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- Denny's Moons Over My Hammy Low-Fat
It's got a goofy name and tons of fans. This is one of Denny's most popular sandwiches, and it has remained on Denny's menu since 1978. But whether you have it for breakfast, lunch, or dinner, you might like to know there's a way to enjoy the taste of this grilled sandwich for around 30 grams less fat than the real thing. My lower fat Denny's Moons Over My Hammy recipe cuts fat in several ways, but the most significant savings come from using fat-free cheese. Get some low-fat ham at your supermarket deli counter, or you can find it prepackaged near the luncheon meats. Start heating up a couple sauté pans and get ready to devour this delicious lower-fat treat.
Nutrition Facts
Serving size–1 sandwich
Total servings–1
Calories per serving–460 (Original–700)
Fat per serving–3g (Original–33g)
Source: Top Secret Recipes Lite by Todd Wilbur.
Get This
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- 1/2 cup egg substitute
- Salt
- 2 ounces low-fat deli-sliced ham
- 2 large slices sourdough bread
- Fat-free butter-flavored spray
- 2 slices Kraft Fat-Free Swiss Cheese singles
- 2 slices Kraft Fat-Free American Cheese singles
1. Preheat two saute pans over medium heat. Lightly coat one pan with cooking spray, then pour the egg substitute into the pan and scramble the egg, cooking it until done. Salt to taste. In the other pan brown the stack of sliced ham without separating the slices.
2. When the stack of sliced ham has browned lightly on both sides, remove it from the pan. Spray one side of one slice of sourdough bread with the butter-flavored spray, and place it in the hot pan, sprayed side down, to grill.
3. Immediately place the two slices of Swiss cheese side-by-side onto the unbuttered side of the grilling sourdough bread slice.
4. Stack the browned ham on top of the Swiss cheese.
5. Scoop the scrambled egg substitute out of the other pan with a large spatula and slide it onto the ham.
6. Arrange the two slices of American cheese side-by-side onto the egg.
7. Top off the sandwich with the remaining slice of sourdough bread. Spray the top of the bread with a light coating of butter-flavored spray.
8. By this time the bottom surface of the bread in the pan will have browned. Carefully flip the sandwich over to grill the other side for about 2 minutes or until golden brown.
9. Slice the sandwich diagonally through the middle and serve hot.
Makes 1 sandwich
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Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 3 by Todd Wilbur.
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Try my Outback Steakhouse Victoria's Crowned Filet copycat recipe below, and check out more of my Outback recipes here.
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Source: "Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 2" by Todd Wilbur.
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Red Robin Ensenada Chicken
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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.
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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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For my Taco Bell Avocado Verde Salsa copycat recipe, I found there was no need to go through the extra time-consuming step of roasting fresh tomatillos and peppers when canned ingredients worked so great. The avocado, lime juice, and cilantro will be fresh, and the dry ingredients, namely the onion and garlic, will rehydrate nicely as the salsa rests.
The first ingredient in Taco Bell’s version is oil, but for our purposes, we can reduce the ratio. Taco Bell chefs most likely add all that oil to their salsa to prevent the avocado from oxidizing and turning brown, thereby extending its shelf life. The oil has the same function in my version, but I call for ½ cup, which is much less percentage-wise than the real thing. The oil will indeed extend the life of your salsa, but feel free to reduce the amount substantially if you plan to eat the salsa within a couple of days and prefer to avoid the added fat.
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To create my Cracker Barrel Buttermilk Pancakes copycat recipe, I first purchased a box of the chain’s pancake mix at the restaurant’s store to examine the list of ingredients on the package. In the list were the ingredients you'd expect, like wheat flour, sugar, salt, and leavening. But there was also a surprise: yellow corn flour. When added to the mix in the right ratio, the yellow corn flour contributed great cornbread-like flavor and gave the pancakes a unique crumbly texture that many seem to love.
Does this special ingredient produce buttermilk pancakes which are superior to a more traditional recipe? It's easy to find out. Once you have corn flour and just a handful of other common ingredients, it takes just minutes to produce enough pancakes for you and everyone else to get a taste and decide if these are indeed the best buttermilk pancakes in the biz.
Try more of my Cracker Barrel copycat recipes here.
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For my See's Chocolate Walnut Fudge copycat recipe, I made over 56 pounds of fudge on my quest to develop a recipe that works every time, even if the chocolate seizes. And in most of my batches, it usually did. So I came up with a secret trick: reserve a little cream for later, then after the hot candy syrup is mixed with the chocolate and the chocolate begins to seize, send the cream to the rescue and the fudge will become smooth, as if by magic.
