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- Chick-fil-A Mac & Cheese
The new Mac & Cheese at Chick-fil-A is baked fresh every day, and the recipe is more complex than you might expect from a fast food chicken chain. According to the official list of ingredients, the formula includes several different kinds of cheese including Parmesan, Romano, and award-winning hard cheese from Wisconsin called BellaVitano. The BellaVitano cheese adds a subtle nuttiness to the mix and all three hard cheeses contribute big umami flavor that nicely complements the blend of white and yellow cheddars.
Those five kinds of cheese combine to make a great flavor, but the blend would melt into a greasy mess if it weren’t for the assistance of one more ubiquitous cheese: American. The benefit of American cheese—which makes up for its lack of flavor—is found in the sodium citrate it contains. This natural sodium salt is an emulsifier that keeps the fat in the cheese from separating (and it also happens to be useful in preventing kidney stones!). By first melting several slices of American cheese in the milk, we don’t need to make a roux to create a perfectly smooth cheese sauce.
As for cooking the macaroni, here’s another secret: don’t follow the directions on the box for al dente pasta, because you don’t want the pasta to be al dente, or slightly tough. You want to cook the elbow macaroni for 20 minutes so that it absorbs as much water as possible. This will ensure that the pasta won’t suck up liquid in the cheese sauce when they are combined, and the sauce will maintain a perfectly creamy consistency.
Try my Chick-fil-A mac and cheese copycat recipe below, and click here for more Chick-fil-A copycat recipes.
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- 8 ounces elbow macaroni
- 1 cup whole milk
- 3 1/2 ounces (5 slices) American cheese (not Kraft Singles), roughly chopped or torn
- 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 3 1/2 ounces (scant 1 cup) shredded sharp cheddar cheese
- 1 ounce (1/4 cup) shredded white cheddar cheese
- 1 ounce (1/4 cup) shredded BellaVitano Gold cheese
- 3 tablespoons grated Parmesan
- 1 tablespoon grated Romano
Topping
- 3 ounces (3/4 cup) shredded sharp cheddar cheese
- 3 ounces (3/4 cup) shredded white cheddar cheese
1. Cook the macaroni in 2 quarts of boiling water for 20 minutes. When the macaroni is completely soft, strain out the water.
2. While the pasta cooks, make the cheese sauce by combining the milk, American cheese, butter, and salt in a medium saucepan over medium/low heat. Slowly heat up the milk to melt the butter and cheese. Stir often with a whisk until the American cheese is melted and the sauce is smooth.
3. Add the remaining cheeses and stir until the sauce is smooth, then remove it from the heat. Allow the sauce to sit for 10 minutes to cool and thicken, then combine the sauce and pasta in a large bowl and allow it to cool enough that the cheese doesn’t fall to the bottom of the bowl. Gently stir it occasionally as it sits.
4. Preheat your broiler to high.
5. Pour the macaroni and cheese into an 8x8-inch baking pan or dish.
6. Combine the yellow and white cheddar cheese for the topping, then sprinkle the mixture over the top of the mac and cheese.
7. Pop the pan under your hot broiler for 2 to 3 minutes or until the top has lightly browned.
Tidbits: If you can't find BellaVitano cheese, you can substitute with 1 additional tablespoon of Parmesan cheese. If you don't have American cheese, you can use Velveeta or any cheese that contains sodium citrate.
Makes 8 cups (6 servings).
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Chick-fil-A Avocado Lime Ranch Dressing
Read moreThis huge chicken chain offers seven delicious dressings to top three salad choices, and this is my current favorite of the bunch. The Avocado Lime Ranch Dressing is best on a Southwestern-style salad like the one on Chick-fil-A’s menu with mixed greens, black beans, corn, spicy chicken, and tortilla strips on top. But it’ll work on just about any mixed greens salad or burrito bowl you come up with at home, or use it as a dip for chicken fingers, taquitos, and Southwestern eggrolls.
For a good home clone, be sure to smash the avocado until no chunks remain and let the dressing sit for at least an hour before you use it so the dried herbs, onion, and garlic can rehydrate and the flavors can bloom.
Try my Chick-fil-A Avocado Lime Ranch Dressing recipe below, and click here for more of my Chick-fil-A copycat recipes.
