per month*

Includes eight (8) 79¢ recipes of your choice each month!

per month

($23.88 annually)*
Save $12 vs. monthly

Includes eight (8) 79¢ recipes of your choice each month!

Getting a table at the 123-year-old original Rao’s restaurant in New York City is next to impossible. The tables are “owned” by regulars who schedule their meals months in advance, so every table is full every night, and that’s the way it’s been for the last 38 years. The only way an outsider would get to taste the restaurant’s fresh marinara sauce is to be invited by a regular.

If that isn’t in the stars for you, you could buy a bottle of the sauce at your local market (if they even have it). It won't be fresh, and it's likely to be the most expensive sauce in the store, but it still has that great Rao's taste. An even better solution is to copy the sauce for yourself using my easy Rao's Homemade Marinara Sauce copycat recipe.

The current co-owner of Rao’s, Frank Pellegrino Jr., told Bon Appetit in 2015 that the famous marinara sauce was created by his grandmother many years ago, and the sauce you buy in stores is the same recipe served in his restaurants. The ingredients are common, but correctly choosing the main ingredient—tomatoes—is important. Try to find San Marzano-style whole canned tomatoes, preferably from Italy. They are a little more expensive than typical canned tomatoes, but they will give you some great sauce.

After 30 minutes of cooking, you’ll end up with about the same amount of sauce as in a large jar of the real thing. Your version will likely be just a little bit brighter and better than the bottled stuff, thanks to the fresh ingredients. But now you can eat it anytime you want, with no reservations, at a table you own.

This recipe was our #1 most popular in 2020. Check out the other four most unlocked recipes for the year: Olive Garden Lasagna Classico (#2), King's Hawaiian Original Hawaiian Sweet Rolls (#3), Pei Wei Better Orange Chicken (#4), Chipotle Mexican Grill Carnitas (#5).

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

You might also like my recipes for Rao's Bolognese sauce and Rao's Meatballs here.

Source: Top Secret Recipes Unleashed by Todd Wilbur.

I'm not sure why it took me so long to clone this dish, considering that it was my daughter's favorite thing to eat at P.F. Chang's when she was a kid. I recently tackled it and created a spot-on copy of the chain's signature sweet-and-sour honey sauce, and in the process found some new intel that improved on my earlier version of the chain's crispy chicken which I had already hacked for a different P.F. Chang's recipe. The dish came together beautifully on the plate, and it cleared the final taste test by earning an enthusiastic thumbs-up from my now-grown little girl.

Since P.F. Chang’s sells a version of this dish in the freezer aisle of my local grocery store, I was able to improve my chicken batter formula by extracting some good info from the ingredients listed on the product box. Based on this new information, I added more cornstarch to the batter along with corn flour and egg whites for a much better, crispier coating.

The sauce in my P.F. Chang's Crispy Honey Chicken copycat recipe is sweetened with honey and sugar, soured by wine and rice vinegar, and thickened with cornstarch and gelatin powder to create a flavorful finishing glaze that sticks to the crispy chicken like the real thing. In the restaurant, the chicken is served over a bed of fried maifun rice sticks so I’ve included prep notes for that in the Tidbits, but you may prefer to forego that step and serve the chicken over or alongside cooked white or brown rice.

Check out more of my P.F. Chang's clone recipes here.

One of IHOP’s creative new crêpes is this cinnamon bun/cheesecake mashup that’s probably more dessert than breakfast food, although no one at my house complained. Two delicate crêpes are filled with cheesecake mousse and drizzled with cinnamon bun filling and cream cheese icing, and it looks beautiful on the plate.

For my take on the IHOP Cinnamon Bun Crêpes recipe, I reworked the cinnamon topping which I previously hacked for IHOP’s Cinn-A-Stacks to hold its shape better when applied with a squirt bottle. And I’m including two easy new hacks for the cream cheese icing and cheesecake mousse.

Once your mousse and icings are done, use this original crêpes formula to make eight beautiful, delicate crêpes for four servings, topped with sliced strawberries and a dusting of powdered sugar.