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Fans of the cinnamon lollipop will love my See's Cinnamon Lollypop recipe here.
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Southern Comfort Traditional Egg Nog
Read moreOnline taste tests and reviews routinely mention Farmland Fresh, Darigold, and Southern Comfort as America's best egg nog brands. And of the three, Southern Comfort, a brand famously known for fruit-flavored whiskey, often takes the top spot with its delicious “traditional” egg nog. Which, ironically, contains no booze.
But the first egg nog, invented in medieval Britain, was quite intoxicating. It was a warm drink made with milk and sherry, and thickened with plenty of egg yolks. That’s a much different beverage experience than today’s branded egg nog, often served cold. And the cartons of egg nog from your market are now made with non-traditional ingredients such as corn syrup, and much of the egg yolk has been replaced with cheaper and longer-lasting natural gums, like carrageenan and guar gum.
But, for my Southern Comfort Traditional Egg Nog copycat recipe, we'll turn back the clock and make egg nog more traditionally, with plenty of real egg yolks to thicken the batch, and no gums or corn syrup. My easy recipe will give you around 36 ounces of fresh homemade egg nog. And it’s up to you to add any booze.
Make more fun, famous drinks with my recipes here.
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Outback Steakhouse Seared Pepper Ahi Tuna
Read moreFor years, Outback Steakhouse's Seared Pepper Ahi, with herb crust and secret ginger soy dipping sauce, has been a top appetizer pick at the nationwide steakhouse chain. Part of the dish’s appeal is the quick turnaround time since the fish is seared, then chilled earlier in the day. When an order comes in, the seared fillet is sliced and arranged on a bed of mixed greens drizzled with wasabi and ginger soy sauce, with extra on the side for dipping, and it’s ready for service.
For my Outback Steakhouse Seared Pepper Ahi copycat recipe, find the thickest frozen ahi tuna steak you can. Ahi is one of the safest fish to eat raw, but almost all sushi restaurants in the U.S. will freeze their fish first to cleanse it of any unwanted nasties, so frozen is best. You'll want to trim your fillet to around 2” x 3” before it’s completely defrosted and still somewhat firm if you want uniform slices after it's seared.
Just as in the restaurant, you can sear your fish earlier in the day, then chill the unsliced fillet. When you’re ready to eat, the dish is prepped in the short time it takes to slice the chilled ahi and plate it.
Find copycat recipes for more of your favorite Outback dishes here.
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Red Lobster Lobster & Langostino Pizza
Read moreTop a Margherita pizza with big chunks of lobster and langostino, and you've got Red Lobster’s famous thin-crust Lobster and Langostino Pizza appetizer. And—as with a traditional Margherita pizza—there is no sauce, just mozzarella, tomato, and basil. Its simplicity is what makes it simply delicious.
For my Red Lobster & Langostino Pizza copycat recipe, you'll steam a small lobster tail, fresh or frozen, then dice it. You'll do the same with the langostinos, but if you have difficulty finding some, you can also use lobster claw meat, often found in the freezer aisle.
To keep things easy, I designed the recipe so that you won’t need to build the pizza dough from scratch. Just find a pre-made 11-inch pizza dough in a tube, add the toppings, bake at 450 degrees F (on a pizza stone, if you’ve got one), and you’ll soon have a perfect match for the popular starter from the huge seafood chain.
Try more of my Red Lobster 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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El Pollo Loco Homemade Tortilla Soup
Read morePacked with tender chicken and vegetables, my El Pollo Loco Homemade Tortilla Soup copycat recipe is just like the original, which happens to be one of the most wholesome tortilla soups I’ve ever hacked.
And the technique here is ultra-easy since you use chicken pulled from a supermarket rotisserie chicken, which is a good thing for a couple of reasons. You don’t have to cook the chicken, so you save time. And, since rotisserie chickens usually cost less than a whole uncooked chicken, you’re saving money, too. One 2-pound rotisserie chicken will give you around 1 pound of white and dark chicken meat, which will be perfect for this recipe.
Most of your time will be spent chopping the celery, carrot, and peppers, then it’s just a simple matter of sautéing the vegetables until soft and adding the remaining ingredients. Once the soup is hot, serve it topped with crispy tortilla strips, cotija cheese, and cilantro, and pass out the spoons.