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Chipotle Queso Blanco
Read moreSocial media shredded Chipotle’s first queso dip which debuted in 2017, calling it “gritty,” “bland,” “watered-down,” and “a crime against cheese.” Chipotle was in desperate need of a re-do.
In early 2020, after months and months of test-marketing an improved cheesy dip recipe in Dallas, Detroit, and San Diego, the Mexican chain introduced Queso Blanco to the entire U.S., and this time the reviews were much better.
Chipotle claims their new formula contains exactly 13 ingredients, including 2 kinds of cheese and 3 different chile peppers. With cornstarch as the thickening agent, the preparation starts by making a white sauce with milk and cream. When the cheese is fully melted and smooth, the veggies go in, and in about 10 minutes it’s ready to serve.
Use my Chipotle Queso Blanco copycat recipe as a dip with tortilla chips or as a topping on your copycat Chipotle carne asada or carnitas tacos and barbacoa burritos. Find all my Chipotle recipes here.
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Chipotle Carne Asada
Read moreChipotle’s popular limited offering is a good example of how straightforward and flavorful carne asada can be. It’s not overly mysterious since Chipotle is transparent about the ingredients used for the restaurant's entire menu—53 ingredients in all—but identifying those is only the beginning of the process. There was still plenty of work to do in establishing ratios and settling on an ideal preparation method.
Carne asada is almost always made with flank steak or skirt steak. A server at Chipotle told me they use skirt steak, which is surprising since that is the tougher of the two cuts. Perhaps she was wrong about that? Flank steak also has a better flavor than skirt steak, so I'm recommending flank here. Just be sure not to marinate it for more than 2 days or the acid in the marinade may toughen your steak and you certainly don't want that.
After you grill it, slice the meat across the grain and use it in burritos, tacos, bowls, or as a Southwest-style salad topper.
My Chipotle carne asada recipe was our #5 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), Panda Express Fried Rice (#3), Outback Baked Potato Soup (#4).
Check out this list of our most popular recipes of all-time.
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Original Pancake House Buttermilk Pancakes
Read moreThey may not be as intriguing as the German Pancakes, 49’er Flap Jacks, or the other specialty hotcakes at Original Pancake House. Nevertheless, the pancake skills of any restaurant are best judged by how they build a stack of old-fashioned buttermilks, and this chain is at the top of the game.
The first step to making a perfect clone of these delicious flapjacks is to use clarified butter on your skillet or flat grill to keep the pancakes from sticking. This method will add better flavor to your pancakes than using a flavorless oil, and it’s how the Original Pancakes House makes their pancakes. So we'll do the same in my Original Pancake House Buttermilk Pancakes recipe below.
When you’ve got your clarified butter ready, the rest is a cinch. Mix the batter, measure 1/3-cup portions onto a hot pan or griddle greased with the butter, cook the pancakes until golden brown on both sides, then serve up a stack with whipped butter and warm maple syrup on the side.
Try my Original Pancake House Dutch baby and apple pancake recipes here.
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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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Popcornopolis Caramel Corn
Read moreMy new favorite caramel corn is from Popcornopolis. Its caramel coating is lighter in color and flavor than the dark molasses-heavy caramel coating on old-school caramel corn, like Cracker Jack. The flavor is more buttery, like butter toffee, with just a hint of molasses knocking at the back door.
To create my Popcornopolis caramel corn recipe I worked with several versions of butter toffee candy, adding light brown sugar to bring in the molasses, and after several attempts finally landed on just the right combination of ingredients to best duplicate the flavor, color, and texture of the real thing.
You'll want a candy thermometer for this recipe for the best results, but if you don't have one you can estimate when the candy is done by using the time cue in the steps.
Vanilla is added at the end, so we don't cook out the flavor. You'll also add a little baking soda at the end, which will react with the acid in the molasses and create tiny air bubbles so the hardened candy has a more tender bite to it.
Check out our other candied popcorn clone recipes including Cracker Jack, Poppycock, Fiddle Faddle, Screaming Yellow Zonkers, and Crunch 'n Munch.
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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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KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken) Potato Wedges
Read more“Don’t call them fries,” says KFC about its popular side made with sliced, skin-on russet potatoes. What sets these potatoes apart from all the others is the secret breading made with a similar seasoning blend to the one used for Colonel's Original Recipe Fried Chicken. To achieve the proper crispiness, the potatoes are par-fried, frozen, then fried again until golden brown.
