, but this particular queso includes a cheese you probably didn’t expect: Swiss. That cheese is slow to melt, so we’ll shred it first, along with the Jack. And you won't need to gum up the queso with flour or cornstarch by making a roux because the white American cheese in the mix contains either sodium citrate or sodium phosphate—additives that help the cheese melt smoothly and stay that way.
Authors of recipes that call for tomatoes in this dish haven’t looked closely. Those are red bell peppers and they are roasted, peeled, and seeded along with the poblano and jalapeños before they are diced and added to the cheese sauce. The sauce cooks on low heat, never bubbling, so that it stays smooth and creamy.
When done, your queso might seem thin in the pan, but it will thicken as it cools to a perfect consistency for dipping tortilla chips, or as a topping for tacos and burrito bowls.
My Qdoba 3-cheese queso copycat recipe was our #2 most popular in 2021. Check out the other four most unlocked recipes for the year: Panda Express Chow Mein (#1), Panda Express Fried Rice (#3), Outback Baked Potato Soup (#4), Chipotle Carne Asada (#5).
Check out this list of our most popular recipes of all-time.
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Maggiano's Italian Meatballs
Read moreNot sure why I got called out at Maggiano’s. Perhaps I asked too many questions. Whatever the reason, my cover was blown on this clandestine meatball mission.
While sitting at the restaurant bar enjoying a side of Maggiano’s fantastic meatballs, Adrian, the manager, poked his head around the corner and asked, “Are you the guy who copied our tenderloin medallions recipe?” He was right. Several years ago, I posted my version of the chain’s signature dish, so I was forced to admit that it was me. I thought that would end my intel gathering for the day, but the opposite happened.
“I couldn’t believe how close you got,” he said, referring to the balsamic cream sauce on the medallions. I thanked him for the compliment and told him the dish was one of my favorites, and I had to clone it right. There was a vibe of mutual respect, so I saw an opportunity to ask him questions about the chain's meatballs, including the meats used. Adrian told me that Maggiano’s uses just ground chuck and not a blend of meats often used in meatballs, such as pork and veal.
Thanks to Adrian I had some good information for starting my recipe. Still, I was about to get even more valuable tips when, five minutes later, Maggiano’s executive chef Alberto, with a thick Italian accent, came out to say “hello.”
Alberto explained the braising process they use to make the delicious meatballs so fall-apart tender. He also stressed the importance of forming the meatballs loosely in your hands and not packing the meat. "These are meatballs, not snowballs", he says. In Alberto’s kitchen, you should be able to “cut the meatballs with a plastic spoon.”
So, with the helpful tips from Adrian and Alberto, I present my version of the chain’s fabulous meatballs and hacked marinara sauce, for the closest copycat recipe you’ll ever get.
Try my Maggiano's Italian Meatballs copycat recipe below, and find more of my Maggiano's copycat recipes here.
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Church's Chicken Original and Spicy Fried Chicken
Read moreOn the list of inspirational American food success stories is the small fried chicken restaurant George W. Church opened across the street from the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas in 1952. In the years since Church's Chicken exploded into a monster chicken chain with over 1000 restaurants in 35 countries.
The truth is, no chain would grow that big without good food. George's special homestyle fried chicken formula was his secret recipe to success, and as far as I can tell, nobody has properly hacked it. Until now.
The ingredient list for this crispy chicken is smaller than what you might find in “The Colonel’s” kitchen, which is good because you won’t have to go out and buy 11 herbs and spices. Much of the flavoring in this chicken recipe develops during the brining process, which also has the added benefit of keeping the chicken moist and juicy inside. I discovered that Church’s marinates their chicken for 12 hours, so I worked backward and designed a brine that would do its job in exactly half a day.
For my Church's Fried Chicken copycat recipe, you'll need to plan ahead to give your chicken time to marinate. But that's a good thing—your patience will be rewarded with the down-home taste of delicious fried chicken, just like what grandma used to make.
And here's some more good news: this hack includes two recipes! I've created a Church's copycat recipe for the original recipe fried chicken, along with instructions for duplicating the spicy version if you're in the mood to pump up your jam.
This recipe was my #1 most popular of 2023. Check out the other most popular unlocked recipes of the year: IKEA Swedish Meatballs (#2), Chipotle Guacamole (#3), Subway Cookies (#4), IHOP Thick 'N Fluffy French Toast (#5).
Check out this list of our most popular recipes of all-time.
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Cheesecake Factory Spicy Cashew Chicken
Read moreThis popular chain wrangles a wide variety of dishes and cooking styles day after day with consistently high quality. From pasta to burgers to tacos, from salads to pancakes to beautiful cheesecakes for dessert, there is something for everyone at the Cheesecake Factory.
The diverse menu's Asia-inspired plates include Thai, Korean, and Chinese dishes, but one that consistently stands out is this excellent Mandarin-style spicy chicken entrée, served over your choice of white or brown rice.
The secret of the great flavor is the sauce, which has now been hacked for you in my Cheesecake Factory Spicy Cashew copycat recipe below. Plus, I’ll walk you through the process of creating perfect crispy chicken from scratch using juicy chicken tenderloins.
Alternatively, if you’d like to save time, you can bake up some pre-cooked breaded chicken tenders and focus all your efforts on making the amazing sauce. Tips on that chicken shortcut can be found below in the Tidbits.
This recipe was our #4 most popular in 2022. Check out the other four most unlocked recipes for the year: Rao's Traditional Meatballs (#1), Chipotle Pollo Asado (#2), Wendy's Seasoned Potatoes (#3), McDonald's Chicken McNuggets (#5).
Check out this list of our most popular recipes of all-time, or click here for more of my Cheesecake Factory copycat recipes.