Find more famous El Pollo Loco recipes here.
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Jimmy Dean Pancakes and Sausage on a Stick
Read moreWhen Jimmy Dean debuted Pancakes and Sausage on a Stick in 2006, Jon Stewart held up a box on The Daily Show declaring it an example of how America continues “to push the envelope for what could technically be defined as food.” But the unusual—and apparently humorous—combination of salty breakfast sausage encased in sweet pancake batter, all on a stick, might surprise you. This innovative product probably tastes better than you expect—as good as eating maple pancakes with a side of sausage, but simultaneously and with one hand. In fact, this quirky treat became so popular that other companies joined the party, and now several brands have their own versions in the freezer aisle.
As I worked on my Jimmy Dean Pancakes and Sausage on a Stick copycat recipe, I realized that there is no breakfast sausage you can buy that’s as big as the sausage used in the original. It's very long! So, for the best clone, I made the Jimmy Dean sausage from scratch using my Jimmy Dean Breakfast Sausage hack. That slightly tweaked recipe is included here, along with everything you need to know to make dippable pancake batter that can be fried.
Alternatively, if you’d like to save some time, you can use frozen pre-made sausage, rather than making the sausage from scratch. The sausage won't taste like Jimmy Dean's, but the recipe will still work. I've got details on that in the Tidbits below.
After frying each of these breakfast snacks on a stick for 5 minutes, you can serve them right away, or you can freeze them and then heat them up later in a microwave minute, just like the real ones.
Check out more cool recipes for famous breakfast items here.
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Kellogg's Pop-Tarts
Read moreIt took six months for Kellogg’s product developers to figure out how to mass produce a par-baked filled pastry that could be crisped up in a home toaster. In 1964, Pop-Tarts hit grocery store shelves in four flavors: strawberry, brown sugar cinnamon, blueberry, and apple currant, and went on to become Kellogg’s top-selling brand.
I set out to make a taste-alike version of the popular snack that looks just like the original and could be cooked for a second time in a toaster. It was apparent that I would need a pastry dough that was flakey yet sturdy, and with a familiar flavor reminiscent of Pop-Tarts, and eventually, I came up with a recipe that worked.
As I completed the dough for my Kellogg's Pop-Tarts copycat recipe, I worked on the filling, developing recipes for two of the most popular flavors: strawberry and brown sugar cinnamon. The strawberry filling here requires seedless strawberry jam and the cinnamon sugar filling is a simple combination of brown sugar, cinnamon, flour, and butter—like streusel. The filling is spread on the bottom layer of dough and then a top layer of dough is added, ventilated with a toothpick or wooden skewer, and baked just until light brown.
When cool, the brown sugar cinnamon tarts are frosted with cinnamon icing, and the strawberry tarts are frosted with white icing, and then topped with sprinkles. When the icing hardens your Pop-Tarts clones are ready to be finished in a toaster for eating at your convenience, just like the real ones.
Try my Kellogg's Pop Tart copycat recipe below, and find more of your favorite breakfast copycat recipes 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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Del Taco Tamales
Read moreThis 600-unit Mexican fast food chain celebrates the holidays each year with delicious little $2 corn husk-wrapped pork tamales made from a traditional recipe for authentic south-of-the-border taste. The only problem is when the holidays go away, so do these tasty tamales. And that's why we bust out this Top Secret Recipe.
Making authentic tamales is not difficult, but it does take time. The pork requires a braise for several hours to get it fork-tender, and the wrapped tamales will take around 2 hours to steam until they're done.
My Del Taco Tamales copycat recipe is inspired by traditional tamale recipes that include a braising sauce for the pork made from rehydrated guajillo peppers. To coax out more flavor, I chose to first toast the peppers before adding them to the liquid. And rather than using lard in the masa dough, I found a combination of vegetable shortening and butter to be a more flavorful alternative.
Steam all 24 of tamales until they are fully cooked, and store those you can’t eat in your freezer for several weeks. Steam the frozen tamales for 20 to 30 minutes, and they’ll taste as good as fresh.
How about a cold margarita to wash down those tamales? Find your favorite famous drink recipes here.
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Jovy Fruit Rolls
Read moreFruit leather first emerged in New York City in the 1900s when Syrian immigrants dried apricot paste, and it came in one flavor: apricot. Louis Shalhoub, whose grandfather George was one of the first immigrants selling apricot fruit leather in the early days, founded Joray in the 1960s and sold the first commercial fruit rollups in a variety of non-apricot flavors. It wasn’t long before General Mills came out with their own Fruit Roll-Ups in various kid-friendly forms including Fruit-by-the-Foot and Gushers, and today that’s the brand that dominates the market.
