
For over 30 years I've been deconstructing America's most iconic brand-name foods to make the best original clone recipes for you to use at home. Welcome to my lab.
This Week's Big Secrets
This Week's Big Secrets
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BJ's Restaurant and Brewhouse Root Beer Glazed Ribs
Read moreThe secret recipe for BJ’s great fall-off-the-bone ribs requires a specialty moist oven called a CVap, made specifically for commercial kitchens, with a price tag in the thousands of dollars. This controlled vapor oven cooks food with moist heat to braise meats, like ribs, so they're fork-tender. If you want to make ribs like that at home, but don’t have a CVap in your kitchen (or if yours is currently in the shop) you’ll need to incorporate a similar technique using a standard conventional oven. And that’s where I can help.
For my BJ’s Root Beer Glazed Ribs recipe, I first made a hack of the Big Poppa’s rub the chain uses to season the ribs, then I cooked the seasoned ribs on a rack over water mixed with liquid smoke. The liquid smoke infuses the ribs with smoke flavor, and the water in the pan will keep the ribs from drying out. Once the ribs are cooled, they are sliced, sauced, and reheated in a super-hot oven to simulate the pizza oven used at BJ’s.
When buying your ribs, pick the smallest rack of ribs with the least meat to better resemble the real recipe. Also, you’ll want to plan ahead for this recipe since the ribs take several hours to bake and chill before they’re finished in the hot oven before serving. Because of that long slow-bake time, you’ll want to start this dish early in the day, or even the day before.
Find more of my B.J.'s copycat recipes here.
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Shake Shack ShackBurger
Read moreSeveral puzzles had to be solved to make a satisfying hack of the signature sandwich from the rapidly expanding New York chain. First, our burger must include a spot-on facsimile of the secret ShackSauce. I got a sample of the sauce from one of our Las Vegas Shake Shacks and determined the seven common ingredients, including pickle juice, to combine for a great Shake Shack sauce recipe.
Second, the burger must be made with a special ground mix of four different cuts of beef and the patties need to be cooked the right way. I tested many combinations of meat until I landed on a flavorful blend of chuck, brisket, skirt steak, and short ribs. If you don't have a meat grinder at home, you can have your butcher grind these for you. At the restaurant, the ground beef blend is formed into ¼-pound pucks that are smashed onto the grill with a metal press. Grab a strong spatula and heat up a heavy skillet.
And third, you'll need some soft, buttered and toasted potato buns to hold it all together. Shake Shack uses Martin's rolls, which are not cut all the way through, allowing the buns to be hinged open for loading. If you can’t find Martin’s, any soft potato rolls will do.
Use these secrets and follow the easy steps below, and soon you’ll be biting into a perfect re-creation of Shake Shack Shackbuger. The famous cheeseburger that helped this chain grow from a single food cart in New York City to over 162 stores.
Try my Shake Shack Shackburger recipe below, and pair it with my copycat vanilla milkshake recipe.
Source: Top Secret Recipes Unleashed by Todd Wilbur.
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Romano's Macaroni Grill Lemon Passion Cake
Read moreMenu Description: "Citrus cake soaked in a sweet cream, topped with lemon mousse and finished off with our fresh Italian whipped cream and caramel."
When creating this delicious dessert, chefs at Romano's must have been thinking about Tres Leches Cake that is popular throughout Latin America. The traditional Mexican recipe describes a dense vanilla cake soaked with three types of milk: whole milk, sweetened condensed milk, and evaporated milk. This creates a very moist and rich dessert that is an excellent finish to pretty much any meal. Romano's twist on the traditional favorite is the addition of citrus juices to the cake, a creamier soaking liquid, and a tangy lemon topping.I first tried re-creating the cake with boxed mixes, but they all produce cakes that are much too light and moist, and inevitably turn to mush when soaked in the sweet liquid. The final solution is a scratch cake recipe yielding denser, yet still moist citrus cake, that holds up to the eventual drenching. You will want to eat this dessert within a day or two of the soaking, or it may start to fall apart. Store any leftovers in the fridge.
Try my Romano's Lemon Passion Cake recipe below, and check out my popular recipe for Romano's Macaroni Grill Penne Rustica here.
Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 3 by Todd Wilbur. -
Wingstop Original Hot Chicken Wings
Read moreMuch of Wingstop’s success can be pinned on its great selection of unique wing flavors such as Korean, Louisiana Rub, Garlic Parmesan, and Hawaiian. But it’s the traditional buffalo-style hot wings that are one of the top two picks at the 1,124-unit chicken wing chain (the other one is Lemon Pepper).
The chain’s buffalo-style sauce is darker red than most buffalo wing sauces, which are typically made by combining Frank’s RedHot sauce with melted butter. Frank’s is more orange than red, so I set out to find an alternative Louisiana-style hot sauce that looked the part.
