Salad Dressing

This 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. 

As Pizza Hut veers away from salads, it’s becoming harder to find their popular Italian dressing. Perhaps this is why we’ve been getting an increasing number of requests here to hack the endangered classic salad sauce before it becomes extinct. When a search for the salad dressing here in Las Vegas hit a dead end I was thankful for a TSR fan in Pennsylvania who was able to send me a giant 1-gallon bottle of the stuff that should last me through the next decade.

Sure, it’s a lot of dressing, but the benefit of having an official bottle is that it comes with an official list of ingredients on the label. That was certainly helpful and informative, although I opted to not include the propylene glycol alginate (ick!) and xanthan gum in my Pizza Hut Creamy Italian Salad Dressing recipe. I kept it to simply basic ingredients, plus MSG. Monosodium glutamate is practically as safe as salt, and it’s an important part of the umami flavor found in the original. A respectable copycat recipe for Pizza Hut Creamy Italian Dressing cannot be made without this important ingredient, so include it if you want a perfect match. You can find MSG in stores in the spice aisle under the brand-name Ac’cent or in bulk online.

You might also want to try my clone recipe for Pizza Hut Pan Pizza.

The country’s largest chicken chain offers some of the best choices for salad dressings you’ll find at any fast food restaurant. But good luck sweet-talking your order-taker into floating you a few extra packets of this great fruity vinaigrette to use on your home salads—they are under strict orders to be stingy. And that could be why you’re here.

Apple cider vinegar, pineapple juice, honey, lemon juice, and lime juice are just a few of the secret ingredients that make this dressing so great. Another secret you'll find here is xanthan gum, a natural thickener often used as an emulsifier to hold salad dressing together so that it doesn’t need shaking. You can find xanthan online or at Whole Foods, and you won't need much.

Try my Chick-fil-A Zesty Apple Cider Vinaigrette copycat recipe below, and find my recipes for Chick-fil-A Mac & Cheese, and their famous chicken sandwiches here.  

In 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.

In the 50s and 60s, Steve Henson and his wife, Gayle, shared their 120-acre Hidden Valley Ranch with University of California at Santa Barbara students and other festive partiers for rousing weekend shindigs. The dozens of guests were served steak dinners and delicious salads topped with Steve's special blend of herbs, spices, mayonnaise, and buttermilk. As word got out about the fabulous dressing, more guests were showing up at the ranch and walking home with complimentary take-home jars filled with the stuff. 

Eventually, Steve figured he could make a little extra cash by packaging the dressing as a dry mix and selling it through the mail. At first, he was filling envelopes himself, but eventually, Steve had to hire twelve more people to help with the packaging. Soon Steve had a multi-million dollar business with a product he was giving away for free. 

Reverse-engineering Steve's special blend of herbs, spices, mayonnaise, and buttermilk was fairly simple. I could guess all the ingredients by taste. From there, I played around with amounts until I came up with the perfect Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing copycat recipe. Soon, you'll be throwing fabulous parties and "wow"-ing your friends with take-home jars of amazing Ranch dressing.

Find all of your favorite salad dressing copycat recipes here.

Source: Top Secret Recipes Unlocked by Todd Wilbur.

This 30-store Hawaiian-themed chain of restaurants is known for its hand-made burger buns, specialty sandwiches and taco platters with names like Shorebird, Pelican, Sandpiper, Baja, and Northshore. Some people, though, go to the Islands just for the China Coast salad. Its a huge bowl filled with sliced chicken breast, lettuce, red cabbage, julienned carrots, fried noodles, sesame seeds, mandarin orange wedges and chives, and then tossed with this top secret dressing. Many diners think the dressings so good they ask for extra and discreetly smuggle it home. No more smuggling required. Now, with my simple Islands China Coast salad dressing recipe, you can make your own clone at home and use it on any of your favorite bowls of green.

Find more of your favorite Islands copycat recipes here.

Source "Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 2" by Todd Wilbur. 

If you've had the Kookaburra Wings from Outback, then you've tasted the chain's thick and creamy bleu cheese dressing served on the side. Use my Outback bleu cheese salad dressing recipe when you need a dipping sauce for your next batch of wings, or pour it on a salad.

Find more copycat recipes for your favorite Outback dishes here.

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 2 by Todd Wilbur.

Outback Steakhouse makes a tasty version of creamy ranch dressing for its house and Queensland salads. To get the same flavor and creaminess of the original at home, you'll need to add one teaspoon of Hidden Valley Ranch instant salad dressing mix. Since there are three teaspoons of dressing mix per packet, you can make three batches of my Outback Steakhouse ranch salad dressing recipe with one envelope of dressing mix.

