In Cayce, South Carolina, Otis Spunkmeyer muffins were manufactured with state-of-the-art robotic equipment that would make R2-D2 jealous. The amazing machines do everything from packaging 130 muffins per minute to sealing up the cartons for a quick shipment to stores across the country.

This Top Secret Recipes reduced-fat clone version uses unsweetened applesauce to keep the muffins moist and to help replace fat.

Find more yummy copycat snack recipes here. 

Nutrition Facts
Serving size–1/2 muffin
Total servings–16
Calories per serving–160 (Original–240)
Fat per serving–5.5g (Original–13g)

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

After baking the big 'ol muffins, Otis Spunkmeyer freezes them so that they stay fresh on the way to the stores. Vendors thaw out the tasty baked goodies before displaying them on their shelves. Even after the muffins reach room temperature, they still have a very impressive shelf life of twenty-one days.

You can also freeze the muffins you make with this reduced-fat clone recipe. Just wait until they cool, then wrap the muffins in plastic wrap, and toss them in the freezer. And remember, the shelf life of your version without preservatives will be much less than that of the real McCoy, so dive into those muffins post haste.

Nutrition Facts
Serving size–1/2 muffin
Total servings–16
Calories per serving–165 (Original–210)
Fat per serving–4 g (Original–11g)

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You're not in the mood for pumpkin pie, but you want to bake something with pumpkin in it for the holidays. Give my Mrs. Fields Pumpkin Harvest Cookies recipe below a shot. You'll use pure canned pumpkin, plus there are pecans in there and chunks of white chocolate that can be chopped up from bars. Pull the cookies out when they're still soft in the middle and just slightly browned around the edges, and you'll produce 2 dozen perfectly baked pumpkin-pumped happy pucks.

Update 10/12/17: A more accurate measurement for the flour in this recipe is 14 ounces by weight. If you don't have a scale, add another 2 tablespoons to the 2 1/2 cups of flour called for in the recipe. Also, you may get better results if you bake the cookies at 325 degrees for 16 minutes, or until they are just beginning to turn light brown around the bottom edges.

Check out my other Mrs. Fields copycat recipes here. 

Source: Top Secret Recipes Unlocked by Todd Wilbur.

Order an entree from America's largest seafood restaurant chain and you'll get a basket of some of the planet's tastiest garlic-cheese biscuits served up on the side. For many years, the Cheddar Bay Biscuits recipe has been the most-searched-for clone recipe on the Internet, according to Red Lobster. As a result, several versions are floating around, including one that was at one time printed right on the box of Bisquick baking mix.

The problem with making biscuits using Bisquick is that if you follow the directions from the box you don't end up with a very fluffy or flakey finished product, since most of the fat in the recipe comes from the shortening that's included in the mix. On its own, room temperature shortening does a poor job creating the light, airy texture you want from good biscuits, and it contributes little in the way of flavor. So, we'll invite some cold butter along on the trip -- with grated Cheddar cheese and a little garlic powder. Now you'll be well on your way to delicious Cheddar Bay. Wherever that is.

Complete the Red Lobster experience and make favorite entrées and side dishes here.

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

GrandMa's Cookie Company was founded back in 1914 by Foster Wheeler, but it wasn't until 1977 that the company introduced the popular Big Cookie. This large, soft cookie comes two to a pack and is offered in several varieties, including oatmeal raisin. Now you can bake up a couple batches of your own with my GrandMa's oatmeal raisin cookies copycat recipe. Just be sure not to over bake these. You want the cookies soft and chewy when cool—just like a happy grandma would make. Be sure to take the cookies out of the oven when they are just beginning to turn light brown around the edges.

You might also like my copycat for GrandMa's Peanut Butter Big Cookies.

Source: Even More Top Secret Recipes by Todd Wilbur.

Update 1/13/17: For an improved GrandMa's Big Cookies recipe, replace the 1/2 cup shortening with 3/4 cup softened unsalted butter. Also, reduce baking soda to 1 1/2 teaspoons and cinnamon to 1/2 teaspoon. Raising the oven temperature a little—to 300 degrees F—will help with browning and still keep the cookies chewy. Bake for 15 to 18 minutes.

Along with your meal at this huge national steakhouse chain, comes a freshly baked loaf of dark, sweet bread, served on its own cutting board with soft whipped butter. One distinctive feature of the bread is its color. How does the bread get so dark? Even though my Outback Honey Wheat Bushman bread copycat recipe includes molasses and cocoa, these ingredients alone will not give the bread its dark chocolate brown color. Commercially produced breads that are this dark—such as pumpernickel or dark bran muffins–often contain caramel color, an ingredient used to darken foods. Since your local supermarket will not likely have this mostly commercial ingredient, we'll create the brown coloring from a mixture of three easy-to-find food colorings—red, yellow and blue. If you decide to leave the color out, just add an additional 1 tablespoon of warm water to the recipe. If you have a bread machine, you can use it for kneading the bread (you'll find the order in which to add the ingredients to your machine in "Tidbits"). Then, to finish the bread, divide and roll the dough in cornmeal, and bake.

Check out more of my copycat Outback Steakhouse recipes here.

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 2 by Todd Wilbur.