My market had several other Louisiana hot sauces, but the one whose color best matched Wingstop was called “The Original Louisiana Brand Hot Sauce.” This particular vinegar-and-pepper hot sauce has been around for over 90 years, and it has the right color and flavor to make a great knockoff of the wing sauce. You’ll just need to add a few more ingredients, including butter, and it’s ready for saucing your wings.
If you can’t find The Original Louisiana Hot Sauce, you can use another Louisiana-style sauce, such as Crystal, Bulliard’s, or even Frank’s, and although your wings won’t look quite the same as Wingstop’s, they’ll still taste similar.
Try my Wingstop Original Hot Wings recipe below, and find more of my copycat appetizer recipes here.
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Olive Garden Sicilian Cheesecake
Read moreMenu Description: “Ricotta cheesecake with a shortbread cookie crust, topped with seasonal strawberry sauce.”
Soft ricotta cheese adds a comforting creaminess to this signature cheesecake, and for a tasty twist, the traditional graham cracker crust has been swapped out for a giant shortbread cookie. If you like cheesecake, you’ll definitely want to give this hack of the top dessert a try.
For my Olive Garden Sicilian Cheesecake recipe, I made the shortbread crust easy with only 5 ingredients. Just mix it, form it, bake it, and let it cool while you work on the filling. And if you pull all the cheese out of the fridge ahead of time to soften up, your cheesecake will be silkier and have fewer lumps. Do the same with the eggs.
It's also a good idea to start with quality whole milk ricotta that is smooth and creamy, without a grainy or lumpy texture. The best ones include Calabro, BelGioioso, Sorrento, and White Rose whole milk ricottas. Try to find one of those. And by baking it in a water bath as described here you’ll produce a delicious thick cheesecake, with a perfect creamy texture, that won’t crack as it cools.
Find more of my Olive Garden copycat recipes here.
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McDonald's Strawberry and Creme Pie
Read moreTiny apple pies have been a signature dessert on the McDonald’s menu for decades, but the chain upped its pie game recently with a tasty new treat featuring a duo of fillings in a flaky, lightly-iced crust. And no one has developed a good hack...until now.
To duplicate these personal McDonald's Strawberry and Crème pies at home, I’ve created a new crust formula and filled it with thickened, puréed frozen strawberries next to a sweetened cream cheese filling. You'll find everything you'll need in my McDonald's Strawberry and Cream Pie recipe below.
To apply the perfect amount of filling, you can convert small plastic storage bags into mini piping bags by snipping off a corner. Squeeze the fillings onto the dough, then seal up the pies, brush them with light icing, and pop them in the oven. This recipe makes ten pies, which is a good thing because everyone who watches you make these will want one.
Find my McDonald's Apple Pie recipe in "Top Secret Recipes Step-by-Step".
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Jason's Deli Irish Potato Soup
Read moreTraditional Irish potato soup—a simple formula made with potatoes, onions, stock, and cream—gets an upgrade with cheddar cheese, carrots, green onions, and sour cream in Jason’s Deli's delicious take on the classic recipe. These improvements make a great soup that's still easy to make, but it also may be the best-tasting potato soup I’ve ever hacked.
The secret to this soup recipe is that it starts life as a cheddar cheese sauce, which may worry you if you’ve ever made cheese sauce that wound up “grainy." But that won’t happen here if you're sure to use mild or medium cheddar cheese. Older (sharper) cheddar contains less water and doesn’t melt as well as younger cheese, so the first important step is to choose your cheddar wisely.
Also, shred your own cheese. Pre-shredded cheese won’t melt as well, since shredded cheese is usually drier and often dusted with cornstarch to keep the shreds from clumping. For my Jason's Deli Irish Potato Soup recipe below, I highly recommend that you shred your own cheese to get the best results.
After an hour or so of simmering, you’ll have eight beautiful bowls of soup, all topped with cheddar cheese and crumbled bacon before serving, just like the real thing.
Find more amazing copycat soup recipes here.
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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 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. -
Lawry's Taco Spices and Seasonings
Read moreThis is my clone recipe for the stuff you buy in 1-ounce packets to create, as the package says, "a fun-filled Mexican fiesta in minutes." Ah, so true. In fact, thanks to Lawry's, my last Mexican fiesta was filled with so much fun that I had to take a siesta. And I promise you just as much fun with my Lawry's Taco Spices and Seasonings recipe below. Maybe even a tad more. Just mix the ingredients together in a small bowl, then add it to 1 pound of browned ground beef along with some water and let it simmer. Before you know it, you'll be up to your nostrils in good old-fashioned, taco-making fun.
Now, how about a cold margarita?
Source: Even More Top Secret Recipes by Todd Wilbur.