One important ingredient that completes the flavor is MSG. Monosodium glutamate is a food additive derived from glutamic acid, which is an important amino acid found in abundance in nature, food, and in you right now. Over the last 60 years of study and use, MSG has not only been found harmless in normal amounts, but tests have shown glutamate to be a chemical messenger that benefits gut health, immunity, and brain functions such as memory and learning. In addition to all of that, it imparts a unique savoriness that enhances flavors in other ingredients and makes your food taste amazing. Using MSG in your food is, literally, smart cooking.
Another important ingredient is ground Tellicherry black pepper, a select black pepper from India. Winston Shelton, a friend of Harland Sanders who invented the first high-volume pressure fryers for KFC, confirmed this. Shelton recalled seeing the ingredient when Sanders showed him the secret formula for the fried chicken seasoning he had scribbled on a piece of paper.
While we were shooting the first episode of my TV Show, Top Secret Recipe, Winston pulled me aside and whispered to me that Tellicherry pepper is crucial to creating the unique KFC aftertaste. It was a great tip, and fortunately, we caught that moment on camera and you can see it in the show. Later, I conducted a side-by-side taste test with common black pepper and Tellicherry black pepper and discovered Winston was right. If you want the best taste for your copycat KFC Potato Wedges, you'll need Tellicherry pepper, which you can find online and in some food stores. Be sure to grind it fine before using it.
For my KFC Potato Wedges recipe, just two russet potatoes are all it takes to make the equivalent of a large serving of fried potato wedges, which will be enough for at least four people.
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Outback Steakhouse Baked Potato Soup
Read moreMenu Description: “Creamy potato soup topped with melted cheese, bacon, and green onions.”
It’s not called baked potato soup because the potatoes in it are baked. It’s called baked potato soup because it’s topped with shredded cheese, bacon, and green onion, and it tastes like a loaded baked potato. Other hacky hacks for this recipe miss that point and add over an hour to the preparation process by preheating an oven and baking the potatoes, all while hungry stomachs are growling on the sidelines. My version skips that part by adding the raw potatoes directly into the pot with the other ingredients, where they cook in 20 minutes, and the soup is ready to eat in less time than other recipes take just to get the potatoes done.
Also, other clones add way too much flour to thicken the soup—¾ cup! Sure, flour is good at thickening, but it doesn’t add any flavor, so I found a better way. For my Outback Baked Potato Soup copycat recipe, I ended up using just a little flour to make the roux, then later thickening the soup mostly with dehydrated potato flakes, which are used to make quick mashed potatoes. The flakes not only do a great job of thickening the soup, but they also add more delicious potato flavor to the pot, just like the original soup.
Top your finished soup with shredded cheese, crumbled bacon, and green onion, and every spoonful will taste like a fully decked-out baked potato.
This recipe was our #4 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), Panda Express Fried Rice (#3), Chipotle Carne Asada (#5).
Check out this list of our most popular recipes of all-time.
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Starbucks Bacon and Gruyere Sous Vide Egg Bites
Read moreIn January of 2017, Starbucks perfected slow-cooked sous vide–style egg snacks that can be prepped and served quickly by the baristas at any location. To speed up service, Starbucks makes the egg pucks ahead of time, then freezes and ships them to the coffee stores where they are defrosted and reheated in blazing-hot convection ovens.
Sous vide refers to the method of cooking food sealed in bags or jars at a low, consistent temperature for a long time. This technique creates food that’s softer in texture and less dried out than food cooked with other, faster methods. Cooks who use sous vide will often vacuum pack their food in bags and use special machines to regulate temperature. But you won’t need an expensive machine like that for my Starbucks Bacon and Gruyère Sous Vide Egg Bites recipe—just some 8-ounce canning jars and a blender.
The secret to duplicating the smooth texture starts with blending the cheeses very well until no lumps remain. Rub some of the cheese mixture between your fingers to make sure it’s smooth before you pour it into the jars. It’s also important to monitor the temperature of the water. Try to keep it between 170 and 180 degrees F so that your eggs are neither too tough nor too soft. It’s best to use a cooking thermometer for this, but if you don’t have one, the right temperature is just below where you see tiny bubbles rising to the surface. Also, if you hear the jars jiggling in the water, that’s their way of telling you the water is a bit too hot.