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Panda Express Chow Mein
Read moreI 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).
Check out this list of our most popular recipes of all-time.
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Maggiano's Beef Tenderloin Medallions
Read moreFor many years this entrée has been a top menu choice at Maggiano's, the 54-unit Italian chain from Brinker, the same company that operates Chili’s Grill & Bar. The $30 restaurant dish consists of three 2½-ounce tenderloin steaks, swimming in a fantastic balsamic cream sauce with sliced portabello mushrooms—but a home version is only six easy steps away, and it won't hit you in the wallet as hard as the pricey original.
Cracking this dish required a perfect hack of the balsamic cream sauce, and that came quickly after obtaining some very reliable information from my incredibly helpful server/informant at a Las Vegas Maggiano’s. Let’s call him Skippy.
According to Skippy, the balsamic cream sauce is as simple as mixing a sweet balsamic glaze with the chain’s creamy Alfredo sauce. So, I first got a sample of Maggiano’s Alfredo sauce and figured out how to replicate it. Once that was done, I measured increments of balsamic glaze into the Alfredo sauce until the color and flavor matched the original. The rest of the recipe was easy.
My recipe will make two servings and includes preparation for the tenderloins and sauce. If you’d like to complete the dish the way it’s served at the restaurant (as in the photo), add some garlic mashed potatoes on the side, using my hack for Olive Garden Garlic Mashed Potatoes.
Try my Maggiano's Beef Tenderloin Medallions copycat recipe below, find more of my Maggiano's copycat recipes here.
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Maggiano's Famous Rigatoni "D"
Read more“D” was chef David Di Gregorio’s nickname at the first Maggiano’s, which opened in Chicago, Illinois in 1991, and he’s the guy who developed the best-selling pasta dish on the menu.
Maggiano’s Famous Rigatoni “D” is a genuinely great dish that anyone can copy if they use the exclusive top secret techniques revealed here. After many trials and several errors, I finally replicated the amazing creamy marsala sauce by reducing two full bottles of inexpensive marsala wine down to just one-half cup of intensely flavored liquid. The alcohol cooks out, the mushrooms contribute their savory umami goodness, and after about an hour-and-a-half you have the perfect flavoring solution for your cream sauce.
The other mushrooms in the dish are served unsliced, so make sure they’re small enough to eat in one bite. Sometimes it’s tough to find 40 small mushrooms, so feel free to use your choice of white (button) or brown (cremini) mushrooms for this recipe. They are the same mushroom species with only minor differences (white mushrooms are a cultivated mutation of the brown ones), so either will work. But, if you have a choice, go with creminis since they tend to have a slightly deeper flavor.
Try my Maggiano's Rigatoni "D" copycat recipe today, and complete the meal with my Maggiano's Vera's Lemon Cookies recipe here.
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Cracker Barrel Country Fried Steak
Read moreIt finally happened. I recently created a new clone recipe for Cracker Barrel's Country Fried Steak only to realize much later that I had already cloned it eight years before in my book, Top Secret Recipes Step-by-Step. But I'm okay with the unplanned re-do because the final result turned out to be a more accurate re-creation, with several improvements to my first hack from many moons ago.
Most chicken-fried steak recipes, including my previous Cracker Barrel Country Fried Steak copycat recipe, call for cube steak—round steak that’s been scored in a butcher’s tenderizer—which isn’t always as tender as you may like it to be. Connective tissue that remains intact will make some bites too chewy, yet if the steak is over-tenderized it will fall apart when cooked.
To ensure that every bite is perfectly tender, my solution is to avoid cube steak altogether and start with lean ground beef, as with recipes for Salisbury steak or Hamburg steak. Forming the ground beef into steaks and then freezing them so they hold together makes the breading and cooking process easy, and when served, every bite of the finished product is guaranteed to be fork-tender.
Of course, this iconic clone recipe wouldn’t be complete without a spot-on hack for the famous sawmill gravy that gets spooned over the top. I’m including a fresh hack for the gravy that improves on my original recipe, and it's super easy to make with just six ingredients.
Try more of my Cracker Barrel recipes here.
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Wendy's Seasoned Potatoes
Read moreReviewers of Wendy’s tasty seasoned potatoes point out that the skin-on slices stay crispy even when cool. That tells us the breading is most likely made with a non-wheat flour blend, an assumption confirmed by the website ingredients list for the potatoes where nary a gram of wheat flour is included. Yep, these seasoned potatoes are gluten-free.
Wendy’s uses a blend of food starches plus rice flour for the breading on their version, but my tests confirmed that cornstarch is all you’ll need for a great clone of Wendy's seasoned potatoes. The secret process starts by coating the potato slices with the dry breading mix, which contains salt. The salt in the blend will draw water out of the potatoes, magically transforming the dry breading into a wet batter in about 20 minutes.
When all the breading is wet, the potatoes go into the oil for partial frying. After resting a bit, they get dropped in again until golden brown and crispy. And, thanks to the cornstarch, these potatoes will stay crispy, even when they’re completely cool. Pretty cool right? Give my Wendy's seasoned potatoes copycat recipe a try.
This recipe was our #3 most popular in 2022. Check out the other four most unlocked recipes for the year: Rao's Traditional Meatballs (#1), Chipotle Pollo Asado (#2), Cheesecake Factory Spicy Cashew Chicken (#4), McDonald's Chicken McNuggets (#5).
Check out this list of our most popular recipes of all-time.