Nabisco took great effort to produce reduced-fat versions of the most popular products created by the food giant. This product loyalty-retaining move is just good business. According to one Nabisco spokesperson, "We want to bring back the people who have enjoyed our products, but went away for health and diet reasons." And that's exactly what we see happening, as customers are now grabbing the boxes with "Less Fat" printed on them. This box says, "Reduced fat: 40% less fat than original Cheese Nips."

The secret ingredient for this clone of the popular little square crackers is the fat-free cheese sprinkles by Molly McButter. One 2-ounce shaker of the stuff will do it, and you won't use it all. Just keep in mind that cheese powder is pretty salty, so you may want to go very easy on salting the tops of the crackers 

Nutrition Facts 
Serving size–31 crackers 
Total servings–about 10 
Fat per serving–3.5g 
Calories per serving–105

Source: Top Secret Recipes Lite by Todd Wilbur.

Who is Otis Spunkmeyer? Actually, he does not exist. The character who flies around in the plane pictured on the product labels, searching the world for premium ingredients, is just a catchy name dreamed up by founder Ken Rawling's 12-year-old daughter.

The company offers low-fat versions of many of its 11 varieties of muffins, but they are more difficult to track down than the original versions.

My reduced-fat conversion copycat recipe of the famous Otis Spunkmeyer Apple Cinnamon Muffins has 4 grams of fat per serving, or 8 grams total—quite a reduction compared to the original muffins, which have a total of 22 grams of fat each.

Nutrition Facts
Serving size–1/2 muffin
Total servings–16
Calories per serving–142 (Original–220)
Fat per serving–4g (Original–11g)

Try my recipes for reduced-fat versions of Otis Spunkmeyer chocolate chip, blueberry and banana muffins here.

Source: Top Secret Recipes Lite by Todd Wilbur.

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

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

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

Source: Top Secret Recipes by Todd Wilbur.

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

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

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

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

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

I 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.

In 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. 

As 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.

Menu 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.

Menu Description: "Our most popular dish! Shrimp and Chicken Sautéed with Onions, Peppers and Tomatoes in a Very Spicy Cajun Sauce. All on top of Fresh Fettuccine."

The Cheesecake Factory's founder, David Overton, says it was his unfamiliarity with the restaurant business that contributed to the company's success. In an interview with Nation's Restaurant News David says, "We did not know anything about running restaurants. We just knew that people valued fresh foods. In some ways, our naïveté helped us because we didn't know what you are not supposed to do."

I think we all know it helps to serve good food and that's an area in which the Cheesecake Factory excels. The pastas and salads top the list of big sellers, but it's the Cajun Jambalaya Pasta that holds the pole position, according to the menu description of this dish. Jambalaya is a spicy Creole dish that usually combines a variety of ingredients including tomatoes, onions, peppers, and some type of meat with rice. Rather than the traditional rice, the Cheesecake Factory has designed its version to include two types of fettuccine—an attractive mix of standard white noodles and spinach-flavored noodles. 

My Cheesecake Factory Cajun Jambalaya pasta recipe makes 2 huge portions, like those served in the restaurant. It's probably enough food for a family of four.

Now, how about dessert? Find my copycat recipes for Cheesecake Factory's signature  cheesecakes here.

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes by Todd Wilbur.

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

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

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 3 by Todd Wilbur.

The easiest recipes often make the best food, and this simple clone reproduces one of my favorites. The cinnamon-and-sugar-topped snickerdoodles from Pepperidge Farm's line of soft cookies taste really good and are a perfect chewy consistency—eating just one an exercise in futility. The steps here are pure Baking 101, but don't wander too far from the kitchen when the cookies go in the oven so that they don't overbake. You want to yank the cookies out of the oven when they are just slightly browned and still soft. After they cool, store the cookies in an airtight container to keep them soft and chewy. Use my Pepperidge Farm Soft Baked Snickerdoodle Cookies recipe below for cookie perfection. 

Find more recipes for your favorite famous cookies here.

Source: Top Secret Recipes Unlocked by Todd Wilbur.

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

Since Buffalo, New York was too far away, Jim Disbrow and Scott Lowery satisfied their overwhelming craving in 1981 by opening a spicy chicken wing restaurant close to home in Kent, Ohio. With signature sauces and a festive atmosphere, the chain has now evolved from a college campus sports bar with wings to a family restaurant with over 300 units. 

While frying chicken wings is no real secret—simply drop them in hot shortening for about 10 minutes—the delicious spicy sauces are what make the wings special. There are 12 varieties of sauce available to coat your crispy chicken parts at the chain, and I'm presenting clones for the more traditional flavors. These sauces are very thick, almost like dressing or dip, so we'll use an emulsifying technique that will ensure a creamy final product where the oil won't separate from the other ingredients. 

In my Buffalo Wild Wings copycat recipe below you'll find the cooking and coating technique for the wings, followed by copycat recipes for the most popular sauces: Spicy Garlic, Medium and Hot. The sauce recipes might look the same at first, but each has slight variations to make your sauce hotter or milder by adjusting the level of cayenne pepper. You can find Frank's pepper sauce by the other hot sauces in your market. If you can't find that brand, you can also use Crystal Louisiana hot sauce.