After checking out the ingredients in the Joray and General Mills chewy fruit products, neither seemed worthy of a clone. Joray rolls are all apricot puree-based fruit rolls, sweetened with corn syrup and sugar, artificially flavored, and diluted with flour for a red licorice vibe. The texture of these rolls was hard and much too chewy, and the fruit flavors were lacking. One the other hand, the flavor of the General Mills rolls was delicious, and the products were always soft and chewy as you would expect. But with so much sugar, and just a wee bit of real fruit pear puree in the mix, these products aren’t much more than candy.
As it turns out, the fruit rolls with the deepest histories are not the best fruit rolls on the market. That honor goes to Jovy, a brand from Mexico with fruit rolls in a variety of flavors that actually taste like the fruit that’s printed on the label. Jovy does this by using real fruit combined with a blend of apple and pears. Apples and pears have a more subtle flavor that combines well with other fruits, plus their high pectin content contributes a pleasant texture to the finished product. Jovy enhances the fruitiness by adding artificial flavors and colors to the rolls, but I chose to go with all-natural ingredients in this hack to let the real fruit flavor shine.
My Jovy fruit rolls copycat recipe includes three flavors: strawberry, raspberry, and mango; all of which call for frozen fruit or berries, so you can make these any time of the year. Purée everything for the roll of your choice in a food processor or blender, then pour 1/3-cup portions onto baking mats and bake at a low temperature until you can peel off the tasty fruit leather. If you have a “time bake” or “cook time” setting on your oven, you can start a batch in the evening, the oven will turn off automatically when it's done, and your fruit will be cool and ready to roll in the morning.
Find more fun snack recipes here.
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Cracker Barrel Fried Apples
Read moreThis sweet side dish is so popular, Cracker Barrel sells jars of it in the gift shop. But no need to buy it when my easy Cracker Barrel Fried Apples copycat recipe will provide a hot, fresh batch any time you want. This prep is simple because you don’t need to peel the apples. Just slice and cook them with the peels on until the apples are tender just like the original, then eat them straight up or as a tasty topping on ice cream.
Try more of my Cracker Barrel recipes here.
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Burger King French Toast Sandwich
Read moreThe sweet-and-savory breakfast sandwich made with two slices of French toast first appeared on the Burger King menu in 2019, but it was just for a limited time. In 2021, BK brought the breakfast sandwich back, and this time it came with a new ingredient: buttery maple spread. The first version of the Burger King French Toast sandwich was good, but the sequel with the new maple spread is great, so that's what I copied.
The hack for the buttery maple spread is just three ingredients, and it will chill out in your fridge while you make the easy French toast. Find small, thin slices of white bread for that. Sara Lee makes a loaf of bread called Delightful that works great.
BK's French toast sandwiches come with either sausage, bacon, or ham, so pick your favorite and insert it between the egg and cheese. If your ingredients cool down as you are prepping, just pop each assembled sandwich into your microwave for about 15 seconds prior to serving for perfectly warmed French toast and gooey melted cheese.
Try my Burger King French Toast Sandwich copycat recipe below and find more of my Burger King copycat recipes here.
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KFC Georgia Gold Honey Mustard BBQ Sauce
Read moreAfter the early success of KFC’s Nashville Hot Chicken, R&D chefs explored other sauce variations that could be drizzled over the chain’s Extra Crispy Fried Chicken and breaded tenders and came up with this delicious sweet mustard basting sauce.
For my KFC Georgia Gold Sauce copycat recipe, I mixed dry ingredients into the mustard, then drizzled the oil into the mustard blend while whisking to form an emulsion, locking everything together into a flavorful paste. The process produced an overly thick sauce since mustard is such a great emulsifier. In the end, I added a little water to thin it out so that it coats just right when the sauce is drizzled over fried chicken or strips.
You can use my recipe for KFC Extra Crispy Tenders here or cook pre-breaded crispy frozen chicken pieces.
Find more of my KFC copycat recipes here.
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Taco Bell Cinnamon Twists
Read moreTaco Bell’s popular Cinnamon Twists are inspired by a traditional Mexican treat made by frying duros de harina until puffy, then sprinkling the crunchy spirals with cinnamon/sugar. Duros, or duritos, is a special pasta made with wheat flour and cornmeal or cornstarch that swells up in seconds in hot oil, transforming it into a light and crispy snack.