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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 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 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 than 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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Qdoba Tortilla Soup
Read moreUnlike most tortilla soup recipes, Qdoba doesn’t use chicken broth for the soup base, so this recipe, without the garnishes, is vegan. I tried using a vegetable broth base, but every brand I tried sent the recipe in the wrong direction. As a last resort, I tried the soup again with Knorr vegetable bouillon cubes, and…bingo. The bouillon added perfect flavor, and all was good.
For my Qdoba Tortilla Soup recipe, you’ll need to roast some peppers, but after that, the recipe is a straightforward chop-and-simmer, and you should have a very easy time with it.
This soup gets garnished with sour cream, shredded cheese, and fried tortilla strips, but you can upgrade your soup by adding chopped adobo chicken (from the TSR version of Qdoba Adobo Chicken), black beans, rice, pico de gallo, and minced cilantro. Now you’ve just cloned the chain’s Loaded Tortilla Soup, and you’re a better person for it.
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T.G.I. Friday's Dragonfire Chicken
Read moreMenu Description: "Marinated chicken breast topped with fiery kung pao sauce, mandarin oranges and pineapple pico de gallo."
This Friday's low-fat creation does not skimp on flavor. A marinade, a spicy sauce, and a fresh salsa all pitch in for some big-time taste bud satisfaction. Sprinkle mandarin orange sections over the top if you've got 'em, and you will completely re-create the look and taste of this great dish at home.
Try my T.G.I. Friday's Dragonfire chicken recipe below, and click here for dessert ideas.
Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 3 by Todd Wilbur.
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Olive Garden Zeppoli
Read moreTraditional Italian doughnuts are often made with soft choux dough dropped by a spoon into the oil, resulting in light and crispy puff pastries. Others—like what Olive Garden serves—are made with tighter dough for a finished product that is more substantial, like beignets. That's the pastry you'll be making here, and it's pretty darn easy, once you know the secret dough formula.
In Italy, Zeppoles (Olive Garden changed the spelling a bit) are often filled with fruit or jelly and always come dusted with granulated or powdered sugar. In this case, Olive Garden's Zeppolis are unfilled with dipping sauce on the side, and they're tossed in extra-fine granulated sugar (baker’s sugar).
At the restaurant, you get a plate of warm Zeppolis with your choice of raspberry sauce or chocolate sauce. But why choose? My Olive Garden Zeppolis recipe here makes 2 dozen pillowy pastries, which you can serve with both raspberry and chocolate dipping sauces, or with any sweet sauce you like.
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Carrabba's Cannoli Cake for Two
Read moreCannoli lovers flip out when they taste this three-deck homemade vanilla cake, built with delicious layers of creamy ricotta cheese cannoli filling. Serve up a giant slice on a plate drizzled with chocolate sauce, and sprinkle it with chopped pistachios for the ultimate cannoli/cake mash-up.
The ricotta filling here comes from my original Carrabba’s Cannoli recipe. It's a recipe that could come in handy if you’re looking to make the optional garnish of a mini cannoli for the top of the cake. The only difference will be that you’re making small cannoli, so if you opt for this extra step, you’ll need to use mini cannoli tubes to make the shells, or buy pre-made mini cannoli shells.
The vanilla cake recipe here is my original creation, and it will make enough batter to fill 3 (9-inch) pans, which are best cooked at the same time. If you don’t have that many pans, use what you have and cook the cakes in stages, cooling the pan(s) between batches.
When shopping for ricotta, you want smooth whole milk ricotta. If your ricotta is too grainy, don't worry. You can smooth out the filling to make it more like the real thing by pureeing it in a food processor or blender until it's smooth.
Try my exclusive Carrabba's Cannoli Cake for Two recipe below, and find more of my Carrabba's copycat recipes here.
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Original Pancake House 49'er Flap Jacks
Read moreThese flat, crepe-like flapjacks are reminiscent of the hotcakes eaten by miners during the California Gold Rush of 1849, and they're also a signature dish at the Original Pancake House chain. These beauties are thin, slightly chewy, somewhat sweet, and so big they cover your entire plate. And a home hack is one of the easiest things you’ll ever cook. Because morning food shouldn’t be complicated.
Making my Original Pancake House 49'er pancake recipe is a simple matter of mixing up a thin pancake batter and cooking it in a pan coated with clarified butter. Clarified butter has the milk solids removed, so it won’t brown, and I’ll show you how to make it in the first step. The Original Pancake House uses clarified butter, so we should do the same.
Swirl the batter in the butter to the edges of your pan, cook it for a couple of minutes, then flip it over and cook it for another minute. Stack the warm flapjacks on a plate and serve them with soft butter and maple syrup on the side.
Also, check out my version of the Original Pancake House Apple Pancake for a decadent cinnamon apple-filled delight.
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P.F. Chang's Short Rib Fried Rice
Read moreFried rice is one of life’s simple pleasures, but add kimchi, edamame, mushrooms, tender short rib, and a wasabi-mayo drizzle, and you’ve just elevated a common dish to something truly special. That’s why P.F. Chang’s new Short Rib Fried Rice is so popular. And that’s why it needed to be cloned, ASAP.