Find my copycat recipes for Buffalo Wild Wings Asian Zing; Parmesan Garlic, and Caribbean Jerk sauces here.

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 2 by Todd Wilbur.

Menu Description: "Our famous Original cheesecake recipe! Creamy and light, baked in a graham cracker crust. Our most popular cheesecake!"

Oscar and Evelyn Overton's wholesale cheesecake company was successful quickly after it first started selling creamy cheesecakes like this clone to restaurant chains in the early 1970's. When some restaurants balked at the prices the company was charging for high-end desserts, Oscar and Evelyn's son David decided it was time to open his own restaurant, offering a wide variety of quality meal choices in huge portions, and, of course, the famous cheesecakes for dessert. Today, the chain has over 87 stores across the country, and consistently ranks number one on the list of highest grossing single stores for a U.S. restaurant chain.

Baking your cheesecakes in a water bath is part of the secret for producing beautiful cheesecakes at home with a texture similar to those sold in the restaurant. The water surrounds your cheesecake to keep it moist as it cooks, and the moisture helps prevent ugly cracking. You'll start the oven very hot for just a short time, then crank it down to finish. I also suggest lining your cheesecake pan with parchment paper to help get the thing out of the pan when it's done without a hassle.

My Cheesecake Factory original cheesecake copycat recipe is so easy, even a 2-year-old can make it as shown in this video.

Find more of my Cheesecake Factory copycat recipes here.

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 2 by Todd Wilbur.

This is the spicy sauce that comes on your Gordita or Chalupa at Taco Bell. But the only way to get a significant amount of the delicious creamy sauce to use at home on tacos, fajitas, and burritos is by making some yourself. With my Taco Bell Baja Sauce recipe below, you will make enough to hold you over for a while. 

You need a food processor to purée the vegetables, but don't expect to use all the purée. I've made the measurements for the purée larger than required so that your food processor will have something to grab on to. This is a mayo-based sauce, so if you want to eliminate some fat, use light mayonnaise in the recipe and make low-fat homemade Baja Sauce. You can't get that at Taco Bell.

Find more of your favorite Taco Bell sauce recipes here. 

Source: Top Secret Recipes Unlocked by Todd Wilbur.

Look at what F. W. Rueckheim started. He was the guy who, back in the late 1800s, made candy-coated popcorn a national treasure with the invention of Cracker Jack. Now we've got Fiddle-Faddle, Screaming Yellow Zonkers, Crunch 'n Munch, and so many other candy-coated popcorns. Sure, these other varieties don't have the traditional prize inside the box, but let's face it, those prizes are pretty weak compared to what used to be found at the bottom of a box of Cracker Jack when I was a kid. 

The old-fashioned molasses formula used on Cracker Jack just doesn't have the appeal of some of the other tantalizing candy coatings on popcorn today. Butter toffee is a good example, so that's what I've reverse-engineered for you here. My Crunch 'N Munch buttery toffee popcorn recipe below is simple and makes a finished product so tasty, you'll have to beg someone to take it away from you before you finish the whole bowl by yourself. All you need is a candy thermometer, some microwave popcorn, and a few other basic ingredients to re-create a home version of popcorn heaven.

Source: Top Secret Recipes Unlocked by Todd Wilbur.

IHOP claims to sell over 400,000 pancakes each day. That's a lot of pancakes. So many, in fact, if all of those flapjacks were served up on one plate, it would make a giant stack taller than the Sears Tower in Chicago. And much tastier.

Use my IHOP Banana-Nut pancake recipe below to copy one of the most popular stacks at the chain. I've included a recipe for the banana-flavored syrup, but you can use any flavor syrup, including maple, on these dudes. 

Update 2/8/17: Rather than combining all of the ingredients together in step #2, use two bowls. Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in one bowl. In the other bowl combine the buttermilk, egg, oil, sugar, and banana flavoring with an electric mixer on medium speed. Combine the dry ingredients with the wet ingredients, mix until smooth, and move on to step #3.

Check out my other IHOP recipe clones here.

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes by Todd Wilbur.

The easy-melting, individually-wrapped Kraft Cheddar Singles are the perfect secret ingredient to copy this cheesy broccoli cheddar soup served at this top soup stop. In my Panera Bread Broccoli Cheddar Soup copycat recipe, fresh broccoli is first steamed, then diced into little bits before you combine it with chicken broth, half-and-half, shredded carrot, and onion. Now you're just 30 minutes away from soup spoon go-time.

Click here for more of my copycat Panera Bread recipes.

Source: Top Secret Recipes Unlocked by Todd Wilbur.

Cranberries, white chocolate chips, walnuts, and rolled oats get together in this recreation of a cookie that's not only great for the holidays but will also turn the regular days into something special. 

As with any proper Mrs. Fields cookie recipe, they will seem underdone when they come out of the oven. But when the cookies cool down, you will have a couple dozen of the sweet treats with slightly crispy edges and soft, gooey centers. Try my Mrs. Fields Cranberry White Chocolate Cookie recipe below. I think you'll be happy you did.

You might also like my very first Top Secret Recipe: Mrs. Fields chocolate chip cookies.