Find more of my IHOP copycat recipes 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.

Source: Top Secret Recipes Unleashed by Todd Wilbur.

The first Auntie Anne's pretzel store opened in 1988 in the heart of pretzel country—a Pennsylvanian Amish farmers' market. Over 500 stores later, Auntie Anne's is one of the most requested secret clone recipes around, especially on the internet. 

Many of the copycat Auntie Anne's soft pretzel recipes passed around the Web require bread flour, and some use honey as a sweetener. But by studying the Auntie Anne's home pretzel-making kit in my secret underground laboratory, I've created a better Auntie Anne's copycat recipe with a superior way to re-create the delicious mall treats at home. For the best quality dough, you just need all-purpose flour. And powdered sugar works great to perfectly sweeten the dough. Now you just have to decide if you want to make the more traditional salted pretzels, or the sweet cinnamon sugar-coated kind. Decisions, decisions.

Find more of my copycat recipes for famous muffins, bagels, and rolls here. 

Source: Even More Top Secret Recipes by Todd Wilbur.

With cayenne and jalapeño peppers, these fried cheese balls bite back. They’re also the number one appetizer on the chain’s menu, so sleuthing out a kitchen copy was a mission I needed to accept. And I’m glad I did, because my Texas Roadhouse Rattlesnake Bites copycat recipe eventually worked out great. The dish is easy to duplicate at home, and, just like the real thing, yours will have just enough heat to wake up your mouth but not ravage it.

After cracking the secret to flavoring the cheese, I worked out the best technique to produce fried cheeseballs that came out of the oil with a golden brown outside and completely melted cheese inside. The timing was crucial. Over-frying the cheese balls caused the cheese to ooze out and burn, while under-frying them prevented it from fully melting in the middle. To fry these bites perfectly, the magic happens at precisely two minutes.

For the best results, use Monterey Jack cheese shredded from a block rather than pre-shredded cheese. Pre-shredded cheese in bags tends to be drier, so it doesn’t melt as well as the cheese you shred by hand. You want the meltiest, creamiest bites possible.

Try more of my Texas Roadhouse Rolls copycat recipes here.

Chick-fil-A becomes the first fast food chain to feature pimento cheese—a traditional Southern spread made with cheddar cheese, mayonnaise, and pimentos—on a sandwich. The chain’s Honey Pepper Pimento Chicken Sandwich features a regular or spicy crispy chicken breast fillet­ stacked on sliced jalapeños, then drizzled with honey and topped with a healthy portion of their exclusive pimento cheese formula.

For the chicken fillet, I was able to use my previous Chick-fil-A chicken sandwich copycat recipe, but the chain’s excellent pimento cheese spread is a new creation that needed to be hacked from scratch. Rinsing the real spread through a strainer revealed some hidden secrets, including tiny bits of green pepper, which I copied by adding a small amount of minced jalapeño.

The chicken requires four hours to brine, and that’s a good time to make the pimento cheese so it can rest for a bit to improve its color and flavor. The recipe included here is for the original chicken fillet, but if you prefer the kicked-up spicy version of the sandwich, I’ve got the tweak for that variation down in the Tidbits.

Try my Chick-fil-A Honey Pepper Pimento Chicken Sandwich copycat recipe below, and find more of my Chick-fil-A copycat recipes here.

Brothers Dave and Larry Raymond came up with a top secret recipe for barbecue sauce that was so good they entered it in Chicago’s Rib Fest barbecue competition in the late ‘80s. The fourth time they entered, in 1985, they took home the 2^nd place trophy. By the following year, they were selling bottles of their now-famous sauce in stores, and the brand became a huge success.

The brothers sold their $30-million-a-year sauce business in 2005, and the brand kept growing. By 2008, Sweet Baby Ray’s was America's #2 best-selling barbecue sauce.

Now, with my Sweet Baby Ray's Honey Barbecue Sauce copycat recipe, you can make 2 cups of a taste-alike sauce with mostly common ingredients plus pineapple juice, celery salt, and tamarind paste to help nail down the familiar award-winning taste.