As with my recipe for P.F. Chang’s Fire-Braised Short Ribs, you’ll make a tasty braising liquid with Chinese cooking wine, soy sauce, hoisin sauce, oyster sauce, brown sugar, green onions, and garlic, to pour over your short ribs before they slow-cook in your oven for 3 hours.
When you're ready to serve the dish, dice the cooled short ribs, then sear them and add them to the rice along with all the other ingredients in a hot pan or wok over high heat.
Plate the rice, drizzle wasabi-mayo sauce over the top, sprinkle on some fresh chopped green onions, and serve up a spot-on clone of the hit dish, and possibly the best fried rice you’ve ever crafted.
Try my P.F. Chang's Short Rib Fried Rice recipe below, and find more popular P.F. Chang's copycat recipes here.
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Chipotle Tomatillo-Red Chili Salsa
Read moreThis is my go-to salsa at Chipotle, so it was only a matter of time before I tackled a hack for the famous secret recipe. And now that I can make it at home with just 7 ingredients and about 20 minutes of prep, this salsa replaces several grocery store brands I was previously loyal to.
The process for my Chipotle red chili Salsa recipe is simple: roast tomatillos, Fresno peppers, and garlic under your broiler for a few minutes, then purée everything in a blender with vinegar and seasoning. The trick is to not over-blend the mixture. Once the tomatillos are added, purée the mixture until no chunks of tomatillo are visible, but stop blending while you can still see tomatillo seeds in the sauce.
Add this great-tasting salsa to anything that needs a hit of hotness—tacos, burritos, salads, and bowls. Just know that it's a hack of Chipotle’s spiciest salsa, so be ready for the boom.
You could also use this great salsa on Chipotle's famous barbacoa, carnitas, carne asada, or pollo asado. Find all of those recipes and more here.
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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 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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Din Tai Fung Kurobuta Pork Xiao Long Bao (Pork Soup Dumplings)
Read moreThe 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.
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Maggiano's Mozzarella Marinara
Read moreMaggiano’s transforms a normally ho-hum finger food appetizer into a beautiful starter with thick breaded chunks of mozzarella topped with more melted mozzarella and a delicious top secret marinara sauce.
To make a dish at home that looks and tastes like the original, you'll just need to cut three slices off a 2-pound block of mozzarella. After breading the cheese using the technique here, let the mozzarella rest for a bit while you make the marinara so that the breading sticks better when the cheese chunks get fried.
My original Maggiano's Mozzarella Marinara recipe will produce three slices of crispy cheese, just like in the photo. And if you want a bigger serving, you’ll have enough breading and marinara to double up on the recipe for a total of six breaded cheese slices.
If you like Maggiano's, you'll also love my copycat recipe for Maggiano's Beef Tenderloin Medallions.
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Wendy's Hot Chili Seasoning
Read moreThe little red packets of viscous hot sauce at the fast food giant have a cult following of rabid fans who will do whatever it takes to get their hands on large quantities. One such fan of the sauce commented online, "Are there any Wendy's employees or managers out there who will mail me an entire case of Hot Chili Seasoning? I swear this is not a joke. I love the stuff. I tip extra cash to Wendy's workers to get big handfuls of the stuff." Well, there's really no need to tip any Wendy's employees, because now you can make as much as you want in your own kitchen with my Wendy's Hot Chili Seasoning recipe below.
The ingredients listed on the real Hot Chili Seasoning are water, corn syrup, salt, distilled vinegar, natural flavors, xanthan gum, and extractives of paprika. We'll use many of those same ingredients for our clone, but we'll substitute gelatin for the xanthan gum (a thickener) to get the slightly gooey consistency right. For the natural flavor and color we'll use cayenne pepper, cumin, paprika, and garlic powder, then filter the particles out with a fine wire-mesh strainer after they've contributed what the sauce needs.
My recipe makes 5 ounces of sauce— just the right amount to fit nicely into a used hot sauce bottle—and costs just pennies to make.
Try this hot seasoning on a homemade bowl of Wendy's Chili.
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Rao's Traditional Meatballs
Read moreTweaking a classic recipe with a few special prep tricks leaked to me by a server was the key to developing this spot-on hack for the famous meatballs from the iconic 125-year-old Italian dining room. With just two locations in the U.S. (Los Angeles and New York), sinking your fork into a fresh meatball at the restaurant requires quite a trip for most people, but my Rao's Traditional Meatballs recipe, refined through multiple batches, will make you a meatball master in your own kitchen, producing ten 5½-ounce meatballs that look and taste like the real thing.