Source: Top Secret Recipes Unlocked by Todd Wilbur.

It's sweet, it's tangy, it's smoky, it's delicious; and it's only available in blister packs by request at one of the 1,237 U.S. Chick-fil-A locations that dot the country. I guess that's why so many of you asked for a clone—those blister packs are small! But alas, with this top secret formula, you'll have a heaping one cup of a taste-alike version of the delicious sauce to use as you wish: as a spread on your favorite sandwiches or as a dressing on a grilled chicken salad.

Source: Top Secret Recipes Unlocked by Todd Wilbur.

Some 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.

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

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

Source: More Top Secret Recipes by Todd Wilbur.

Menu Description: "Hearty grains, wholesome oats, almonds and English walnuts."

Wholesome grains and nuts get it on in this clone of the signature pancakes from the country's largest pancake chain. The whole wheat flour and oats add more flavor, while the nuts pitch in for a crunch in every bite. Take a break from gummy, bland traditional pancakes. Use my IHOP Harvest Grain N Nut Pancakes recipe for a breakfast that pacifies your pancake urge, and leaves you feeling peppy.

Find more of my IHOP copycat recipes here.

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 2 by Todd Wilbur.

Menu Description: "Delicious blend of buttermilk and real Cream of Wheat."

This nationwide chain, which is known for its big bargain breakfasts, serves an impressive number of non-breakfast items as well. In 1997, IHOP dished out over 6 million pounds of french fries and over half a million gallons of soft drinks. But it's the Country Griddle Cakes on the breakfast menu that inspired this Top Secret Recipe. The unique flavor and texture comes from the Cream of Wheat in the batter. Now with my IHOP Country Griddle Cakes recipe below, you can have your pancakes, and eat your cereal too.

Check here for many more of my IHOP copycat recipes.

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 2 by Todd Wilbur.

Menu Description: "Our creamy cheesecake with chunks of white chocolate and swirls of imported seedless raspberries throughout. Baked in a chocolate crust and finished with white chocolate shavings and whipped cream."

Use my Cheesecake Factory White Chocolate Raspberry Truffle Cheesecake recipe below to make a home version of the cheesecake that many claim is the best they've ever had. Raspberry preserves are the secret ingredient that is swirled into the cream cheese that's poured into a crumbled chocolate cookie crust. Yum. No wonder this cheesecake is the number one pick from the chain's massive list of cheesecake choices.

Love Cheesecake Factory? Find more of my recipes here.

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 2 by Todd Wilbur.
 

I first created the clone for this Cajun-style recipe back in 1994 for the second TSR book, More Top Secret Recipes, but I've never been overjoyed with the results. After convincing a Popeyes manager to show me the ingredients written on the box of red bean mixture, I determined the only way to create an accurate Popeyes Red Beans and Rice recipe is to include an important ingredient omitted from the first version: pork fat. Emeril Lagasse—a Cajun food master—says, "pork fat rules," and it does. 

We could get the delicious smoky fat from rendering smoked ham hocks, but that takes too long. The easiest way is to cook 4 or 5 pieces of bacon, save the cooked bacon for another recipe (or eat it!), then use 1/4 cup of the fat for my Popeyes Red Beans and rice recipe below. As for the beans, find red beans (they're smaller than kidney beans) in two 15-ounce cans. If you're having trouble tracking down red beans, red kidney beans will be a fine substitute.

Can't get enough Popeyes? Find all of my recipes here. 

Source: Top Secret Recipes Unlocked by Todd Wilbur.

When you check in at one of more than 250 hotels run by this U.S. chain, you are handed a bag from a warming oven that contains two soft and delicious chocolate chip cookies. This is a tradition that began in the early 80s using a recipe from a small bakery in Atlanta. All the cookies are baked fresh every day on the hotel premises. The chain claims to give out about 29,000 cookies every day. 

Raves for the cookies from customers convinced the hotel chain to start selling tins of the cookies online. But if you've got an insatiable chocolate chip cookie urge that can't wait for a package to be delivered, you'll want to try my DoubleTree Hotel Chocolate Chip cookie copycat recipe below. Just be sure to get the cookies out of the oven when they are barely turning brown so that they are soft and chewy in the middle when cool. 

Now that you're in the swing of things, try baking more famous cookies from my recipes here.

Source: Even More Top Secret Recipes by Todd Wilbur.

Update 4/10/20: In April, Hilton Hotels released the actual recipe for the DoubleTree Hotels Signature Cookie for the first time. You can view that recipe and compare it to this clone recipe I created in 2002. I got pretty close!

El Pollo Loco, or "The Crazy Chicken," has been growing like mad since it crossed over the border into the United States from Mexico. Francisco Ochoa unknowingly started a food phenomenon internacional in 1975 when he took a family recipe for chicken marinade and opened a small roadside restaurante in Gusave, Mexico. He soon had 90 stores in 20 cities throughout Mexico. The first El Pollo Loco in the United States opened in Los Angeles in December 1980 and was an immediate success. It was only three years later that Ochoa got the attention of bigwigs at Dennys, Inc., who offered him $11.3 million for his U.S. operations. Ochoa took the deal, and El Pollo Loco grew from 17 to more than 200 outlets over the following decade.