You might also like my version of Starbucks Egg White and Roasted Red Pepper Sous Vide Egg Bites.
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Olive Garden Chicken Parmigiana
Read moreMenu Description: “Two lightly fried parmesan-breaded chicken breasts are smothered with Olive Garden’s homemade marinara sauce and melted Italian cheeses. We serve our Chicken Parmigiana with a side of spaghetti for dinner.”
Chicken parmigiana is a forever favorite, and it’s not a difficult dish to whip up at home. But for it to taste like the Olive Garden signature entree, we’ll need to take some very specific steps.
Olive Garden’s chicken is salty and moist all the way through, so we must first start by brining the chicken. Give yourself an extra hour for this important marinating step. The marinara sauce used on the chicken is an Olive Garden specialty and no bottled sauce compares, so we’ll make our own from scratch using canned crushed tomatoes and the formula below.
While the sauce cooks, filling your house with its intoxicating aroma, the chicken is breaded and browned. When the marinara is done, top the chicken with the sauce and mozzarella and stick it under your hot broiler until bubbling.
Hopefully, everyone at your house is hungry, because the Olive Garden dinner portion is two chicken fillets, and my Olive Garden Chicken Parmigiana recipe will yield a total of four 2-piece servings. Add a small serving of spaghetti on the side, topped with more of the delicious sauce, and you'll have a perfect match to the restaurant plate.
Can't get enough Olive Garden? Click here for more of your favorite copycat recipes.
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Melting Pot Coq Au Vin Fondue
Read moreRe-creating the signature cooking style at the country's most famous fondue chain required hacking the flavorful simmering broth in which all the proteins and vegetables are cooked. This was tricky since only some of the prep is performed tableside at the restaurant.
When a server brought the warm broth to my table, it was already seasoned with a few mystery ingredients. The pot was left alone to heat up on the center burner, which was the perfect time for me to scoop out ½ cup of the liquid and seal it up in a small jar to take back to the lab for further analysis. When the server came back to the table after five minutes, she added a few more ingredients to the pot: fresh garlic, mushrooms, green onions, Burgundy wine, and black pepper. I took mental notes on the amounts and wrote them into my phone before I forgot.
The server told me the hot liquid base was vegetable broth, so I figured some Swanson in a can would do. But later, after further taste-testing, I found the broth in my stolen sample to be more savory than any of the canned broths I tried. I then made a broth by dissolving a vegetable bouillon cube in boiling water and found the flavor to be a much closer match to the sample I had swiped. The bouillon is also cheaper than the broth, and I'm okay with that.
After a few tweaks to the seasoning additions, I had a good Melting Pot broth recipe that could stand up to any taste test. Use this to cook chopped veggies, chicken, beef, and shrimp. And if you want the complete Melting Pot experience, you're going to need my hacks for the six dipping sauces. So here you go: Cocktail Sauce, Curry Sauce, Gorgonzola Port, Green Goddess, Ginger Plum, and Teriyaki.
My Melting Pot Coq au Vin Fondue recipe is designed for a 2-quart fondue pot. If you have a 3-quart pot and would like a bigger fondue party (lucky you), refer to the Tidbits below for that adjustment.
Check out my Melting Pot Cheddar Cheese and Traditional Swiss Fondue recipes in "Top Secret Recipes Step-by-Step".
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Outback Steakhouse Firecracker Salmon
Read moreIf you like sweet with a little bit of heat, and if you like salmon, then you'll love my Outback Steakhouse Firecracker Salmon copycat recipe.
Grilled salmon is brushed with the restaurant's top secret Firecracker Sauce, and then it's topped with simple-to-make mango salsa. Those fabulous formulas are all here, and I’ll also show you how to cook the salmon the same way the restaurant does for a perfectly awesome kitchen clone.
Find copycat recipes for more of your favorite Outback dishes here.
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Panera Bread Baked Potato Soup
Read moreSince Panera Bread makes all its ingredients known, it's not hard to find out that there’s no chicken broth in the original recipe, yet every copycat recipe I located online calls for chicken broth, as well as other ingredients clearly not found in Panera's version. Unlike those other recipes, I use the same or similar ingredients to those listed on the company’s website in my Panera Bread Potato Soup copycat recipe, so you can make the closest replica at home.