Fortunately, I could squeeze in a reservation at the Las Vegas Rao’s location a few weeks before it closed its doors forever at Caesar’s Palace in late November 2021. While there, I made sure to ask my server for any information about the recipe, and was informed about the secret two-step process described in this hack to create giant meatballs that are cooked through, but so moist that they practically crumble when cut with a fork.
Rao’s has shared a meatball recipe in the past, but don’t be fooled. That recipe produces decent meatballs, but they are not the same as what’s served in the restaurant. If you want to make meatballs that taste like the classic original, use my Rao's meatballs recipe below.
And when they're done, top the meatballs with your favorite marinara or use my hack here to re-create Rao’s famous sauce.
This recipe was our #1 most popular in 2022. Check out the other four most unlocked recipes for the year: Chipotle Pollo Asado (#2), Wendy's Seasoned Potatoes (#3), Cheesecake Factory Spicy Cashew Chicken (#4), McDonald's Chicken McNuggets (#5).
You might also like my #1 recipe of 2021, Panda Express Chow Mein.
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Chipotle Pollo Asado
Read moreIn 2022, for the first time in its 29-year history, Chipotle debuted a new style of grilled chicken, and it became an instant hit. At least it was at the Chipotle near me, where the Pollo Asado was ordered more than any other protein, according to servers there. But the new flavor is for a limited-time-only, and when it’s gone, my exclusive Chipotle Pollo Asado recipe may be the only way to satisfy your deep desire.
It appears that Chipotle’s new chicken is marinated in a vacuum meat tumbler similar to the way the Mexican chicken chain El Pollo Loco does it. I sure wish I had one of those awesome tumblers because they speed up and improve the marinating process, producing moist chicken packed with flavor all the way through. But those tumblers are expensive and bulky, and I have absolutely zero space left in my kitchen to store one. So, an overnight marinade, along with a bit of patience, must suffice.
The next day, grill your marinated chicken, chop it up, toss it with the secret citrusy sauce hacked here, add some fresh cilantro and lime juice, then use it as you see fit on burritos, tacos, salads, and bowls.
Try my Chipotle Pollo Asado recipe below and find more of my Chipotle recipes here.
This recipe was our #2 most popular in 2022. Check out the other four most unlocked recipes for the year: Rao's Traditional Meatballs (#1), Wendy's Seasoned Potatoes (#3), Cheesecake Factory Spicy Cashew Chicken (#4), McDonald's Chicken McNuggets (#5).
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Wendy's Seasoned Potatoes
Read moreReviewers of Wendy’s tasty seasoned potatoes point out that the skin-on slices stay crispy even when cool. That tells us the breading is most likely made with a non-wheat flour blend, an assumption confirmed by the website ingredients list for the potatoes where nary a gram of wheat flour is included. Yep, these seasoned potatoes are gluten-free.
Wendy’s uses a blend of food starches plus rice flour for the breading on their version, but my tests confirmed that cornstarch is all you’ll need for a great clone of Wendy's seasoned potatoes. The secret process starts by coating the potato slices with the dry breading mix, which contains salt. The salt in the blend will draw water out of the potatoes, magically transforming the dry breading into a wet batter in about 20 minutes.
When all the breading is wet, the potatoes go into the oil for partial frying. After resting a bit, they get dropped in again until golden brown and crispy. And, thanks to the cornstarch, these potatoes will stay crispy, even when they’re completely cool. Pretty cool right? Give my Wendy's seasoned potatoes recipe a try.
This recipe was our #3 most popular in 2022. Check out the other four most unlocked recipes for the year: Rao's Traditional Meatballs (#1), Chipotle Pollo Asado (#2), Cheesecake Factory Spicy Cashew Chicken (#4), McDonald's Chicken McNuggets (#5).
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Steak 'N Shake The Original Double 'N Cheese Steakburger
Read moreRather than adding any seasoning, including salt and pepper, to their classic Steakburgers, Steak 'N Shake solely relies on the Maillard reaction for flavor. This is the browning that occurs when amino acids and sugars combine with high heat. I was able to peek into the grilling station at the restaurant to see cooks squashing ground beef "pucks" flat onto the hot grill to trigger the fast browning process. This was good information, but no amount of spying into the kitchen provided me with any information about which cuts of beef are used to make those burgers.
The term "Steakburger" doesn't tell us much, since practically any cut of beef can be a steak until it's ground up, and there are conflicting reports about which cuts up beef are used. One article I found states that the burgers are made with chuck, rib-eye, and brisket, while another claims it's a combination of ground round, sirloin, and T-bone steaks. A waiter at the restaurant told me it's all from porterhouse steak, which is both strip and tenderloin.
Completely confused by my research, I decided to bust out the meat grinder and taste test all three combinations, plus several others. My tests paid off. Follow my Steak 'N Shake Double 'N Cheese Steakburger recipe, and you'll have a perfect match to the eighty-year old Midwest original.