You can find duros in many shapes at Latin markets or online, but for this hack you want spirals that look like rotini. Most duros you find will likely be saltier and denser than what Taco Bell uses since the chain created a custom recipe for American palates.
It takes just 10 to 15 seconds for the pasta to puff up in the oil—it will be sudden and dramatic and the duros crisps will float to the top. When they do, gently poke at them, and stir them around in the hot oil until they are evenly cooked. It only takes about a minute to fry each batch.
Check out this video, then try my Taco Bell Cinnamon Twists copycat recipe below.
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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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Dole Dole Whip
Read moreThe real Dole Whip is a non-dairy dessert that includes artificial flavoring, a small amount of natural pineapple juice, and more gums than a candy store. Everything in this Hawaiian ice cream is combined in a powdered form, including the pineapple juice in 4.4-pound bags sold to soft-serve machine operators at fairs, sporting events, and amusement parks. On the back of the Dole Whip mix are instructions to dissolve the powder in 2 gallons of cold tap water, then immediately pour the syrup into a soft serve machine and hit the switch.
Until now, almost all recipes that claim to reproduce Dole Whip—including one shared by Disneyland during the coronavirus outbreak—call for ice cream to illogically copy a "non-dairy" dessert with quite a bit of dairy. The results from these recipes may be tasty, but they are nothing like Dole Whip because Dole Whip is sorbet, and sorbet isn't made with ice cream.
What makes Dole Whip special is its creamy consistency, which may lead some people to believe it contains dairy. Dole Whip creates this thickness with the assistance of six different natural gums and gels: cellulose gum, xanthan gum, locust bean gum, guar gum, karaya gum, and pectin. In addition, there is a small amount of coconut fat solids in the mix to help simulate the fat found in dairy.
For my Dole Whip copycat recipe, I limited the gels to two that are easy to find: unflavored gelatin and pectin. When these two ingredients are heated and then cooled, they form a gel similar to what’s in the real Dole Whip, and the result is a thick-and-creamy consistency. Another trick often used to help thicken sorbets is using viscous corn syrup to replace much of the sugar. Corn syrup will give the sorbet body, and it helps tone down the acidic pineapple juice.
But the best part of this recipe, unlike the real thing, is that it contains all-natural ingredients and it's mostly made of real Dole pineapple juice, plus a little tangerine juice to round out the flavor and enrich the color. This homemade Dole Whip is ridiculously easy to make (you'll need an ice cream maker) and fans of the real thing will love it. Plus, now you can have this DIY Dole Whip whenever you want—no amusement park required.
Click here for more of my hacks of delicious desserts and sweet treats.
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Einstein Bros. Bagels Twice-Baked Hash Brown
Read moreI’m not sure why Einstein Bros. claims there are just four cheeses in the new Twice-Baked Hash Brown when the ingredients clearly list six kinds of cheese, plus cream cheese. Regardless, the shredded Asiago, Romano, Parmesan, provolone, and mozzarella listed there can be found combined in an “Italian Blend” at many supermarkets, making for an easy start to our home clone. And don’t just be thinking about breakfast for these cheesy potatoes. They work great as a side for any meal.
In the detailed description of the new item, Einstein Bros. claims the hash browns contain two kinds of schmears, which is true, but a little misleading because one of them is just plain cream cheese. The other is onion-and-chive cream cheese, which we can make from scratch. We’ll combine those two shmears into one blend by doubling the cream cheese added to our onion-and-chive schmear formula.
Follow my Einstein Bros. twice baked hash brown copycat recipe below, and mix everything together. Then, load the ingredients into a standard 12-cup muffin pan with circles of parchment paper cut out to fit into the bottom of the 12 cups. Without these parchment circles, the hash browns may stick and break when they’re released. You can also use paper muffin cups, if you don’t mind the less crispy, ridged sides.
Bake them the first time for 30 minutes, then cool and store. Now you have a dozen servings of cheesy hash brown potatoes that are easy to finish off by baking them a second time until crispy. These Einstein Bros. Twice Baked Hash Browns are great served with breakfast, or for dinner as your starchy side alongside beef, chicken, lamb, and many other savory entrées.
You can also make homemade Einstein Bros bagels, sandwiches, and shmears. See if I hacked your favorites here.