Try other famous copycat sauce recipes here.

This popular chain wrangles a wide variety of dishes and cooking styles day after day with consistently high quality. From pasta to burgers to tacos, from salads to pancakes to beautiful cheesecakes for dessert, there is something for everyone at the Cheesecake Factory.

The diverse menu's Asia-inspired plates include Thai, Korean, and Chinese dishes, but one that consistently stands out is this excellent Mandarin-style spicy chicken entrée, served over your choice of white or brown rice.

The secret of the great flavor is the sauce, which has now been hacked for you in my Cheesecake Factory Spicy Cashew copycat recipe below. Plus, I’ll walk you through the process of creating perfect crispy chicken from scratch using juicy chicken tenderloins.

Alternatively, if you’d like to save time, you can bake up some pre-cooked breaded chicken tenders and focus all your efforts on making the amazing sauce. Tips on that chicken shortcut can be found below in the Tidbits.

This recipe was our #4 most popular in 2022. Check out the other four most unlocked recipes for the year: Rao's Traditional Meatballs (#1), Chipotle Pollo Asado (#2), Wendy's Seasoned Potatoes (#3), McDonald's Chicken McNuggets (#5).

Check out this list of our most popular recipes of all-time, or click here for more of my Cheesecake Factory copycat recipes.

Source: Hack That Dish by Todd Wilbur.

Of the four enchiladas served at this popular national Mexican chain, the cheese enchilada and chicken tinga enchilada stand out. They are filled with good stuff, and the sauces on top make them special. The cheese enchilada is doused with slow-cooked chili con carne sauce, while the tender chicken tinga enchilada is topped with a flavorful sour cream sauce and Jack cheese. And because I couldn’t decide which enchilada was better, I hacked them both.

For my On the Border Cheese Enchiladas copycat recipe, I’ll show you how to make a great con carne sauce and how to stuff the enchiladas with a blend of perfectly melted cheese. For my On the Border Chicken Tinga Enchiladas copycat recipe, I’ll show you how to make moist and flavorful chicken tinga with a grocery store rotisserie chicken and how to copy the great sour cream sauce with just four ingredients.

Using either of these secret recipes, you’ll make ten enchiladas in one 9x13-inch baking pan, so there should be enough to go around. The hardest step is deciding which to make: chicken or cheese? These enchiladas go great together on one plate and complement each other nicely, so I say, make ‘em both!

This is my #1 most popular recipe of 2025. Check out the other most popular recipes of the year: Taco Bell Cantina Chicken (#2), Carrabba's Pollo Rosa Maria (#3), Taco Bell Meximelt (#4), Crumbl Classic Pink Sugar Cookie (#5).

And here's the list of our most popular recipes of all-time.

Source: Hack That Dish by Todd Wilbur.

Since 1969, The Portland, Oregon-based Old Spaghetti Factory has been filling bellies with a comfort food menu full of fabulous pasta choices, and this signature meat sauce has been the sauce of choice at the 43-unit chain for more than five decades.

To reverse-engineer the sauce for my Old Spaghetti Factory Rich Meat Sauce copycat recipe, I rinsed the original sauce in a wire mesh strainer to see what secrets could be revealed. Once the solids were visible, I noted the size and ratios of ground beef, onion, celery, and garlic, and I also noticed that there were no bits of tomato left behind. This meant the tomato was puréed, but rather than using canned tomato purée, I opted for richer tomato paste. Lemon juice helped match the zing of the original, and I rounded out the flavor with just a bit of sugar.

This recipe will make 3½ cups of meat sauce, which is enough for several huge plates of pasta. Use it on spaghetti as they do at the restaurant, or whatever pasta shape you prefer.

This was my #1 most popular recipe of 2024. Check out the other most popular recipes of the year:   Cracker Barrel Country Fried Steak (#2), Crumbl Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chunk Cookie (#3), Cheesecake Factory Steak Diane (#4), Portillo's Chocolate Cake (#5).