One of the ingredients in the soup, according to the posted list, is yeast extract. This tasty ingredient adds an MSG-like savoriness to Panera’s soup, and we can duplicate it by using nutritional yeast—often called "nooch"—now found in many stores, including Whole Foods. A little bit of nooch will provide the umami deliciousness that replaces chicken broth or bouillon.
Panera keeps its soup gluten-free by thickening it with a combination of rice flour and cornstarch, rather than wheat flour. I’ve included those ingredients as well so that your clone is similarly gluten-free. Use the steps below and in about an hour you’ll have 8 servings of a soup that is a culinary doppelganger to Panera Bread's Baked Potato soup, and at a mere fraction of the cost.
Find recipes for more of your favorite Panera Bread dishes here.
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KFC Extra Crispy Tenders
Read moreAs you can probably guess, KFC's Extra Crispy Tenders are chicken tenderloins coated with the same delicious breading as KFC’s Extra Crispy Chicken. These tenders come in servings of two, three, six, or twelve, with your choice of dipping sauces on the side including buffalo, barbecue, and the new Finger Lickin' Good Sauce.
To duplicate these chicken fingers at home, we’ll resort to a similar prep technique to the one used for the Extra Crispy Chicken: the chicken is brined for 2 hours to give it more flavor and juiciness, then the tenders are double-breaded for an extra-crunchy coating.
An important secret revealed in this breading recipe is the use of a specific type of ground black pepper. For the best copy of KFC Extra Crispy Tenders, you'll want to use Tellicherry black pepper, which is premium black pepper ground from mature peppercorns that have had time to develop more flavor. The unique aftertaste of KFC chicken is attributed to this special spice, so it’s worth the time to track it down.
Tellicherry black pepper costs a little more than the younger, more common black pepper, but if you want a good clone of the famous crispy fried chicken, it’s an essential ingredient. Be sure to grind the pepper fine before adding it.
Try my KFC Extra Crispy Tenders recipe below, and pair it with my super popular KFC Coleslaw recipe.
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Olive Garden Warm Apple Crostata
Read moreMenu Description: “Northern Spy apples baked in a pastry crust topped with vanilla ice cream and a caramel drizzle.”
The most important component of a good crostata, or Italian baked tart, is a great crust. When cloning this top Olive Garden dessert, that's where I first focused my efforts, baking dozens of slightly different unfilled sugared crusts. Thankfully, flour is cheap. Once I had an easy, yet still delicious and flakey crust that was as good, if not better, than the real thing, I turned to the filling.
Olive Garden uses Northern Spy apples in the crostata, which are somewhat tart, firm apples often used in pies. But they are hard to find. If you can’t find Northern Spy apples, the much more common Granny Smith apples work just fine here. As for chopping the apples, I noted that the apple pieces in the real crostata have no uniformity—the apples appear to be sliced, then those slices are coarsely chopped, resulting in a mixture of small and large apple pieces. We'll do the same here.
After your crostatas have been baked to a golden brown, top each one with a scoop of ice cream and drizzle some caramel sauce over the top for a beautiful dessert no one will have the power to resist.
My Olive Garden Warm Apple Crostada copycat recipe makes four crostatas, which is enough for eight people to share. If you have crostatas left over, they can be stored in a covered container for a couple of days, then reheated under a broiler until hot just before serving.
Want some more of my Olive Garden clone recipes? I've got a bunch right here.
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Panera Bread Vegetarian Summer Corn Chowder
Read morePanera Bread's top soup pick in the summer is a creamy vegetarian chowder that’s full of flavor and easy to copy at home once you know an important flavor secret. I started my Panera Bread Vegetarian Summer Corn Chowder recipe using a vegetable broth, since that’s what all the other “copycats” call for, but I found its strong vegetable flavor dominated the soup, so I quickly bailed on that plan.
Starting over, I referred to the soup’s ingredients posted online by Panera Bread and noticed there is no broth in the soup, which means every copycat recipe online is wrong. I didn’t want to make the same mistake in my recipe, but without the broth my soup would be lacking some important flavor components, and that’s no good either.