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Chipotle Carnitas
Read moreBraised and shredded pork shoulder is a staple of Mexican cuisine that Chipotle prepares with a simple blend of flavors, and a surprising ingredient you may not have expected: juniper berries. Once you track those down (they’re easy to find online), the berries are combined with thyme and bay leaves in a braising liquid that will transform your own pork roast into an easily shreddable thing of beauty in under 3 hours. Then you can use your Chipotle carnitas clone on tacos, in burritos, or in a bowl over rice and beans just like they do in the restaurant.
When picking your pork roast, try to find one without too much fat. If your roast has a thick cap of fat on it, trim off the excess. You want some fat in your braising liquid, but if the cap of fat is too thick, it may not fully render down and you’ll get chunks of fat in the shred.
It’s often assumed that the pork butt is from the rear end of the pig, even though cuts from the back region already have a name: ham. The pork butt, also known as a Boston butt, is cut from the other end, the upper shoulder of the pig. It’s called a “butt” because in pre-Revolutionary War New England the roasts were stored and transported in barrels called “butts”, and the confusing name stuck.
This recipe was our #5 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), Pei Wei Better Orange Chicken (#4).
Check out this list of our most popular recipes of all-time.
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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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Orville Redenbacher's Movie Theater Butter Popcorn
Read moreThe health concerns regarding microwave popcorn are a result of the way it’s packaged. For the corn to pop, the kernels are submerged in boiling fat inside the bag until a buildup of steam in the kernels causes them to burst. To prevent the liquid fat from seeping through, the bags are lined with a chemical called perfluorooctanoic acid, which, unfortunately for microwave popcorn lovers, has been linked to cancer and other nasty things.
I set out on a mission to make better homemade microwave popcorn with only natural ingredients, and without using costly popping gadgets. I also wanted to avoid using plastic, tape, or metal, such as staples. My solution is a new method of prepping the kernels, but like many other techniques I researched, it requires paper lunch bags. I was dismayed to find some discussions about the potential for problems using brown paper bags in your microwave oven, such as fire, but I had absolutely no issues any of the many times I did it. No smoke, no sparks, nothing looking at all dangerous was going on inside my cooking box. The USDA states that using paper bags in your microwave, “may cause a fire, and may emit toxic fumes,” yet the internet is full of microwave popcorn recipes calling for paper bags. I chose to still share my recipe and technique, but ultimately leave it up to you to decide if it’s a hack recipe you feel safe using. If you’d rather stay on the safe side, see the Tidbits for an alternate technique.
My Orville Redenbacher's Movie Theater Butter Popcorn copycat recipe starts with clarifying butter so that it’s pure fat, without any milk solids or water. Butter is about 16 percent water and if any of that stays in the mix, your popcorn will be on a fast trip to Soggytown. Once the butter is clarified, we’ll combine it with popcorn and salt and freeze it into pucks that can be saved for weeks until you are ready to make quick popcorn.
When it’s popcorn time, a puck goes into a small bowl, which goes inside two interlocking paper bags. After a warming session, you hit the “popcorn” button on your microwave oven and the popcorn will pop just like the store product (you may have to add another 30 seconds or so of cooking time). The first bag will soak up the excess butter that splashes around inside as the popcorn pops, and the second bag will keep the butter from messing up your oven.
To serve, pull the bags apart over a big bowl, and you’ll have a fresh batch of hot microwave popcorn coated perfectly with real butter and salt.
If you're like me and you like things spicy, try sprinkling your copycat Orville Redenbacher Movie Theatre Popcorn with my original Hell Flakes to create what we like to call "Hell Corn".
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Melting Pot Cocktail Sauce
Read moreMelting Pot cocktail sauce is a simple formula of ketchup, horseradish and lemon juice. It's a perfect sauce to have nearby when you're looking for a classic, great-tasting dip for your fondue-cooked shrimp and lobster.
Find out how to hack the chain's delicious signature cooking style here: Melting Pot Coq Au Vin Fondue.
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Annual TSR Club (Best Deal!)
Read moreper month
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Save $12 vs. monthlyIncludes eight (8) 79¢ recipes of your choice each month!
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Wendy's Maple Bacon Chicken Sandwich
Read moreWendy’s claims it took three years to develop this hit chicken sandwich that’s built on a croissant roll and slathered with the chain’s secret maple glaze. Use my Wendy's Maple Bacon Chicken Sandwich copycat recipe to make perfect dupes at home (four of them, actually), with simple ingredients, and I’ve got some shortcuts here to help make all of it quick and easy.