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Crumbl Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chunk Cookie
Read moreTo ensure success for their new cookie store, cousins Sawyer Hemsley and Jason McGowan knew they had to start with a great cookie recipe. Batch after batch, the partners baked milk chocolate chip cookies and shared them with taste testers for helpful advice on how to improve the recipe, until finally, they had created the very best cookie. In 2017, the cousins opened their first Crumbl cookie store in Logan, Utah to sell their new milk chocolate chip cookies. Just 7 years and over 200 cookie recipes later, Crumbl had grown to over 900 stores throughout the U.S. and Canada, and the chain now sells over 1 million cookies a day. Each week, the rotating menu features 6 cookie flavors, but a few special cookies, like this classic Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chunk Cookie are almost always on the roster due to their popularity.
To create my Crumbl Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chunk Cookie copycat recipe I started with the cookie chain’s list of ingredients. I designed a recipe using that information then systematically tweaked the formula through more than 35 batches, making minor adjustments each time. Through that process, I discovered the perfect ratio of brown sugar to white sugar improved texture and I found that baking the cookies at a higher temperature worked best for crispy edges and chewy middles. I also found that one egg isn’t enough, and two eggs are too much, so beating two eggs and measuring ¼ cup after the foam settled was the most reliable method.
Crumbl uses a large scoop to portion these cookies, but you can use your hands to form the dough into mounds with rough tops, and then be sure to bake the cookies on parchment paper. I found silicone baking mats to be too slippery, causing the cookie to spread from the bottom and split. And don’t wander too far from the oven. Your cookies are done when they’re light brown around the edges and still appear uncooked in the center, so keep at least one eye on them.
Find more famous cookie copycat recipes here.
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Chick-fil-A Honey Pepper Pimento Chicken Sandwich
Read moreChick-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.
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Red Lobster Walt's Favorite Shrimp
Read moreMany identify Red Lobster as the restaurant that serves free cheesy Cheddar Bay Biscuits with every meal, but the chain has another claim to fame as the first chain to make popcorn shrimp a thing.
Introduced in 1974, Walt’s Favorite Shrimp is butterflied, breaded, and lightly fried, making the crustaceans a simple-to-eat finger food. But there’s more to my Red Lobster Walt’s Favorite Shrimp copycat recipe than simply breading and frying a pound of large shrimp. First, we’ll need to add flavor to the shrimp with a brine. And instead of using a salt brine, I found that a brine of concentrated chicken bouillon worked wonders for flavoring the shrimp all the way through.
After brining the shrimp give them three coats of flour and one with breadcrumbs, then it takes just a minute or so until they’re golden brown and crispy, and ready to serve with a side of cocktail sauce.
Find more of my Red Lobster copycat recipes here.
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Texas Roadhouse Rolls & Cinnamon Butter
Read moreI never thought dinner rolls were something I could get excited about until I got my hand into the breadbasket at Texas Roadhouse. The rolls are fresh out of the oven and they hit the table when you do, so there’s no waiting to tear into a magnificently gooey sweet roll topped with soft cinnamon butter. The first bite you take will make you think of a fresh cinnamon roll, and then you can’t stop eating it. And when the first roll’s gone, you are powerless to resist grabbing for just one more. But it’s never just one more. It’s two or three more, plus a few extra to take home for tomorrow.
Discovering the secret to making rolls at home that taste as good as Texas Roadhouse Rolls involved making numerous batches of dough, each one sweeter than the last (sweetened with sugar, not honey—I checked), until a very sticky batch, proofed for 2 hours, produced exactly what I was looking for. You can make the dough with a stand mixer or a handheld one, the only difference being that you must knead the dough by hand without a stand mixer. When working with the dough add a little bit of flour at a time to keep it from sticking, and just know that the dough will be less sticky and more workable after the first rise.
Roll the dough out and measure it as specified here, and after a final proofing and a quick bake—plus a generous brushing of butter on the tops—you will produce dinner rolls that look and taste just like the best rolls I’ve had at any famous American dinner chain.
This recipe was our #1 most popular in 2019. Check out the other four most unlocked recipes for the year: KFC Extra Crispy Fried Chicken (#2), Olive Garden Braised Beef Bolognese (#3), Pizzeria Uno Chicago Deep Dish Pizza (#4), Bush's Country Style Baked Beans (#5).
Check out this list of our most popular recipes of all-time.
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Cheesecake Factory Chicken Marsala and Mushrooms
Read moreMenu Description: “Chicken breast sautéed with fresh mushrooms in a rich Marsala wine sauce. Served over bow tie pasta.”
Unlike the creamy Marsala sauce served at many restaurant chains (as with Olive Garden’s Stuffed Chicken Marsala), the sauce served at The Cheesecake Factory is rich and dark with an unctuous concentration of flavor seemingly created by a thorough reduction.
For my Cheesecake Factory Chicken Marsala and Mushrooms copycat recipe, you'll reduce lightly seasoned marsala wine and chicken broth to less than one-quarter of its original volume. Once reduced, your cloned sauce is strained to remove the herbs, then butter and lemon are added, along with a browning sauce such as Kitchen Bouquet to match the deep color of the original.
Browned mushrooms are added to the sauce, then it's all spooned over sautéed chicken cutlets arranged on a huge bed of farfalle pasta. Hope you're hungry, because this recipe makes two huge Cheesecake Factory-size servings. If it's too much for two of you, the dish can easily be portioned into three or four more modest servings.
Find more of your favorite dishes from Cheesecake Factory hacked here.
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Olive Garden Shrimp Scampi
Read moreA comparison of several shrimp scampi recipes reveals a variety of subtle differences in the way each chef makes the classic Italian dish, but the underlying technique is almost always the same: create a sauce, add the shrimp, dump the pasta into the pan, toss, and serve. But if you want to make the fantastic Olive Garden shrimp scampi, you’ll need to follow some very specific secret steps.