Pair my El Pollo Loco Flame Broiled Chicken copycat recipe below with my recipes for their avocado salsa, pinto beans, Spanish rice, and bbq black beans.

Source: More Top Secret Recipes by Todd Wilbur.

In 1987 the Mrs. Fields Corporation devised a rather clever treat called the Peanut Butter Dream bar, a delicious combination of peanut butter, chocolate, and a cookie-crumb crust. It was not only a tasty product, but an economical one. Mrs. Fields has always had the policy of removing cookies that are more than two hours old from outlet display cases. Now, instead of being thrown away, the chocolate chip cookies are crumbled up and mixed with melted butter to form the Dream Bar crust. 

If you can't talk your local Mrs. Field's outlet into giving you old cookies for my Peanut Butter Dream Bar recipe, make your own Mrs. Fields chocolate chip cookies using my recipe here.

Source: Top Secret Recipes by Todd Wilbur.

In 1991 Kentucky Fried Chicken bigwigs decided to improve the image of America's third-largest fast-food chain. As a more health-conscious society began to affect sales of fried chicken, the company changed its name to KFC and introduced a lighter fare of skinless chicken.

In the last forty years KFC has experienced extraordinary growth. Five years after first franchising the business, Colonel Harland Sanders had 400 outlets in the United States and Canada. Four years later there were more than 600 franchises, including one in England, the first overseas outlet. In 1964 John Y. Brown, Jr., a young Louisville lawyer, and Jack Massey, a Nashville financier, bought the Colonel's business for $2 million. Only seven years later, in 1971 Heublein, Inc., bought the KFC Corporation for $275 million. Then in 1986, for a whopping $840 million, PepsiCo added KFC to its conglomerate, which now includes Pizza Hut and Taco Bell. That means PepsiCo owns more fast food outlets than any other company including McDonald's.

At each KFC restaurant, workers blend real buttermilk with a dry blend to create the well-known KFC buttermilk biscuits recipe that have made a popular menu item since their introduction in 1982. Pair these buttermilk biscuits with my KFC mac and cheese recipe and the famous KFC Original Recipe Chicken to complete your meal.

Source: Top Secret Recipes by Todd Wilbur.

In collaboration with the YouTube talk show Hot Ones, Panda Express launched its spiciest dish yet, featuring a new sauce made with the treacherous Apollo chili pepper. The Apollo pepper was developed by renowned chili breeder Ed Currie, who also cultivated the Carolina Reaper, once rated the world’s hottest chili pepper. With a heat level of approximately 3 million Scoville units, the Apollo pepper is 1.4 times hotter than the Carolina Reaper.

For my Panda Express Blazing Bourbon Chicken copycat recipe, I knew it would be unreasonable to expect you to purchase Hot Ones’ The Last Dab Apollo Hot Sauce, the "secret" source of heat in the original dish. A bottle of that sauce costs around 30 bucks, and you would only need one drop, so my first order of business was to find a much cheaper substitute.

I settled on a ghost pepper sauce, which, at 1 million Scoville units, is one-third as hot as the Apollo. When ghost pepper is blended with other ingredients in a sauce, such as in Melinda’s Ghost Pepper Sauce (which I used for my clone), it becomes diluted, flavorful, and not overwhelming.

That ghost pepper sauce, combined with garlic, ginger, soy sauce, brown sugar, and a hint of bourbon, will create the perfect blend to mix with onion, bell pepper, and crispy chicken for a delicious, fiery, yet not overly spicy, home hack of this tasty, limited-time entrée.

Find more of my Panda Express copycat recipes here.

In 2021, for a limited time, Chipotle added smoked and sauced brisket to its line of signature meats. The tender brisket is seasoned with a blend of peppers, garlic, cumin, and coriander, then seared and tossed with a smoky barbecue sauce fused with traditional Mexican flavors. It’s a significant departure from the chain’s signature south-of-the-border protein offerings, and when the dish came back to the menu in 2024, it was a food hacking challenge I could not refuse.

For my Chipotle Smoked Brisket copycat recipe, I used the flat end of the brisket, as does the chain, and trimmed away the fat, so the seasoning blend came in direct contact with the meat. I let the seasoning sit on the meat for at least four hours, then I smoked it and mopped it a couple of times with a vinegar blend to help keep it moist and to wake up the flavor. When the brisket hit 165 degrees F, I covered it and let it continue cooking until the internal temperature reached 200 degrees F, and a beautiful dark crust formed. I wrapped the brisket in foil and a thick towel and placed it in a cooler for a couple of hours to rest, and then it was ready to serve.

Because the process took 12 to 14 hours, I found it best to refrigerate the smoked brisket until the next day, when it can be prepped for serving. When everyone's hungry, and you’re ready to serve the brisket, chop it, sear it, season it, and sauce it with this barbecue sauce made from typical barbecue sauce ingredients, plus peppers and cumin to bring out the spirit of Mexico.

And don’t worry if you don’t have a smoker. In the Tidbits below, I’ll tell you how to use your gas or charcoal grill to add beautiful smoke flavoring to your brisket, just like a legit smoker. 

Try more of my Chipotle copycat recipes here.