Pair your salad with an appetizer, entrée and dessert from Outback to complete the experience.

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 2 by Todd Wilbur.

Sliced chicken breast, romaine lettuce, pico de gallo, tortilla strips, and cotija cheese make up El Pollo Loco's Caesar Salad, but it is the fantastic creamy cilantro dressing recipe that gets the raves. Use my El Pollo Loco Creamy Cilantro Dressing recipe below and simply combine the ingredients in a blender. You'll soon have more than one cup of the delicious dressing cloned and ready to pour over any of your home salad creations.

You can also make El Pollo Loco Flame Broiled Chicken, pinto beans, Spanish rice and more. Find my copycat recipes here. 

Source: Top Secret Recipes Unlocked by Todd Wilbur.

One of the top choices for your salad at this popular Mexican chain is this delicious, slightly spicy chipotle-flavored dressing. A clone for this one is made easily by combining several ingredients in a small pan over medium heat and simmering for 5 minutes. The final step involves creating an emulsion to thicken the dressing and to keep the oil from separating. I suggest measuring the oil into a spouted measuring cup. This will make it easy to drizzle the oil in a thin stream into the dressing while you are rapidly whipping the mixture with a wire whisk. If you break a sweat, you’re doing it right.

You may notice that there is no jalapeño mentioned in my On The Border Smoked Jalapeño Vinaigrette copycat recipe below. Chipotle is a smoke dried jalapeño. We'll use ground chipotle chili found near the spices in your market.

You might also like my copycat recipes for On The Border guacamole and Mexican mojito. 

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 3 by Todd Wilbur.

One of America's favorite casual chains brings us a popular salad dressing that you can't buy in stores. Instead, grab these six simple ingredients and use my Chili's Honey Mustard Salad Dressing copycat recipe below to make your own version cheaply and quickly.

Find more of my Chili's copycat recipes here. 

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 2 by Todd Wilbur.

This delicious house vinaigrette is a Houston's favorite, and a home carbon copy is just minutes away. All you'll need are a few basic ingredients, plus tarragon-infused white wine vinegar. If you have trouble tracking down the tarragon vinegar, plain white wine vinegar will work just fine. Use a measuring cup with a spout or a squirt bottle to slowly drizzle the oil into the other ingredients while mixing. This technique will create a thick emulsion that won't separate as your dressing chills out in the fridge.

Houston's also makes a killer Honey-Lime Vinaigrette which I've cloned here.

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 3 by Todd Wilbur.

There a are few decent bottled salad dressings out there, but there's nothing on the shelf that compares in taste to this homemade version of the house salad dressing from Bonefish Grill. Not only that, it's a heck of a lot cheaper to make your own vinaigrette from scratch. And check out the easy steps in my Bonefish Grill Citrus Herb Vinaigrette copycat recipe: Mix everything together in a bowl, microwave for 1 minute, whisk to emulsify, then chill. If you're a salad lover, this is the clone for you. 

You might also like my recipe for Bonefish Grill Bang Bang Shrimp.

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 3 by Todd Wilbur.

Below you'll find my Good Seasons Italian Salad Dressing Mix that copies the instant dressing mix you buy in the .7-ounce packets. When added to vinegar, water, and oil, you get one of the best-tasting instant salad dressings around. But what if you can't find the stuff, or it is no longer sold in your area, as I've heard is the case in some cities? Or maybe you just want to save a little money by making your own? Use my recipe below to make as much dry mix as you want, and save it for when you need instant salad satisfaction. I used McCormick lemon pepper in the recipe here because it contains lemon juice solids that help duplicate the taste of the sodium citrate and citric acid in the real thing. The dry pectin, which can be found near the canning supplies in your supermarket, is used as a thickener, much like the xanthan gum in the original product.

Find more of my delicious salad dressing copycat recipes here. 

Source: Even More Top Secret Recipes by Todd Wilbur.

With over 100 million dollars given to charity since 1982, Newman's Own products have become an American favorite. One variety of the brand's dressings that really stands out is this exceptional Caesar salad dressing. It's probably the best commercial Caesar dressing on the market. 

One secret ingredient in my Newman's Own Creamy Caesar Dressing recipe is the inclusion of Worcestershire sauce. Not only does Worcestershire give your dressing the perfect flavor and color of the original, but the sauce is made with a fishy ingredient that's crucial for a good Caesar dressing: anchovies.