In many soup recipes, the broth or stock is important for the umami quality provided by the yeast extract added to the product. Yeast extracts are one of the many ways food manufacturers add an MSG flavor-enhancing effect without adding MSG. Panera does in fact list “yeast extract” as one of the ingredients in the soup, so I needed to find a readily available ingredient that would provide the same savory quality.
Enter nutritional yeast—or “nooch” as it’s often called—a flakey, nutrient-packed, vegan ingredient that’s growing quickly in popularity thanks to the savory, cheesy flavor it adds to a variety of foods (it’s great on popcorn). Nooch is also popular with vegans and vegetarians since it’s fortified with vitamin B12, an essential nutrient that's mainly found in animal-sourced foods.
Now, with nooch in there, along with yellow corn, red-skin potatoes, poblano peppers, tomatoes, cilantro, and other tasty things, no broth is required. Just give your corn chowder some water and a little patience.
Find more of your favorite Panera Bread recipes here.
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LongHorn Steakhouse Prairie Dust
Read morePeruse a menu at one of the 270-unit LongHorn Steakhouses located throughout the eastern half of the U.S. and you'll find this seasoning blend on battered onion petals, spicy fried shrimp, pork chops, and steaks.
Combine eight common ingredients in the comfort of your home with my LongHorn Steakhouse Prairie Dust copycat recipe, and you'll have quickly cloned a versatile seasoned salt that can be added to everything that needs flavor, from steaks to chicken to seafood. It's also good sprinkled over eggs, burgers, even popcorn.
Try my LongHorn Steakhouse Firecracker Chicken Wraps copycat recipe here.
Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 3 by Todd Wilbur.
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Olive Garden Zuppa Toscana Soup
Read moreFor two years after the first Olive Garden restaurant opened in 1982, operators were still tweaking the restaurant's physical appearance and the food that was served. Even the tomato sauce was changed as many as 25 times. It's that sort of dedication that creates fabulous dishes like this popular soup. It blends the flavors of potatoes, kale, and Italian sausage in a slightly spicy chicken and cream broth.
Try my Olive Garden Zuppa Toscana copycat recipe below, and find more of my Olive Garden clone recipes here.
Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes by Todd Wilbur. -
Carrabba's Bread Dipping Blend
Read moreWhen you sit down for Italian-style grub at one of the more than 168 nationwide Carrabba's restaurants, you're first served a small plate with a little pile of herbs and spices in the middle to which the waiter adds olive oil. Now you're set up to dip your sliced bread in the freshly flavored oil.
For my Carrabba's Bread Dipping Blend copycat recipe, you'll need a coffee bean grinder or a small food processor to finely chop the ingredients, but you've got one of those right?
You might also like my recipe for Carrabba's Spicy Sausage Lentil Soup.
Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 2 by Todd Wilbur.
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Carrabba's House Salad Dressing (Creamy Parmesan)
Read moreWhen Johnny Carrabba and his uncle Damian Mandola opened the first Carrabba's restaurant in 1986, they used a collection of their own traditional family recipes to craft a terrific Italian menu. You'll even find the names of friends and family in several of those dishes including Pollo Rosa Maria, Chicken Bryan, Scampi Damian and Insalata Johnny Rocco.
Now you can easily re-create the taste of the delicious creamy Parmesan dressing that's tossed into the salad and served before each Carrabba's entrée. And you need only six ingredients. For the grated Parmesan cheese, go ahead and use the stuff made by Kraft that comes in the green shaker canisters. And if you don't have any buttermilk, you can substitute regular milk. Since it's so thick, this dressing is best when tossed into your salad before serving it, just like the real thing.
Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 2 by Todd Wilbur.
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Bisquick Original All-Purpose Baking Mix
Read moreYou'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.
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Buca di Beppo Chicken Limone
Read moreMenu Description: "Chicken breasts lightly sautéed and topped with lemon butter sauce and capers."