Tender pasta must swim in a thick, creamy white cheddar cheese sauce for a home mac and cheese recipe to perfectly match Panera’s take on the dish. The sauce must be smooth as silk and not at all grainy, as many cheddar cheese sauces, especially white cheddar sauces, can be. And the flavor must be so good that when you get to the bottom of the bowl, you instantly crave some more.

For my Panera Bread Mac & Cheese copycat recipe, you’ll want to use pipette pasta for the most similar clone, but any curvy pasta will do, such as elbows or small shells. The real secret here is the sauce, which can be a challenging hack since sharp cheese tends to melt poorly and create grainy and broken sauces, and all the white cheddar I found was either sharp or extra sharp.

With that melting challenge in mind, I chose to control the consistency of the sauce in three ways: with a flour roux, a cornstarch slurry, and by adding several slices of Kraft white American cheese Singles. That particular type of cheese contains sodium citrate, a magical additive that emulsifies the sauce and prevents the cheese from separating. If you can’t find Kraft Singles, look for another sliced white American cheese that contains sodium citrate. The flour and cornstarch are there to help thicken the sauce to the same consistency as the chain's delicious secret recipe.

Find more of your favorite Panera Bread copycat recipes here.

In 2024, Jack-in-the-Box introduced the chain’s best-reviewed burger, the Smashed Jack, with a ¼-pound “smashed-inspired” burger, grilled onions, and a new secret sauce. A press release from Jack-in-the-Box claimed that consumers in a taste test picked the new Smashed Jack as the best burger compared to McDonald’s, Wendy’s, and Burger King burgers.

You may have guessed that “smashed-inspired” means that these burgers aren’t prepared like burgers that are smashed with a press or heavy spatula on the grill—a process that triggers the Maillard reaction when amino acids and sugars are browned to give food a flavorful crust. But Jack-in-the-Box created a secret shortcut for speed and consistency that still gives the burgers that crust and the appearance of smashing without relying on cooks to actually smash them.

For my Jack-in-the-Box Smashed Jack copycat recipe, we’ll smash the burger for real, but we’ll start with a knockoff of the new Boss Sauce, which gets its smokey flavor from just a little bit of liquid smoke. Once that sauce is done, it’s time to cook the burger patty, which I found is best copied with ground Angus beef. Use a press or heavy spatula to press down on the burger as it cooks to create a browned crust on both sides of the patty.

After the burger is flipped, grilled onions are stacked on top, followed by American cheese. Then, the burger is finished with thick pickles and lots of your copycat Boss Sauce. This recipe shows you how to make one burger, but you’ll have enough leftover secret sauce to make several more.

If you're a fan of Jack in the Box Jumbo Jack or any of Jack's Shakes, or their famous tacos, click here for my clone recipes.

To ensure success for their new cookie store, cousins Sawyer Hemsley and Jason McGowan knew they had to start with a great cookie recipe. Batch after batch, the partners baked milk chocolate chip cookies and shared them with taste testers for helpful advice on improving the recipe until, finally, they had created the very best cookie. In 2017, the cousins opened their first Crumbl cookie store in Logan, Utah to sell their new milk chocolate chip cookies. Just 7 years and over 200 cookie recipes later, Crumbl had grown to over 900 stores throughout the U.S. and Canada, and the chain now sells over 1 million cookies a day. Each week, the rotating menu features 6 cookie flavors, but a few special cookies, like this classic Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chunk Cookie are almost always on the roster due to their popularity.

To create my Crumbl Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chunk Cookie copycat recipe, I started with the cookie chain’s list of ingredients. I designed a recipe using that information and then systematically tweaked the formula through more than 35 batches, making minor adjustments each time. Through that process, I discovered the best ratio of brown sugar to white sugar, and I found that baking the cookies at a higher temperature worked best for crispy edges and chewy middles. I also found that one egg isn’t enough, and two eggs are too much, so beating two eggs and measuring ¼ cup after the foam settled was the best method for consistent results.

Crumbl uses a large scoop to portion these cookies, but you can also use your hands to form the dough into mounds with rough tops. Be sure to bake the cookies on parchment paper. I found silicone baking mats too slippery, causing the cookies to spread from the bottom and split. Also, 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.

This was my #3 most popular recipe of 2024. Check out the other most popular recipes of the year: Old Spaghetti Factory Rich Meat Sauce (#1), Cracker Barrel Country Fried Steak (#2), Cheesecake Factory Steak Diane (#4), Portillo's Chocolate Cake (#5).

Check out this list of our most popular recipes of all-time.

The Old El Paso brand originated in 1917 as The Mountain Pass Canning Company, but its name changed when the company was sold to a new owner in El Paso, Texas. Initially, the company specialized in canned tomatoes and pinto beans, but it expanded its product line over the years. In 1969, Old El Paso became the first American company to offer a national line of Mexican meals in supermarkets and the first to advertise Mexican cuisine. This growing market for Mexican food, established by Old El Paso, is why U.S. stores created a Mexican food section for the first time in 1970.

Many of us who grew up with "family taco night" are familiar with the packet of spices added to browned ground beef for a quick and easy taco filling. When the seasoned beef is added to crispy or soft taco shells with your favorite combination of cheese, lettuce, tomato, avocado, or whatever, any day can be Taco Tuesday.