Many other shrimp scampi recipes start with garlic and onions, but you’ll only need garlic for this version. You’ll also be adding tomato to the dish along with chopped asparagus spears to bring some color to the dish and set it apart from traditional scampi recipes. Other methods usually don’t call for cream in the sauce, but Olive Garden uses it in their version so you'll do the same in this hack, and you'll be glad you did. The cream thickens the sauce so that it better coats the shrimp and pasta.
My exclusive Olive Garden shrimp scampi copycat recipe makes 2 large dinner-size portions but can be divided into 3 to 4 smaller lunch-size servings.
Find more of your favorite Olive Garden copycat recipes here.
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Little Caesars Crazy Puffs with Crazy Sauce
Read moreOne of Little Caesars most successful new products is these mini deep-dish pizzas, baked until browned and bubbly, brushed with buttery garlic spread, and sprinkled with herbs and cheese. They come with pepperoni or just cheese, and they’re so good that the moment I tried one, I knew that a home hack was in my immediate future.
I wanted my Little Caesars Crazy Puffs copycat recipe to be better than any of the mom blog versions that rely on pre-made dough, so I made the dough from scratch using bread flour and cold-proofed it for 48 hours. This gave me a nicely fermented chewy dough that nicely matched the dough from Little Caesars in texture and flavor.
After recently discovering that Little Caesars Crazy Sauce is the same recipe as their marinara pizza sauce, I redesigned my Little Caesars Crazy Sauce recipe from my 1995 cookbook, More Top Secret Recipes. And this time, I made the sauce without cooking it after a worker revealed that important secret. The sauce will eventually cook when it goes through the oven on the pizza. Meanwhile, in the back, some of that sauce is packaged into to-go cups and chilled until it's served to customers as Crazy Sauce for dipping.
You can make 21 Crazy Puffs clones in 2 batches using a 12-cup muffin pan coated with butter-flavored oil spray. I've made sure to include instructions for both versions: pepperoni and cheese & herb. Because choices are nice.
Find more of my Little Caesar's copycat recipes here.
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Chipotle Guacamole
Read moreIn April 2020, restaurant chains in the U.S. closed their dining rooms due to the Covid-19 epidemic and needed a way to stay connected with their customers. Chipotle’s solution was to have corporate chef Chad Brauze “reveal” the chain’s secret recipe for the guacamole on the corporate Instagram account, which was picked up by the news and then re-posted on the Today Show website.
Chains have shared versions of their secret recipes on news shows in the past, but I’m usually skeptical of the recipes since I’ve rarely found that any of those formulas are the actual restaurant versions. More often than not, one or more ingredients are eliminated or substituted so that your final product is close, but not exact. And that's what Chipotle did.
Chef Chad's Instagram cooking video from his home kitchen is a good guacamole recipe, but it’s not Chipotle’s guacamole recipe. The formula includes most of the ingredients you would need for a perfect hack—but it’s missing one: lemon juice. According to Chipotle’s website, and cooks at the restaurant, Chipotle adds lemon juice in addition to lime juice to its famous guacamole.
With this information and a heaping sample of the authentic guac, I tweaked Chef Chad’s formula to make my Chipotle Guacamole copycat recipe more like the real one, which is made fresh several times a day at the restaurant. Even with the additional acid (lemon juice) in the mix to preserve the color, this guacamole is best if eaten within several hours of making it while it’s still bright green.
This recipe was our #3 most popular of 2023. Check out the other most popular unlocked recipes of the year: Church's Chicken Original and Spicy Fried Chicken (#1), IKEA Swedish Meatballs (#2), Subway Cookies (#4), IHOP Thick 'N Fluffy French Toast (#5).
Check out this list of our most popular recipes of all-time.
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Old El Paso Taco Seasoning Mix
Read moreThe Old El Paso brand started life in 1917 as The Mountain Pass Canning Company, but the name changed when the company was sold to its new owner in El Paso, Texas. The company initially specialized in canned tomatoes and pinto beans but expanded its line over the years. In 1969, Old El Paso became the first American company to sell a national line of Mexican meals in supermarkets and the first to advertise Mexican food. This growing market for Mexican cuisine established by Old El Paso is why U.S. stores created a Mexican food section for the first time in 1970.
Many of us who grew up with "family taco night" are familiar with the packet of spices added to browned ground beef for a quick and easy taco filling. When the seasoned beef is added to crispy or soft taco shells with your favorite combination of cheese, lettuce, tomato, avocado, or whatever, any day becomes Taco Tuesday.
My Old El Paso Taco Seasoning Mix copycat recipe includes all the spices you'll need for a perfect match to the real thing and just the right amount of cornstarch to thicken it up. And it's a cinch to make. Once you've mixed these ingredients in a small bowl, add the blend to 1 pound of cooked ground beef with water, cook until thick, and fill your tacos just like you did with the original from back in the day.
Now, how about a cold margarita?
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Olive Garden Five Cheese Ziti al Forno
Read moreMenu 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.
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P.F. Chang's Crispy Honey Chicken
Read moreI'm not sure why it took me so long to clone this dish, considering that it was my daughter's favorite thing to eat at P.F. Chang's when she was a kid. I recently tackled it and created a spot-on copy of the chain's signature sweet-and-sour honey sauce, and in the process found some new intel that improved on my earlier version of the chain's crispy chicken which I had already hacked for a different P.F. Chang's recipe. The dish came together beautifully on the plate, and it cleared the final taste test by earning an enthusiastic thumbs-up from my now-grown little girl.
Since P.F. Chang’s sells a version of this dish in the freezer aisle of my local grocery store, I was able to improve my chicken batter formula by extracting some good info from the ingredients listed on the product box. Based on this new information, I added more cornstarch to the batter along with corn flour and egg whites for a much better, crispier coating.