Get the full recipe in Top Secret Recipes Step-by-Step by Todd Wilbur.
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Steak 'N Shake Classic Genuine Chili
Read moreExamining the list of ingredients on a can of this 500-unit Midwestern chain's chili reveals a traditional chili con carne formula with beans as the only vegetable ingredient. There is no tomato sauce in the recipe, as stated by Internet copycats. Nor is there any chocolate or cola in the mix, as some recipes claim.
Rinsing a portion of the chili through a wire mesh strainer reveals both small bits and large chunks of tender meat in the chili. But, what kind of met is it? Well, considering the significant amount of fat floating on top of the chili and the tenderness of the chunks, I concluded that it's most likely an inexpensive, heavily marbled cut that braises well. Most likely chuck. Get 8 ounces ground up, and another 8 ounces that you slice into bite-sized chunks. The flour and the cornstarch are added to my Steak 'N Shake chili recipe to simulate modified food starch, and the dry beef bouillon punches up the flavor along with all the spices. After a two-hour simmer, serve this chili in a bowl on its own, or with shredded cheese and onion on top, or on top of spaghetti noodles in traditional Midwestern style.
Get the full recipe in Top Secret Recipes Step-by-Step by Todd Wilbur.
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BJ's Restaurant and Brewhouse Root Beer Glazed Ribs
Read moreThe secret recipe for BJ’s great fall-off-the-bone ribs requires a specialty moist oven called a CVap, made specifically for commercial kitchens, with a price tag in the thousands of dollars. This controlled vapor oven cooks food with moist heat to braise meats, like ribs, so they're fork-tender. If you want to make ribs like that at home, but don’t have a CVap in your kitchen (or if yours is currently in the shop) you’ll need to incorporate a similar technique using a standard conventional oven. And that’s where I can help.
For my BJ’s Root Beer Glazed Ribs recipe, I first made a hack of the Big Poppa’s rub the chain uses to season the ribs, then I cooked the seasoned ribs on a rack over water mixed with liquid smoke. The liquid smoke infuses the ribs with smoke flavor, and the water in the pan will keep the ribs from drying out. Once the ribs are cooled, they are sliced, sauced, and reheated in a super-hot oven to simulate the pizza oven used at BJ’s.
When buying your ribs, pick the smallest rack of ribs with the least meat to better resemble the real recipe. Also, you’ll want to plan ahead for this recipe since the ribs take several hours to bake and chill before they’re finished in the hot oven before serving. Because of that long slow-bake time, you’ll want to start this dish early in the day, or even the day before.
Find more of my B.J.'s copycat recipes here.
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Jason's Deli Irish Potato Soup
Read moreTraditional Irish potato soup—a simple formula made with potatoes, onions, stock, and cream—gets an upgrade with cheddar cheese, carrots, green onions, and sour cream in Jason’s Deli's delicious take on the classic recipe. These improvements make a great soup that's still easy to make, but it also may be the best-tasting potato soup I’ve ever hacked.
The secret to this soup recipe is that it starts life as a cheddar cheese sauce, which may worry you if you’ve ever made cheese sauce that wound up “grainy." But that won’t happen here if you're sure to use mild or medium cheddar cheese. Older (sharper) cheddar contains less water and doesn’t melt as well as younger cheese, so the first important step is to choose your cheddar wisely.
Also, shred your own cheese. Pre-shredded cheese won’t melt as well, since shredded cheese is usually drier and often dusted with cornstarch to keep the shreds from clumping. For my Jason's Deli Irish Potato Soup recipe below, I highly recommend that you shred your own cheese to get the best results.
After an hour or so of simmering, you’ll have eight beautiful bowls of soup, all topped with cheddar cheese and crumbled bacon before serving, just like the real thing.
Find more amazing copycat soup recipes here.
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Chipotle Tomatillo-Red Chili Salsa
Read moreThis is my go-to salsa at Chipotle, so it was only a matter of time before I tackled a hack for the famous secret recipe. And now that I can make it at home with just 7 ingredients and about 20 minutes of prep, this salsa replaces several grocery store brands I was previously loyal to.
The process for my Chipotle red chili Salsa recipe is simple: roast tomatillos, Fresno peppers, and garlic under your broiler for a few minutes, then purée everything in a blender with vinegar and seasoning. The trick is to not over-blend the mixture. Once the tomatillos are added, purée the mixture until no chunks of tomatillo are visible, but stop blending while you can still see tomatillo seeds in the sauce.
Add this great-tasting salsa to anything that needs a hit of hotness—tacos, burritos, salads, and bowls. Just know that it's a hack of Chipotle’s spiciest salsa, so be ready for the boom.