My Old El Paso Taco Seasoning Mix copycat recipe includes all the spices you'll need for a perfect match to the real thing, along with just the right amount of cornstarch to thicken it up. Plus, it's a cinch to make. Once you've mixed these ingredients in a small bowl, add the blend to one pound of cooked ground beef with water, cook until thick, and fill your tacos just like you did with the original recipe back in the day. 

Now, how about a cold margarita?

This oven-baked starter from Domino’s, which debuted in early 2023, reveals a great way to transform a boring bag of potato tots into a dish with pizzazz. The pizza chain’s Loaded Tots are built with a delicious pile of crispy potato tots topped with cheese, a secret sauce, and other good stuff that I probably should have been stacking on potato tots years ago.

For my hack, I picked the two best sellers of the three versions offered at Domino’s: Philly Cheesesteak and Cheddar Bacon. The Philly Cheesesteak version includes onion, green pepper, steak, and Alfredo sauce, and the Bacon Cheddar is topped with crispy crumbled bacon and garlic Parmesan sauce. Which one will you be making?  

Once you’ve decided, arrange a couple of dozen cooked tots on a baking sheet and generously cover them with the mozzarella and cheddar cheese blend, a few toppings, and the secret sauce hack. Then, bake for just 8 minutes until it’s all melty and magnificent.

Find more of my Domino's copycat recipes here.

A dish traditionally made with pork is redesigned for chicken in this Mexican chain’s limited-time-only sweet-and-spicy variation. All the key ingredients for good al pastor are here: pineapple, lime, achiote, and morita chipotle peppers, which come together to make a bright orange sauce for basting marinated chicken thighs.

The TV commercial for Chipotle’s new offering claims the morita peppers are seared and shows wild flames dancing around a pan filled with fresh green and red peppers. That is perhaps not an accurate depiction of the preparation process, considering that morita peppers are made by smoking red jalapeños, like chipotles, not green ones. And smoked jalapeños do not look like fresh jalapeños, so I'm not sure what's going on there in that pan.

Regardless of the confusing clues in the TV ad, to make my Chipotle Chicken Al Pastor copycat recipe, you'll want to find dry morita peppers, then remove the seeds and toast the peppers in your oven before making the secret sauce. Baste the sauce on your chicken just before it's done cooking, then chop it up and use it to make delicious tacos, burritos, salads, and bowls.

The chain’s popular appetizer brings three secret recipes together in one dish: the pretzels, the beer cheese, and the honey Dijon mustard dip. And I’ve got original hacks for all three formulas that will make enough for lots of bellies.

Bavarian pretzels are traditionally bathed in a lye solution before they’re baked to give them a dark shiny brown skin. Food-grade lye, when cooked, is safe to eat, but it’s not an ingredient usually found at the corner food store. So, to make my Applebee’s Beer Pub Pretzels recipe more convenient, I’m opting for a baking soda bath to darken these pretzels. They don’t have the same shine as lye-bathed pretzels, but if you use enough baking soda, your pretzels will come out beautifully caramel brown, just like the real thing.

For my Applebee’s Beer Cheese Dip recipe, I had to come up with a good way to melt white cheddar, which can be tricky since it’s hard to find mild (softer) white cheddar. Most white cheddar I found was either sharp or extra sharp, and when I made a sauce using a roux, the finished product came out much too grainy. On my next attempt, I tried a different approach by melting a chunk of Velveeta Queso Blanco in some milk before adding the shredded white cheddar. Thanks to sodium citrate, a cheese melting aid that’s in Velveeta, the sauce came out smooth as silk, and I was thrilled.

After your pretzels and beer cheese are done, mix up the easy honey Dijon mustard dipping sauce in a small bowl, and you’re ready to serve a gang of pretzel lovers with 12 Bavarian pretzel sticks and plenty of beer cheese and mustard sauce for dipping.

 Check out more of my cool copycat appetizers here. 

Traditional Irish potato soup—a simple formula made with potatoes, onions, stock, and cream—gets an upgrade with the addition of cheddar cheese, carrots, green onions, and sour cream in Jason’s Deli's delicious take on the classic recipe. These improvements result in a soup that’s not only easy to build but may also be the best-tasting potato soup I’ve hacked so far.

The secret to this soup hack is that it starts as a cheddar cheese sauce, which may raise concerns if you’ve ever made cheese sauce that melted poorly and became grainy. That won’t happen here if you use mild or medium cheddar cheese, as they melt better than sharp varieties. So, choose your cheddar wisely.

Also, shred the cheese yourself. Pre-shredded cheese won’t melt as smoothly because it’s drier and often dusted with cellulose or starch, and possibly other additives keep the shreds from clumping in the bag. For my Jason's Deli Irish Potato Soup recipe below, I highly recommend that you roll up your sleeves and hunt down the cheese shredder. 

Once everything is in the pot, simmer the soup for 45 minutes or until the potatoes are tender. You’ll have enough for eight bowls of soup, each topped with cheddar cheese and crumbled bacon, just like the real thing. 

Find more amazing copycat soup recipes here.