The sauce in my P.F. Chang's Crispy Honey Chicken copycat recipe is sweetened with honey and sugar, soured by wine and rice vinegar, and thickened with cornstarch and gelatin powder to create a flavorful finishing glaze that sticks to the crispy chicken like the real thing. In the restaurant, the chicken is served over a bed of fried maifun rice sticks so I’ve included prep notes for that in the Tidbits, but you may prefer to forego that step and serve the chicken over or alongside cooked white or brown rice.
Check out more of my P.F. Chang's clone recipes here.
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Wahlburgers Wahl Sauce
Read moreChef Paul Wahlberg joined with his acting brothers Mark and Donnie Wahlberg to open the first Wahlburgers restaurant in Hingham, Massachusetts in 2011, and with the help of an A&E reality show in 2014, the chain experienced steady growth for over a decade, opening the 100th restaurant in February 2024.
The famous family was a fantastic promotion machine for the chain, but let’s face it, the restaurant wouldn’t have become successful if the food didn't taste good. The secret to the chain’s great-tasting beef patties is a custom blend of Angus chuck, brisket, and short rib, and it’s the super secret Wahl Sauce that puts their burgers over the top. Once I tasted the chain’s signature “Our Burger,” it became clear that I needed to make a home copy of that special sauce, stat.
For my Wahlburgers Wahl Sauce copycat recipe, it takes just nine common ingredients to replicate the spread, with lots of finely minced onion and sriracha sauce as standout ingredients that contribute to the special taste. This formula will give you one cup of sauce to use on your home burgers or as a dip for a variety of finger foods, but let it sit for a bit before you use it so that the flavors can mingle.
Find more of my copycat recipes for famous sauces here.
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IHOP Classic Eggs Benedict
Read moreIn 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.
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Wolfgang Puck Chinois Chicken Salad
Read moreThis iconic Chinese chicken salad, born at Wolfgang Puck’s Chinois restaurant in Santa Monica, California, can also be found on menus at other Puck dining rooms, including Wolfgang Puck Bar & Grill and Wolfgang Puck Player’s Locker, both in Las Vegas.
It's a decades-old secret recipe that is often imitated but never duplicated, since no knockoff I've found includes all the ingredients necessary to create the signature taste. In my underground lab, I sat down with my “to-go” salad (dressing on the side, of course) and meticulously deconstructed it by separating all the ingredients into small bowls. After working for about 45 minutes with the tweezers, I had separate piles of napa cabbage, various greens including frisée, radicchio, shredded carrot, and another shredded root vegetable that I have yet to see anyone include in their so-called “hack”: daikon radish.
In my Wolfgang Puck Chinois Chicken Salad copycat recipe below, I’ll show you how to make the perfect blend of greens (including another secret ingredient that recipes miss), and the ultimate way to clone the famous dressing. I’ve also got easy hacks for perfect candied sesame cashews and crunchy wontons to sprinkle on top, plus I’m including a handful of step photos to ensure that your salad comes out perfect.
Find more famous salad copycat recipes here.
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Cheesecake Factory Chicken Piccata
Read moreMenu Description: “Sautéed chicken breast with lemon sauce, mushrooms, and capers. Served with angel hair pasta.”
A great chicken piccata doesn’t have to be complicated, and this fantastic take on the lemony dish from the Cheesecake Factory is a perfect example.
Since the sauce is the key to the great taste of this entrée, I made sure to get a sample on the side for later analysis when I requested my to-go order from the restaurant. While waiting, I asked the server what was in the sauce and she listed some obvious ingredients—lemon, wine, butter, cream—and then she mentioned garlic and shallots. When I got home, I rinsed the sauce through a mesh strainer to discover how much garlic and shallot were in the sauce, but there was no physical evidence of either solid ingredient left behind in the strainer.
I made a batch of the sauce without garlic and shallot, and it tasted flat. So on the next batch, I added the garlic and shallot back in, then strained out the solid ingredients after they contributed their goodness to the sauce. The result was noticeably better.
After adding mushrooms and capers to the new lemon sauce, I spooned it over sautéed chicken cutlets and was rewarded with a fantastic homemade version of this amazing dish, which you can now copy at home using my Cheesecake Factory Chicken Piccata recipe below.
Check out more of my copycat Cheesecake Factory recipes here.
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Red Robin Ensenada Chicken
Read moreThis chain’s most popular chicken dish owes its appeal to two delicious sauces and the great way they work together. The dark red ancho chili sauce wakes the chicken with big, bold lime and chili flavors, and the salsa ranch drizzled over the top contributes a delicious, cooling layer of creaminess. If you like tequila lime chicken and fiesta chicken entrees from other restaurants, you'll really love this recipe.
For my Red Robin Ensenada Chicken copycat recipe, you have the option of cooking the brined chicken on an outdoor barbecue grill, on a flat grill, or in a sauté pan. It’s unclear which cooking method Red Robin uses for the chicken since the photo of the dish in the menu clearly shows grill marks as if cooked on a grate, while my take-home sample of the dish showed signs of being cooked on a flat surface. In the end, either way works.
The standout secret ingredient in this recipe is the A-1 sauce used in the ancho chili sauce, which contributes perfect fruity sweet-and-sour notes. That may sound like a strange addition, but it’s not unusual for Worcestershire sauce to be called for in ancho sauce, and A-1 is similar in many ways to Worcestershire.
The recipe makes 1 1/3 cups each of the ancho sauce and salsa ranch, so after you make these servings, you’ll still have plenty of the goodness left over for more chicken later or for other dishes.
Find more of your favorite Red Robin copycat recipes here.
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Pei Wei Pad Thai
Read moreIf you’re ranking Pad Thai served at U.S. chains, Pei Wei’s tasty take on the dish comes in at the top. The secret sauce is perfectly sweet, sour, salty, and lightly spicy, and the chicken is moist, tender, and filled with great flavor.