Buca di Beppo's Chicken Limone was deliciously simple to reverse-engineer: I asked the server to check on what kind of dairy is used in the sauce and whether or not white wine is cooked into it. After getting the information I needed, I ordered the dish to go with the sauce on the side and got to work back in the lab. Several versions hit the sink as I unsuccessfully experimented with various amounts of wine, butter, and cream.It was only after I decided to chill the lemon-butter sauce that I got the information that I needed. The sauce formed a firm solid in the fridge, which indicated that my recipe needed a lot more butter than first estimated. I made the proper adjustments and the sauce that sat in my pan was a perfect match that could surely stand up to a blindfolded taste test. The rest of the secret technique required pounding the chicken breasts until thin. This tenderized the chicken and made each piece the same size as the original. A quick sauté later, I was arranging the chicken on a serving platter, adding capers, spooning on plenty of sauce, and I had before me a beautiful culinary carbon copy indistinguishable from the real thing.
Try my Buca di Beppo Chicken Limone copycat recipe below, and try my clone for their garlic bread for the full experience.
Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 3 by Todd Wilbur. -
Shoney's Slow-Cooked Pot Roast
Read moreMenu Description: "Tender roast beef and carrots slow-simmered and served in a rich brown gravy."
Remember Mom's delicious pot roast? Shoney's tender slow cooked entrée is just as good, if not better, than many home recipes. The secret to making tender, flaky pot roast is the long slow-cooking process with frequent basting. My Shoney's Pot Roast copycat recipe requires 3 to 4 hours of cooking to make the meat tender. The meat is then flaked apart, put back into the pot with the pan juices and carrots, and cooked more to infuse the meat with flavor. I used rump roast in my recipe, a tough cut of meat that gets tender as it braises. If you like, you can use the more tender and less costly chuck roast. The chuck may take up an hour less time in the oven to tenderize due to its higher fat content.
Complete your meal with my copycat recipe for Olive Garden Mashed Potatoes.
Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes by Todd Wilbur.
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Olive Garden Italian Salad Dressing
Read moreIn the 1970's, food conglomerate General Mills expanded its growing restaurant business. A research team was organized to study the market, and to conduct interviews with potential customers on what they want in a restaurant. Seven years later, in 1982, the first Olive Garden restaurant opened its doors in Orlando, Florida. Today it is the number one Italian restaurant chain in the country with over 470 stores.
One of the all-time favorites at Olive Garden is the Italian salad dressing served on the bottomless house salad that comes with every meal. The dressing was so popular that the chain sells the dressing by the bottle "to go." You won't need to buy a bottle, though. With my Olive Garden Italian salad dressing copycat recipe, you can make your own version that tastes just like the original, and it's way cheaper.The secret to thickening this dressing is to use dry pectin, a natural ingredient often used to thicken jams and jellies. Pectin can be found in most stores in the aisle with baking and cooking supplies, or near the canning items.
Complete the experience with bottomless Olive Garden Breadsticks.
Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes by Todd Wilbur.
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Chipotle Barbacoa Burrito (Cilantro-Lime Rice / Pinto Beans)
Read moreMenu 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. -
Starbucks Pumpkin Scone
Read moreDuring the holiday months, you'd better get over to Starbucks bright and early if you want to sink your teeth into a delicious pumpkin scone. These orange triangles of happiness are made with real pumpkin and pumpkin pie spices, and they quickly vanish from the pastry case when fall rolls around. Each scone is generously coated with a plain glaze, and then spiced icing is drizzled over the top. To get the crumbly texture, cut cold butter into the dry ingredients, either with a pastry knife or by pulsing it in a food processor until all the butter chunks have been worked in.
My Starbucks Pumpkin Scone copycat recipe calls for 1/2 can of pumpkin purée. Use the leftover purée to make Starbucks pumpkin bread or a pumpkin spice latte.
Source: Top Secret Recipes Unlocked by Todd Wilbur. -
Red Lobster New England Clam Chowder
Read moreSome recipes require going through the tedious (and more expensive) task of steaming fresh clams and dicing up all the good parts. For my Red Lobster New England Clam Chowder copycat recipe, you can use the more affordable and convenient canned clams found in any supermarket without sacrificing flavor. Just remember to not toss out the clam juice in the cans when you open them, since you'll need that flavorful liquid in the first step.
Make a batch of my Red Lobster Cheddar Bay Biscuits to go with your chowder, and find more of my Red Lobster recipes copycat here.
Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 2 by Todd Wilbur. -
Cracker Barrel Hash Brown Casserole
Read moreMenu Description: "Made from scratch in our kitchens using fresh Grade A Fancy Russet potatoes, fresh chopped onion, natural Colby cheese and spices. Baked fresh all day long."