I've copied a ton of famous salad dressings. Find your favorite here.

Source: Even More Top Secret Recipes by Todd Wilbur.

Before your meal at the Benihana chain of hibachi grill restaurants, you are served a side salad doused in this tangy, slightly sweet, fresh ginger dressing. When spooned over a simple iceberg lettuce salad this easy clone transforms your bowl of greens into a great start for any meal. Making the dressing is as simple as dumping the ingredients into a blender, whizzing it up, and popping it into the cooler to chill. I've seen many attempts to duplicate this coveted formula, but I think my original Benihana ginger salad dressing copycat recipe presented here comes closer to the real thing than any other recipe floating around cyberspace.

Duplicate the entire Benihana experience at home with my clone recipes for onion soup, fried rice, hibachi chicken & steak, and mandarin orange cheesecake. 

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 2 by Todd Wilbur.

You can only get this delicious stuff in the restaurant, and they won't give you much extra to take home. The good news is you can make it from scratch in minutes using my Outback Steakhouse Caesar salad dressing recipe below, You'll need to find anchovy paste—an important ingredient for a good clone. The dressing recipe keeps for a couple of weeks in the fridge in a covered container.

Now, how about a Toowoomba Steak or Alice Springs Chicken as your entrée? Find all of my Outback Steakhouse copycat recipes here.

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 2 by Todd Wilbur.

Try my Outback Steakhouse Tangy Tomato Dressing recipe below. You just mix it together, heat it up, cool it down, and store it in the fridge until salad time.

Now, how about a Toowooma Steak, or Alice Springs Chicken for the main course? Check out more of my Outback Steakhouse copycat recipes here.

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 2 by Todd Wilbur.

Steve Ellis used his Culinary Institute of America training to develop a simple menu for the first Chipotle Mexican Grill he opened in 1993 near the University of Denver. Today Chipotle has grown to more than 700 units, and the chain continues to serve a relatively limited selection (compared to other Mexican chains) of burritos, tacos, and salads that are made-to-order, with unprocessed and hormone-free ingredients. 

Just as when ordering a burrito or taco, you get to choose the meat, beans, salsa, and cheese that will top your romaine lettuce salad. The finishing touch is an amazing house dressing that's made fresh every day. It's sweet, it's tangy, it's smoky, and it's packing some heat. It's also a quick recipe to duplicate with just a blender and a dozen common ingredients, including ground chipotle chile, which you can usually find near the ground cayenne. After you whip up my Chipotle Mexican Grill Chipotle-Honey Vinaigrette recipe below, let it chill out in the fridge for an hour or two. If you do, you'll have a perfect flavor match and enough dressing for at least 10 salads.

Now, how about making Chipotle's famous barbacoa, carnitas, carne asada or pollo asado? Find all of those recipes and more here.

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 3 by Todd Wilbur.

When 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.

This 38-unit casual dining chain may be small compared to many of the other chains whose food I've cloned, but Houston's has a huge following of loyal customers throughout the country. I know this because for many years the restaurant sat at the top of my "most requested clones" list. I was finally ready to take on the challenge, but since there are no Houston's where I live in Las Vegas, it required a road trip—this time to Orange County, California. A couple plane rides, a bit of driving, some walking and a stumble or two later, I had a cooler full of Houston's goodies secured safely back at the lab. After a few hours of measuring and mixing this simple sweet-and-sour salad slather from Houston's was cracked.

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 3 by Todd Wilbur.

Outback makes their sauces and salad dressings from scratch every day following master formulas in a corporate cookbook. Now you've got a secret recipe of your own that will duplicate the taste of their hugely popular house honey mustard recipe. You'll need just three basic ingredients and only about two minutes of free time to make my Outback honey mustard dressing recipe.

Try more recipes for your favorite dishes from Outback here. 

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 2 by Todd Wilbur.

Once upon a time we drenched our salads with generous portions of popular dressings such as this one and considered it a healthy pre-entree course. Just two tablespoons of the full-fat version of Thousand Island dressing packs about 10 grams of fat, and we normally use about 1/4 cup on a salad. That's 20 grams of fat in our bellies, before the main course has even started. Today we know better. You won't get even one gram of fat from a serving of this TSR formula that clones the most popular fat-free Thousand Island dressing on the supermarket shelves. 

Nutrition facts 
Serving size–2 tablespoons 
Total servings–6 
Calories per serving–40g
Fat per serving–0g

Source: Top Secret Recipes Lite by Todd Wilbur.

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

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

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

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

Source: Top Secret Recipes Lite by Todd Wilbur.