For my Pei Wei Pad Thai copycat recipe, you'll first brine the chicken so it doesn't dry out as white meat tends to do. The secret marinade here includes fish sauce; Thailand's MSG. When soaked in the salty sauce the natural aminos contribute fantastic umami goodness to the chicken, and when you cook it with moist heat as described in the steps below it will come out fork-tender and juicy.
The noodles at Pei Wei are thin, so grab the skinniest rice noodles on the shelf. Then prepare them for stir fry by steeping them in a bowl of hot water rather than in a pan of boiling water on the stovetop as may be suggested on the package. When they're done, give the noodles a rinse under cold water and they’ll hold until you need them.
This hack will make two large meal-size entrées—just like you get at the restaurant—which can easily be split into four more modest side servings. And I've included a bunch of step photos to help you along so you can serve a picture-perfect dish.
Check out my recipe for Pei Wei Better Orange Chicken here.
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Manwich Original Sloppy Joe Sandwich
Read moreLoose meat sandwiches were born in Iowa in 1926 when Maid-Rite started selling burgers made with ground beef that isn’t pressed into patties. These sandwiches became a Midwest phenomenon, and they were often served with a spoon to scoop up the loose meat that would inevitably fall out. This dry and crumbly characteristic of the loose meat sandwich might be why, in 1930, a chef named Joe, as legend has it, created a tomato-based sauce, possibly with ketchup, which he mixed into the loose ground beef. Joe’s new sandwich had more flavor than its drier cousin, and the loose meat stayed in the bun.
Sloppy Joes became a common restaurant and diner menu choice for decades, with sandwiches selling for as little as 10 cents. In 1969, Hunts brought Sloppy Joes home with the introduction of the first canned Sloppy Joe sauce. When added to one pound of browned ground beef, the sauce made enough filling to feed a family of four. It was easy, and it was cheap.
The original sauce lists corn syrup as the second ingredient, but for my Manwich Sloppy Joe Sauce copycat recipe, I chose to avoid corn syrup and even ketchup and instead built the sauce with ketchup ingredients, including tomato paste, sugar, vinegar, and spices. Like the real thing, my version is easy and cheap, but because it’s fresher, it tastes a little better.
Find more of my copycat recipes for iconic sandwiches here.
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Popeyes Homestyle Mac & Cheese
Read moreIn late 2021, Popeyes debuted a new macaroni and cheese recipe made with cheddar, cream, and butter, and browned nicely on top like it was just pulled out of Mom’s home oven. After analyzing the real thing from Popeyes in my kitchen lab and experimenting with multiple batches, I was eventually able to reproduce the dish so the same great mac & cheese taste can now come out of your OWN home oven. And the best part: it's super easy to make. You'll like that.
I created my Popeyes Mac & Cheese copycat recipe using the same ingredients used by the chain: cheddar cheese, whole milk, heavy cream, unsalted butter—all wholesome foods without any weird stuff. We'll make a quick roux for the cheese sauce using a little flour, and I’m also adding easy-melting American cheese into the mix for its keen ability to keep the sauce from becoming grainy, as cheddar-based sauces tend to do.
Combine the sauce with the pasta, brown the top under a broiler, and you just home-styled your way to a delicious mac & cheese masterpiece.
Get more cool Popeyes hacked recipes here.
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Portillo's Chocolate Cake
Read moreI can confirm that the secret recipe for Portillo’s Chocolate Cake is as simple as adding a cup of mayonnaise, a cup of water, and three eggs to a box of chocolate cake mix and baking it in two 9-inch pans at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. The frosting on the cake is the kind you find in the baking aisle in tubs for $2. That's it.
The recipe I've described would cost around $6 to make at home, and yet you'll pay $75 to have a frozen version of the real Portillo's cake delivered to your house. I know this because I did it. It was the easiest way to confirm my suspicions about the recipe. And sure enough, the cake packaging listed ingredients one would find in just about every box of grocery store cake mix: diglycerides, dicalcium phosphate, and propylene glycol.
Perhaps you prefer not to pay $75 for a cake you can make at home for 6 bucks. I get that. Maybe you also want chocolate cake that's not made with boxed cake mix because it’s, well, boxed cake mix. Same here. So, I wondered if I could make a similarly moist mayonnaise chocolate cake just like Portillo's, but this time from scratch, with wholesome ingredients in both the cake and the icing. Thankfully, after baking over a dozen different cakes I finally came up with a recipe that tastes like Portillo's Chocolate Cake but without the hard-to-spell additives found in the real thing.
And if mayonnaise sounds like an unusual ingredient for a cake, fear not. Practically everything in it benefits your cake batter. The blend of eggs and fat helps keep the cake fluffy and moist, salt and sugar add flavor, as do the vinegar and lemon juice which also assist with the leavening process to produce a tall cake with a light crumb. You could say mayonnaise is the perfect ingredient.
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Chipotle Smoked Brisket
Read moreIn 2021, for a limited time, Chipotle added smoked and sauced brisket to its line of signature meats. The tender brisket is seasoned with a blend of peppers, garlic, cumin, and coriander, then seared and tossed with a smokey barbecue sauce fused with traditional Mexican flavors. It’s a significant departure from the chain’s signature south-of-the-border protein offerings, and when the dish came back to the menu in 2024, it was a food hacking challenge I couldn't refuse.