You could also use this great salsa on Chipotle's famous barbacoa, carnitas, carne asada, or pollo asado. Find all of those recipes and more 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 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 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 than 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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IHOP Thick 'N Fluffy French Toast
Read moreIHOP upped its French toast game in 2022 with the introduction of a new recipe that suggests your French toast is only as good as the bread you start with, and IHOP’s new Thick ‘N Fluffy French Toast starts with thick specialty artisan bread, rather than the more commonly used Texas toast white bread.
For my IHOP Thick 'N Fluffy French Toast recipe, you can use any thick-sliced bread from your bakery, but there are two national brands that work well: Nature’s Own Perfectly Crafted Thick-Sliced White Bread and Sara Lee Artisano. Either of those will do, but of the two, Nature’s Own is shaped more like IHOP’s version.
Adding vanilla and a little cinnamon to the easy batter will set these waffles apart from most others, and in no time, you’ll have 6 beautiful slices of French toast for a total of 3 servings. Dust them with a little powdered sugar, add some butter and maple syrup on the side, and it’s like you just opened a mini IHOP in your house.
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KFC Buffalo Ranch Sauce
Read moreThe dipping sauce mashup that KFC debuted in late 2022 combines a smooth and creamy ranch sauce with the sour heat of cayenne pepper sauce. You might expect that a homemade version is as simple as combining ranch dressing with Frank’s RedHot in a bowl, but that did not result in a good clone.
Creating my KFC Buffalo Ranch Sauce recipe from scratch was the way to go. It takes less than 10 minutes to combine these 12 ingredients in a bowl, and after 30 minutes in the fridge, you’ll have ¾ cup of the new sauce for dipping your tenders and nuggets, or as a spread on crispy chicken sandwiches.
The color of this sauce will not be as bright orange as the real one, which is colored with paprika and annatto extractives. If you want your sauce to be more orange like the original, add the optional red and yellow food coloring as specified in the recipe to brighten it up.
I've cloned a lot of other stuff from KFC. See if I hacked your favorites here.
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Chipotle Garlic Guajillo Steak
Read moreIn the Fall of 2022, Chipotle debuted Garlic Guajillo Steak, a variation of the chain’s classic steak made with a new secret seasoning starring the fruity and slightly smokey flavor of dry guajillo peppers, and, surprisingly, prepared using a gourmet French slow-cooking technique.
After an outbreak of E. coli bacteria at Chipotle infected 53 people in nine states, the chain changed the way it cooks steak. Rather than cooking the beef entirely on a Plancha, or flat griddle, Chipotle now pre-cooks the steaks with the sous vide method wherein vacuum-packed seasoned beef is cooked slowly in swirling, heated water. This cooking technique not only eliminates any potentially harmful bacteria before the beef is grilled, but it will also speed up the seasoning process and help tenderize tougher cuts.
But you shouldn't worry if you don’t have a sous vide setup. My Chipotle Garlic Guajillo Steak recipe will also work by simply chilling the seasoned steak overnight in a zip-top bag and later cooking it off in a heavy pan or on a hot griddle. After slicing the cooked steak, toss it with some freshly squeezed lime juice and fresh cilantro, and use it as you see fit for tacos, burritos, bowls, and salads.
If you prefer chicken, head over to my clone recipe for Chipotle's Pollo Asado.
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Lucille’s Smokehouse Bar-B-Que Cracked Out Deviled Eggs
Read moreThe West Coast barbecue chain introduced these creative deviled eggs with the eye-catching name as a limited-time-only offer, but sales were so good that Lucille’s Cracked Out Deviled Eggs is now a permanent fixture on the menu.
For this dish, the deviled egg yolks are combined with a blend of bacon, green onion, red bell pepper, and the chain’s delicious barbecue blend, then arranged on crispy onion straws with seasoned chicken cracklings poked down into the top of each egg. These tasty deviled eggs are unlike any you've had before and all the secrets you need to make a perfect copy at home are "cracked" for you here, including my newly hacked recipe for the delicious onion straws.
Two chicken thighs will provide enough skin for you to make plenty of the cracklings, and I’ll give you all the prep details in the recipe below, along with a couple of good ways to hard cook your eggs. If you steam your eggs as described, and if they’re fresh, you’ll have no ugly green ring around the yolk and the shells will practically fall off.
Find more of your favorite famous appetizer recipes here.
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Burger King French Toast Sticks
Read moreMany fast food chains have offered French toast sticks over the years, including McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Sonic, Roy Rogers, and Jack in the Box, but Burger King was first to introduce the morning finger food way back in 1985, and if staying power is any indication of preference, then BK is most deserving of this new top secret recipe.
Burger King French Toast Sticks are a perfect fast food item, since they come pre-battered and par-fried, and workers just need to toss a few frozen sticks into the fryer next to the French fries for 3 or 4 minutes, and they’re ready to go, along with a handy dipper pack of maple-flavored syrup.