In the late sixties, Dan Evins was a Shell Oil "jobber" looking for a new way to market gasoline. He wanted to create a special place that would arouse curiosity, and would pull travelers off the highways. In 1969 he opened the first Cracker Barrel just off Interstate 40 in Lebanon, Tennessee, offering gas, country-style food, and a selection of antiques for sale. Today there are over 529 stores in 41 states, with each restaurant still designed as a country rest stop and gift store. In fact, those stores which carry an average of 4,500 different items apiece have made Cracker Barrel the largest retailer of American-made finished crafts in the United States.
Those who know Cracker Barrel love the restaurant for its delicious home-style breakfasts and this casserole, made with hash brown-sliced potatoes, Colby cheese, milk, beef broth, and spices. My Cracker Barrel Hash Brown Casserole copycat recipe is designed for a skillet that is also safe to put in the oven (so no plastic handles). If you don't have one of those, you can easily transfer the casserole to a baking dish after it is done cooking on the stove.Love Cracker Barrel? Check out my other clone recipes here.
Source Top Secret Restaurant Recipes by Todd Wilbur. -
P.F. Chang's Chang's Spare Ribs
Read moreMenu 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. TThere 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. -
P.F. Chang's Mongolian Beef
Read moreMenu 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.
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Lawry's Taco Spices and Seasonings
Read moreThis is my clone recipe for the stuff you buy in 1-ounce packets to create, as the package says, "a fun-filled Mexican fiesta in minutes." Ah, so true. In fact, thanks to Lawry's, my last Mexican fiesta was filled with so much fun that I had to take a siesta. And I promise you just as much fun with my Lawry's Taco Spices and Seasonings recipe below. Maybe even a tad more. Just mix the ingredients together in a small bowl, then add it to 1 pound of browned ground beef along with some water and let it simmer. Before you know it, you'll be up to your nostrils in good old-fashioned, taco-making fun.
Now, how about a cold margarita?
Source: Even More Top Secret Recipes by Todd Wilbur.
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KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken) Original Recipe Fried Chicken
Read moreOne of the most protected, discussed, and sought-after secret recipes in the food world is KFC's Original Recipe Fried Chicken. Long ago I published my first hack of the famous formula, but the recipe, which was based on research from "Big Secrets" author William Poundstone, includes only salt, pepper, MSG, and flour in the breading, and not the blend of eleven herbs and spices we have all heard about. The fried chicken made with my first recipe is good in a pinch, but it really needs several more ingredients to be a true clone.
That is why, over twenty years later, I was happy to get another crack at the secret when we shot the pilot episode for my CMT TV series Top Secret Recipe. In the show, I visited KFC headquarters, talked to friends of Harlan Sanders who had seen the actual recipe, and even checked out the Corbin, Kentucky, kitchen where Harland Sanders first developed his chicken recipe. During that four-day shoot I was able to gather enough clues about the secret eleven herbs and spices to craft my new KFC Original fried chicken copycat recipe—one that I believe is the closest match to the Colonel's secret fried chicken that anyone has ever revealed.
Try my KFC Coleslaw copycat recipe here.
Source: Top Secret Recipes Step-By-Step by Todd Wilbur.
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Cheesecake Factory Sweet Corn Tamale Cakes
Read moreMenu Description: "Topped with sour cream, salsa, avocado and salsa verde."
Nestled between slick full-page ads on page 7 of the huge 17-page spiral-bound menu from The Cheesecake Factory, is a long list of fabulous appetizers that includes this Southwestern-style crowd pleaser. Hand-formed tamale cakes are arranged on fresh salsa verde, topped with sour cream and creamy Southwestern sauce, with a fresh avocado and cilantro garnish. It's happiness on a plate. And, while the ingredients listed below may seem intimidating at first, the three sauces are very simple to make, and your crew will no doubt be impressed with the results. The flavors in the sauces develop after sitting for a bit so you can prepare them all in advance and let them chill in the fridge until chow time. If you get anything short of a standing ovation for this dish, coax out the kudos by waving the pages of this recipe in front of everyone while wiping your brow. Sometimes you have to milk it.
Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 2 by Todd Wilbur.
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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