For my Chipotle Smoked Brisket copycat recipe, I used the flat end of the brisket, as does the chain, and trimmed the fat, so the seasoning blend came in direct contact with the meat. I let the seasoning sit on the meat for at least four hours, then I smoked it and mopped it a couple of times with a vinegar blend to help keep it moist and to wake up the flavor. When the brisket hit 165 degrees F, I covered it and let it continue cooking until the internal temperature reached 200 degrees F, and a beautiful dark crust formed. I wrapped the brisket in foil and a thick towel and placed it in a cooler for a couple of hours to rest, and then it was ready to serve.
Because the process took 12 to 14 hours, I found it best to refrigerate the brisket until the next day, when it can be prepped for serving. When everyone's hungry, and you’re ready to finish the brisket, chop it, sear it, season it, and sauce it with this barbecue sauce made from typical barbecue sauce ingredients, plus peppers and cumin to bring out the spirit of Mexico.
And don’t worry if you don’t have a smoker. In the Tidbits below, I’ll tell you how to use your gas or charcoal grill to add beautiful smoke flavoring to your brisket, just like a legit smoker.
Try more of my Chipotle copycat recipes here.
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Pei Wei Wei Better Orange Chicken
Read moreThis 220-unit downscaled version of P.F. Chang’s China Bistro targets the lunch crowd with a smaller menu that features bento boxes, bowls, and small plates. Obviously, a clone is needed for this one, stat.
The name “Wei Better Orange Chicken” is a competitive callout to Panda Express's signature orange chicken, which is made with pre-breaded and frozen chicken. Pei Wei claims its orange chicken is prepared each day from scratch with chicken that is never frozen, so we’ll craft our Pei Wei Better Orange Chicken recipe the same way. But rather than assemble the dish in a wok over a high-flame fast stove like they do at the restaurant, we’ll prepare the sauce and chicken separately, then toss them with fresh orange wedges just before serving.
By the way, Pei Wei Better Orange Chicken goes very well with white or brown rice, so don’t forget to make some.
This recipe was our #4 most popular in 2020. Check out the other four most unlocked recipes for the year: Rao's Homemade Marinara Sauce (#1), Olive Garden Lasagna Classico (#2), King's Hawaiian Original Hawaiian Sweet Rolls (#3), Chipotle Mexican Grill Carnitas (#5).
Check out this list of our most popular recipes of all-time.
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Marie Callender's Double Cream Blueberry Pie
Read moreVanilla custard and whipped cream make up the delicious “double cream” that tops this ultra-popular blueberry pie from the West Coast chain that is most famous for its homestyle pies. Finally, I got the chance to give this great dessert the hack it deserves—from what I've seen, no other "copycat" recipe even comes close.
For my Marie Callender’s Double Cream Blueberry Pie copycat recipe, it was important that the custard be creamy but not too runny, so in addition to cornstarch, I’ve included just enough gelatin in the mix to stabilize the filling, but not so much that it becomes rubbery. The blueberry filling, made with frozen blueberries, needs only cornstarch to thicken it because there is also apple in the filling which contributes pectin, a natural thickening gel. Just be sure to dice your apple very small before cooking it so that the pieces will soften and work well with the frozen blueberries.
There’s no need to make the crust from scratch when you can use an unbaked 9-inch pie shell in the frozen food aisle—preferably the one made by Marie Callender’s—but any brand will do.
Then, to finish your pie, the gelatin steps up again, stabilizing the whipped cream topping so that it holds its shape for as long as it takes to eat the whole pie. Which probably won't be long at all.
Try more of my Marie Callender's copycat recipes here.
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Legal Sea Foods Signature Crab Cakes
Read moreThis 31-unit Boston-based seafood chain got its name from "Legal Cash Market", the grocery store that founder George Berkowitz's father, Harry, opened in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1904. In 1950 George opened a fish market next door to his dad's store and called it "Legal Sea Foods", and eighteen years later it expanded into a thriving restaurant business. In 1986 NBC's Today named Legal Sea Foods "The Best Seafood Restaurant in America."
One of the signature dishes at the chain is Legal's Signature Crab Cakes, which are filled with big chunks of lump crab and served with a top secret mustard dipping sauce. My Legal Sea Foods crab cakes recipe below is simple to prepare, as is the sauce. Get your mouth ready.
Source: Top Secret Recipes Step-by-Step by Todd Wilbur.
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Dickey's Barbecue Pit Potato Salad
Read moreAmerica’s largest barbecue chain is famous for its great smoked meats. But Dickey’s Barbecue Pit also deserves a major shout-out for tasty potato salad that even potato salad haters will like. It’s sweet, sour, creamy, and speckled with just a bit of bell pepper and celery to make it interesting. And it’s easy to make a perfect copy at home with this handy Top Secret Recipe.
For my Dickey’s Potato Salad copycat recipe, you’ll start by mixing a simple dressing and stir it into diced potatoes that cook in just 10 minutes. Add some minced red and green bell pepper—both cook al dente in under 5 minutes—plus a little minced celery, and your work is done. And you made it for much less than it would cost to buy the real thing.
After it chills, give it a good stir, and your potato salad hack is ready for hungry mouths.
Fans of Dickey's will also love my original BBQ sauce and coleslaw copycat recipes here.
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Legal Sea Foods New England Clam Chowder
Read moreThis phenomenal clam chowder, made with lots of fresh littleneck clams, was chosen to represent the state of Massachusetts at the first inauguration of Ronald Reagan in 1981—just a year after first being served at the restaurant—and has been served at every presidential inauguration since. I think it's the best clam chowder you'll get at any casual restaurant chain in America, making it a perfect home clone candidate.
I could glean only minimal information from servers at Legal Sea Foods in Philly where I first tasted this fantastic chowder. Fortunately, the company has an online seafood store where I could order a quart of the soup—for a whopping 45 bucks with shipping—which provided me with an ingredients list on the package to aid in the hacking. The restaurant has its cookbook, which provides a few more clues, but the recipe there does not produce a soup that is anything like the version in the restaurant. Many of the ingredients I found on the label of the restaurant version are not listed in the cookbook recipe.