The demand for cooking oil began to slump in Taiwan in the 1970s, and Yang Bing Yi’s cooking oil shop, called Din Tai Fung, was struggling. To help support his family of five children, Yang converted one side of his store into a dumpling shop and sold steamed soup dumplings for take-out. When the dumpling business became far more lucrative than the cooking oil business, Yang stopped selling oil and converted his dumpling business into a full-service restaurant, and eventually a chain of dumpling restaurants.

The dumpling chain got a massive boost in 1993 when the New York Times named Din Tai Fung one of the top 10 restaurants in the world.  And now today, the chain has over 170 locations in 13 countries and serves a wide variety of Taiwanese food, but it’s the famous pork soup dumplings that bring the customers back.  

The Kurobuta Pork Xiao Long Bao, or pork soup dumplings, at Din Tai Fung are exceptional in a couple of ways. For one thing, the pork comes from Kurobuta black pigs, which are known as Berkshire pigs here in the U.S. The meat from these pigs is very tender and flavorful, and when you include all the fat from the shoulder in the grind, the filling here will practically melt in your mouth. For the best clone, you’ll need to track down a shoulder of Berkshire pork and get it ground up without trimming off any of the fat cap.

If you are familiar with the dumplings at Din Tai Fung, you know that they are beautiful. The dumplings are folded by masters who have trained for months, often making over a thousand dumplings until they are able to craft a perfect little pouch every time. The real Din Tai Fung dumplings have 18 pleats, pinched together with the thumb and forefinger of one hand as the other spins the pouch around. I’ve included instructions with step photos here in my Din Tai Fung pork soup dumplings recipe to help you, but perfect dumplings aren’t easy for beginners, so don’t worry if your xiao long bao don’t look as good as those made by the well-trained pros.

I tested different flours for the wrappers and found that extra fine “00” flour, often used for pizza and pasta, worked best here. The fine grind of the flour made folding the dumplings an easier task, and the wrappers were better at absorbing moisture from the steam. If you have trouble finding “00” flour, you can substitute with bleached all-purpose flour. And when you measure the flour, use grams for the best results.

I also found it easier to fold 22 dumplings with a Mai Tai. Here are some famous cocktail recipes to help you along.

About two centuries ago, a baker in Gouda, South Holland, Netherlands, created the first stroopwafel, a round waffle cookie split in half and filled with cinnamon-spiced caramel. Stroopwafels, meaning “syrup waffles,” gained immense popularity and became a traditional Dutch side nibble. Before eating, they were often placed over a hot cup of coffee or tea to warm the gooey caramel filling.

Daelmans, a bakery in southern Netherlands established in 1904 by Hermanus Daelmans, has become the world’s leading producer of Stroopwafels. The brand's recent success in the U.S. is partly due to United Airlines, which has been passing out the stroopwafels to grateful passengers on morning flights since 2016. That’s where I tasted my first Daelmans Stroopwafel—somewhere up in the air.

To clone Daelmans secret recipe we must start with a good waffle cookie, and to do that you’ll need a waffle cone maker or pizzelle maker (inexpensive ones like this can be found online). These devices create thin waffle cookies when fully closed, but by leaving a little breathing room, you can produce thicker waffle cookies that can be easily sliced in half with a butter knife before they cool completely.

Once your waffle cookie is punched out with a 3 3/8-inch biscuit cutter and sliced open, you’ll add a simple caramel filling that’s made by melting Kraft baking caramels (I like the unwrapped caramel bits) with cinnamon and vanilla. Press the top half of the waffle down onto the caramel and give it a little spin, and you’ve just hacked a decades-old world-famous food.

Check out my clones for famous cookies and brownies here. 

It's rumored that the secret ingredient in the signature crust of Gino’s East Deep Dish Pizza is cornmeal, and I understand why some might think that. The dough’s yellow color makes it look like cornbread, and it has a softer quality than most doughs; however, these characteristics come from other not-so-secret ingredients that have nothing to do with corn.

When three friends—Sam Levine, Fred Bartoli, and George Loverde—opened their pizza joint just off the Miracle Mile in Chicago, Illinois, in 1966, they hired the talented pizza chef Alice Mae Redmond, who created a special dough recipe that included a "secret" conditioner. Today, Gino's ships boxes of frozen pizzas across the country and is required by law to list all the ingredients on the package. Naturally, I ordered a few of those pizzas, then discovered from reading the box that the "secret" dough additive is cream of tartar, and the dough's yellow tint comes from beta-carotene, a natural source of yellow coloring. I also noticed the absence of cornmeal. With that intel and multiple test batches over several days, I eventually had a respectable Gino’s East Deep Dish replica.

To make this cloned deep dish crust at home, start your dough one to two days in advance. A slow, chilled rise will improve the quality and taste of your finished crust, bringing it closer to resembling the real thing. I include cream of tartar here in our knockoff, just like in the original dough, along with yellow food coloring to achieve the proper tint.

My Gino's East Deep Dish Pizza recipe makes a plain cheese pizza, but if you want toppings (sausage, pepperoni, bacon, onions, mushrooms, peppers, etc.), arrange them on top of the cheese before applying the sauce. That's how they do it.