But no deep-frying is necessary here for my French toast sticks recipe. Instead, you’ll cook your quartered and battered white bread slices in a combination of butter and oil in a sauté pan for a couple of minutes per side, or until the sticks are nicely browned. Serve them with a side of warm maple syrup, and you can even add a dusting of powdered sugar on top if you want to get fancy about it.
Next time you make breakfast, mix things up with some of these as a sweet, easy-to-eat starter.
Find recipes for more of your favorite items from Burger King here.
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Chili's Secret Sauce Burger
Read moreIn 2021, Chili’s added a new burger to its menu lineup of Big Mouth Burgers, and this one comes with a big saucy secret.
Chili's Secret Sauce Burger is simple in construction with a soft brioche bun, a huge ½-pound patty, sliced lettuce, and American cheese. It’s also got sautéed onion piled on it, which sets this burger recipe apart from typical fast food fare, but it’s the secret sauce that makes this big burger rock.
The sauce used on this burger is the same sauce the chain initially created for Chili’s Big Mouth Chicken Sandwich—a formula that appears to be inspired by the popular chicken sandwich sauce made famous at Chick-fil-A. You can make my Chili's Secret Sauce recipe revealed here in just a couple of minutes with a simple combination of mayonnaise, ketchup, barbecue sauce, honey, and mustard, plus a little turmeric to add a golden tint.
As for the burger patties, get ground chuck that has a fat content of at least 20%, or grind your own. As the burgers cook, press down on them with a spatula to release the melting fat like they do in the restaurant. This will trigger the Maillard reaction that browns the meat and adds a flavorful crust to your burgers, so your homemade Chili's Secret Sauce Burgers will taste just as good as the original.
Find more of your favorite recipes for Chili's famous dishes here.
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Terry Ho's Spicy Yum Yum Sauce
Read moreThe most famous recipe from Terry Ho’s Hibachi Express chain of fast casual Japanese restaurants located in Georgia and Alabama is the secret orange sauce served alongside every meal. In 2012, Terry bottled his famous Yum Yum sauce, claiming on the label that it’s “the best sauce ever” and is “good on everything.”
I chose to hack the kicked-up spicier version of the sauce since it had more character than the milder original version, but if this version is too hot for your taste, reduce or eliminate the cayenne pepper and pepper sauce.
Use my Terry Ho's Spicy Yum Yum Sauce recipe below to easily make the sauce at home. Combine all the ingredients in a small bowl, and then let it rest in your refrigerator. After about 30 minutes, you’ll have a cup of the delicious creamy stuff to use on shrimp, chicken, steak, or whatever you want.
Find more of my copycat recipes for famous sauces here.
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P.F. Chang's Fire-Braised Short Ribs
Read moreGood short ribs should practically melt in your mouth, and my P.F. Chang’s Fire-Braised Short Ribs recipe below will produce flavor-pumped short ribs that will do just that. Just as in the restaurant, these sliced boneless short ribs sit on a bed of pineapple fried rice and come with a side of the sweet-and-savory Asian braising sauce to pour over the top. If you dig short ribs, you're going to love this dish.
To craft the 30-dollar entrée at home (but for much less) the short ribs are braised for 3 hours in a secret liquid made with Chinese cooking wine, garlic, soy sauce, hoisin sauce, oyster sauce, and a few other key ingredients. The cooked short ribs are then chilled, sliced, and seared while being doused with the robust braising liquid for a perfect burst of flavor.
When you arrange the sliced short ribs on the pineapple fried rice made with the Top Secret Recipe I’m including below, and sprinkle the plate with some micro sprouts, you’ll have created a dish that looks and tastes just like the fabulous original restaurant version, but at a mere fraction of the cost.
For a great side, try this hack for P.F. Chang's Short Rib Fried Rice, and get more P.F. Chang's copycat recipes here.
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P.F. Chang's Short Rib Fried Rice
Read moreFried rice is one of life’s simple pleasures, but add kimchi, edamame, mushrooms, tender short rib, and a wasabi-mayo drizzle, and you’ve just elevated a common dish to something truly special. That’s why P.F. Chang’s new Short Rib Fried Rice is so popular. And that’s why it needed to be cloned, ASAP.
As with my recipe for P.F. Chang’s Fire-Braised Short Ribs, you’ll make a tasty braising liquid with Chinese cooking wine, soy sauce, hoisin sauce, oyster sauce, brown sugar, green onions, and garlic, to pour over your short ribs before they slow-cook in your oven for 3 hours.
When you're ready to serve the dish, dice the cooled short ribs, then sear them and add them to the rice along with all the other ingredients in a hot pan or wok over high heat.
Plate the rice, drizzle wasabi-mayo sauce over the top, sprinkle on some fresh chopped green onions, and serve up a spot-on clone of the hit dish, and possibly the best fried rice you’ve ever crafted.
Try my P.F. Chang's Short Rib Fried Rice recipe below, and find more popular P.F. Chang's copycat recipes here.