The real soup includes a little salt pork, which I have replaced here with bacon since such a small amount is used. For the best flavor, you'll want to use fish or seafood stock, which I found at Walmart, but you can substitute with chicken broth if seafood stock is unavailable. My Legal Sea Foods New England Clam Chowder copycat recipe makes over 2 quarts of the soup and will cost you a fraction of what I paid for just a single quart through the company's website.
Find my Legal Sea Foods Crab Cakes copycat recipe here.
Source: Top Secret Recipes Step-by-Step by Todd Wilbur. -
Rao's Homemade Bolognese Sauce
Read moreThe 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.
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Jack in the Box Smashed Jack Burger & Boss Sauce
Read moreIn 2024, Jack-in-the-Box introduced the chain’s best-reviewed burger, the Smashed Jack, with a ¼-pound “smashed-inspired” burger, grilled onions, and a new secret sauce. A press release from Jack-in-the-Box claimed that consumers in a taste test picked the new Smashed Jack as the best burger compared to McDonald’s, Wendy’s, and Burger King burgers.
You may have guessed that “smashed-inspired” means that these burgers aren’t prepared like burgers that are smashed with a press or heavy spatula on the grill—a process that triggers the Maillard reaction when amino acids and sugars are browned to give food a flavorful crust. But Jack-in-the-Box created a secret shortcut for speed and consistency that still gives the burgers that crust and the appearance of smashing without relying on cooks to actually smash them.
For my Jack-in-the-Box Smashed Jack copycat recipe, we’ll smash the burger for real, but we’ll start with a knockoff of the new Boss Sauce, which gets its smokey flavor from just a little bit of liquid smoke. Once that sauce is done, it’s time to cook the burger patty, which I found is best copied with ground Angus beef. Use a press or heavy spatula to press down on the burger as it cooks to create a browned crust on both sides of the patty.
After the burger is flipped, grilled onions are stacked on top, followed by American cheese. Then, the burger is finished with thick pickles and lots of your copycat Boss Sauce. This recipe shows you how to make one burger, but you’ll have enough leftover secret sauce to make several more.
If you're a fan of Jack in the Box Jumbo Jack or any of Jack's Shakes, or their famous tacos, click here for my clone recipes.
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Marie Callender's Fresh Strawberry Pie
Read moreEvery March through November, Marie Callender’s sells fresh strawberry pies made with the chain’s signature flakey crust piled high with whole strawberries tossed in a sweet glaze and finished with a crown of whipped cream.
The pies are made-to-order to ensure the freshness of the berries, but the glaze that’s added to the beautiful berries tastes like the everyday goopy red stuff found in grocery store produce sections that’s usually made with corn syrup and other crud, and no natural fruit. For my Marie Callender’s Fresh Strawberry Pie copycat recipe, I set out to improve the glaze by making it with real strawberry puree, hoping to get a tastier finished product. Thankfully, it worked out. The new glaze was vibrant and fruity; it transformed into a nice gel and didn’t upstage the strawberries. This small change makes a strawberry pie that’s even better than the original.
I designed the glaze to use frozen strawberries, so it’s quick and easy, and I’m also including scratch recipes here for the whipped cream and pie crust. You can buy each of these pre-made to speed up your build, but taking a little time to make the whipped cream and/or crust from scratch will absolutely be worth the extra effort. Also, I slightly tweaked my previous Marie Callender’s pastry formula to make it more closely match the current pie crust served at the chain.
Try my Marie Callender's Fresh Strawberry Pie copycat recipe below, and find more of my Marie Callender's pie recipes here.
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Jason's Deli Irish Potato Soup
Read moreTraditional Irish potato soup—a simple formula made with potatoes, onions, stock, and cream—gets an upgrade with cheddar cheese, carrots, green onions, and sour cream in Jason’s Deli's delicious take on the classic recipe. These improvements make a great soup that's still easy to construct, and it also may be the best-tasting potato soup I’ve ever hacked.
The secret to this soup recipe is that it starts life as a cheddar cheese sauce, which may worry you if you’ve ever made cheese sauce that wound up “grainy." But that won’t happen here if you're sure to use mild or medium cheddar cheese. Older (sharper) cheddar contains less water and doesn’t melt as well as younger cheese, so the first important step is to choose your cheddar wisely.
Also, shred your own cheese. Pre-shredded cheese won’t melt as well, since shredded cheese is usually drier and often dusted with cornstarch to keep the shreds from clumping. For my Jason's Deli Irish Potato Soup recipe below, I highly recommend that you shred your own cheese to get the best results.
After an hour or so of simmering, you’ll have eight beautiful bowls of soup, all topped with cheddar cheese and crumbled bacon before serving, just like the real thing.
Find more amazing copycat soup recipes here.
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Cracker Barrel Baked Apple Dumplin
Read moreOne of the best choices you will make in life is having this dish for dessert when you’re at Cracker Barrel. They call it a “dumplin” but it’s just a little streusel-covered apple pie, served up hot in its own small baking dish with two scoops of vanilla bean ice cream on top, and drizzled with warm apple/caramel sauce—it's good stuff. Take a bite and you may notice the apples inside taste like Cracker Barrel’s Fried Apples side dish, so we'll use my previous hack for that part to bring it all together.
My Cracker Barrel Baked Apple Dumplin recipe makes two small pies that serve up to four. Check out more of my cool copycat recipes from Cracker Barrel here.
For over 30 years I've been deconstructing America's most iconic brand-name foods to make the best original copycat recipes for you to use at home. Welcome to my lab.
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