For the chicken, find frozen chicken breasts or large tenderloins with a homestyle breading. Tyson’s Southern Style Breast Tenderloins work great if you pick out the biggest pieces from the bag. The breading on this chicken is similar to what you get at Wendy’s.
Rather than making croissants from scratch, which is a time-consuming task, we’ll use Pillsbury dough from a tube. Pillsbury’s “Crescents” are not true croissants, even though they look and taste similar to croissants. Real croissant dough rises with yeast and would blow out a Pillsbury paper tube in a day or two, even if chilled. For that reason, Pillsbury uses baking powder in breads that usually call for yeast, such as cinnamon rolls and croissants. Unlike yeast, baking powder is a chemical leavening agent activated by heat, so the dough will remain stable in the refrigerated section of your supermarket, safely inside the paper tubes until you’re ready to bake it.
Instead of cooking the rolls as directed on the package, we'll roll the dough using the technique below, form it in a 3½-inch ring mold, and then bake it. This will make perfect croissant buns that we can slice and toast for our sandwich. If you don’t have a 3½-inch ring mold, you can use a ring from a canning jar or a biscuit cutter. If the diameter of your ring is less than 3½ inches, just form the dough using the smaller ring, then remove it and press down on the dough to spread it out until it is 3½ inches across.
I've hacked a lot of famous foods from Wendy's. Find more of my Wendy's copycat recipes here.
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KFC Extra Crispy Fried Chicken (Improved)
Read moreTo get their Extra Crispy Chicken so crispy, KFC breads the chicken two times. This double breading gives the chicken its ultra craggy exterior and extra crunch, which is a different texture than the less crispy original recipe fried chicken that’s breaded just once and pressure fried.
As with my KFC Original Fried Chicken recipe, we must first brine the chicken to give it flavor and moisture all the way through, like the real thing, then the chicken is double breaded and deep-fried until golden brown. KFC uses small chickens which cook faster, but small chickens can be hard to find. If your chicken parts are on the large side, they may not cook all the way through in the 12 to 15 minutes of frying I’m specifying here. To be sure your chicken is cooked, start frying with the thickest pieces, like the breasts, then park them in a 300-degree oven while you finish with the smaller pieces. This will keep the chicken warm and crispy, and more importantly, ensure that they are cooked perfectly all the way through.
On my CMT show Top Secret Recipe I chatted with Winston Shelton, a long-time friend of KFC founder Harland Sanders. Winston saw the Colonel's handwritten secret recipe for KFC Original Recipe chicken, and he told me one of the secret ingredients is Tellicherry black pepper. It's a more expensive, better-tasting black pepper that comes from the Malabar coast in India, and you should use it here if you can find it. Winston pulled me aside and whispered this secret to me when he thought we were off-camera, but our microphones and very alert cameramen caught the whole thing, and we aired it.
I first published my KFC Extra Crispy Fried Chicken recipe in Even More Top Secret Recipes, but recently applied some newly acquired secrets and tips to make this much-improved recipe of one of the most familiar fried chicken recipes in the world.
My improved KFC Extra Crispy Fried Chicken copycat recipe below was our #2 most popular in 2019. Check out the other four most unlocked recipes of the year: Texas Roadhouse Rolls (#1), 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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IHOP Banana Macadamia Nut Pancakes
Read moreMenu Description: "Two sweet golden pancakes, grilled with fresh sliced banana, drizzled with a rum-butter flavored glaze and crowned with creamy whipped topping and toasted macadamia nuts."
This is the best of three varieties of pancakes that IHOP introduced as "Hawaiian Pancakes" in the summer of 2009. The country's largest flapjack house flavors the new pancakes with imitation banana flavoring and a yellow coloring, since real bananas will eventually turn a prepared batter brown. But we are going to use this batter right away, so I've incorporated real mashed banana in this batter to add the perfect sweetness and much better real banana flavor. A clone for the delicious rum-butter glaze is also included here, but these pancakes are also great when drizzled with plain old maple syrup.Try my IHOP Macadamia Nut Pancakes copycat recipe below, and find more of my famous pancake copycat recipes here.
Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 3 by Todd Wilbur. -
Olive Garden Breadsticks
Read moreAnyone who loves Olive Garden is probably also a big fan of the bottomless basket of warm, garlicky breadsticks served before each meal at the huge Italian casual chain. My guess is that the breadsticks are proofed, and then sent to each restaurant where they are baked until golden brown, brushed with butter and sprinkled with garlic salt. Getting the bread just right for a great Olive Garden breadstick hack was tricky—I tried several different amounts of yeast in all-purpose flour, but then settled on bread flour to give these breadsticks the same chewy bite as the originals. The two-stage rising process is also a crucial step in this much requested Olive Garden breadstick copycat recipe.
Complete the bottomless experience with my Olive Garden Italian salad dressing recipe.
Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 3 by Todd Wilbur. -
Hostess Twinkie
Read moreThe Twinkie was invented in 1930 by the late James A. Dewar, then the Chicago-area regional manager of Continental Baking Company, the parent corporation behind the Hostess trademark. At the time, Continental made "Little Short Cake Fingers" only during the six-week strawberry season, and Dewar realized that the aluminum pans in which the cakes were baked sat idle the rest of the year. He came up with the idea of injecting the little cakes with a creamy filling to make them a year-round product and decided to charge a nickel for a package of two.
But Dewar couldn't come up with a catchy name for the snack cake—that is, until he set out on a business trip to St. Louis. Along the road he saw a sign for Twinkle Toe Shoes, and the name Twinkies evolved. Sales took off, and Dewar reportedly ate two Twinkies every day for much of his life. He died in 1985.
The spongy treat has evolved into an American phenomenon. Today the Twinkie is Continental's top Hostess-line seller, with the injection machines filling as many as 52,000 every hour.You will need a spice bottle, approximately the size of a Twinkie, ten 12x14 -inch pieces of aluminum foil, a cake decorator or pastry bag, and a chopstick.
Watch Todd's video demonstration of this classic hack.
If you're a fan of Hostess powdered Donettes, or cupcakes, check out these recipes.
Source: Top Secret Recipes by Todd Wilbur.
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Cheesecake Factory Thai Lettuce Wraps
Read moreMenu Description: "Create your own Thai lettuce rolls! Satay chicken strips, carrots, bean sprouts, coconut curry noodles and lettuce leaves with three delicious spicy Thai sauces—peanut, sweet red chili and tamarind-cashew."
Cheesecake Factory's #1 appetizer is finally fauxed, and I've got every secret component for an impressive knockoff here in one recipe: delicious duplicates of the three amazing dipping sauces, perfect sweet-and-sour cucumber slices, and an easy coconut curry marinade clone for the chicken that also doubles as a sauce for the noodles.Get ready to blow everyone away when you unveil this build-it-yourself Cheesecake Factory Thai Lettuce wraps copycat recipe at the table. The final dish will serve twice as many people as the restaurant version, and you'll most likely have enough leftover sauces to serve it again if you want to get more chicken.
Click here for more amazing Cheesecake Factory copycat recipes.
Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 3 by Todd Wilbur. -
Gordon Biersch Warm Apple Bread Pudding
Read moreMenu Description: "With vanilla ice cream and sticky bun caramel sauce."
I've been searching for the restaurant chain with the best bread pudding recipe, and I think I've found it here at Gordon Biersch. This small, yet growing, microbrewery chain serves great beer, awesome pizza, and a bread pudding that is downright amazing. It could be described as what would materialize out the other side if Jeff Goldblum threw an apple pie, some bread pudding and a cinnamon roll into his teleportation machine from "The Fly," and everything came out the other side combined into a single awesome dessert. The sautéed apples laid into the middle of the bread pudding make other bread puddings I eat now seem like they're missing something. And the homemade caramel sauce, with just a little brown sugar thrown into our clone version, adds a sticky bun flavor you'll have dreams about. No matter how big your dinner feast was, everyone will still somehow find room for this.The original at the restaurant is baked in a deep pan, and the pudding is sliced and served on its side, so for my Gordon Biersch Warm Apple Bread Pudding copycat recipe, you'll want to use the biggest loaf pan you can find. I used a 3-inch deep 10x5-inch loaf pan, and it was full. If your pan is smaller, you may have to leave a bit out. The pudding will swell up out of the pan as it cooks, but it will shrink back down as it cools. Fun to watch. You may want to make this the day before so that the bread pudding can set up in the fridge. When you are ready to serve, nuke a serving for 1 minute until warm, then add the sauce and ice cream and a handful of pecans. It appears the restaurant chain uses egg bread in the pudding, but Texas Toast thick-sliced white bread may be easier to find, and it works just as well.
Gordon Biersch also makes amazing garlic fries. Click here to try this recipe.
Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 3 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.