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

Vanilla custard and whipped cream make up the delicious “double cream” that tops this ultra-popular blueberry pie from the West Coast chain that is most famous for its homestyle pies. Finally, I got the chance to give this great dessert the hack it deserves—from what I've seen, no other "copycat" recipe even comes close.

For my Marie Callender’s Double Cream Blueberry Pie copycat recipe, it was important that the custard be creamy but not too runny, so in addition to cornstarch, I’ve included just enough gelatin in the mix to stabilize the filling, but not so much that it becomes rubbery. The blueberry filling, made with frozen blueberries, needs only cornstarch to thicken it because there is also apple in the filling which contributes pectin, a natural thickening gel. Just be sure to dice your apple very small before cooking it so that the pieces will soften and work well with the frozen blueberries.

There’s no need to make the crust from scratch when you can use an unbaked 9-inch pie shell in the frozen food aisle—preferably the one made by Marie Callender’s—but any brand will do.

Then, to finish your pie, the gelatin steps up again, stabilizing the whipped cream topping so that it holds its shape for as long as it takes to eat the whole pie. Which probably won't be long at all.

Try more of my Marie Callender's copycat recipes here.

When dippable tempura-battered chicken chunks made their debut at select McDonald’s restaurants in 1981, America couldn’t get enough…literally. Supply chain issues prevented the burger chain from meeting high demand in all markets for many months, and it wasn’t until two years after the McNuggets were first introduced that they were finally available at every McDonald’s in the country.

The famous finger food was invented by McDonald’s first executive chef, Rene Arend, who discovered that reconstituted chicken blended with flavor enhancers, enrobed with tempura batter, and deep-fried until golden brown, made a simple, portable snack. The chicken was formed into four “B” shapes designed for dipping—the bell, the bow-tie, the ball, and the boot—and served along with child-friendly dipping sauces such as ranch and barbecue, so the breakout finger food product became a huge winner with kids.

To make a home version that looks and tastes like McNuggets, I dissected a real one and discovered that the chicken in the middle is coated twice: once with dry, seasoned breading, and then once more with wet batter before frying. The chicken in McNuggets is puréed not ground, and the best way to prepare it is with a food processor. “Ground” chicken in grocery stores is often puréed, then pushed through a die to look more appealing in the package, similar to how ground beef is presented. For my Chicken McNugget copycat recipe below, it's best to use a home food processor, but if you don’t have one, ground chicken from your butcher will work.

If I had to identify a secret ingredient in this hack, it would be Knorr chicken bouillon powder. It contains many of the same ingredients found in real Chicken McNuggets, so once you get that crucial flavoring component, you’re well on your way to an amazing knockoff of an iconic American food.

This recipe was our #5 most popular in 2022. Check out the other four most unlocked recipes for the year: Rao's Traditional Meatballs (#1), Chipotle Pollo Asado (#2), Wendy's Seasoned Potatoes (#3), Cheesecake Factory Spicy Cashew Chicken (#4).

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

Tweaking 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).

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

I've always known IKEA as a giant global furniture chain, but before researching these tasty little balls of meat, I wasn't aware that IKEA is also one of the world's largest food retailers. And at the very top of the list of the most popular menu items at the stores' cafeteria-style IKEA Restaurant & Bistro, are the Swedish Meatballs, which are consumed at a rate of 150 million each year. 

The chain's secret Swedish meatballs are moist and delicious and come smothered in a cream sauce, with a side of lingonberry jam. But there's no need to work your way through the giant rat maze of furniture that is the ingenious layout of each store to get to the cafeteria when you can now duplicate them at home with my IKEA Swedish Meatball copycat recipe below, and very little effort.

The secret is to use ground beef that is 20 percent fat and a food processor to puree all of the ingredients. If you don't have a food processor, a blender works, too. Form the balls with a 1 1/4-inch dough scoop or teaspoon measure, and keep your hands thoroughly moistened to prevent the meat mixture from sticking.

After you make the meatballs, you'll probably want to make the secret cream sauce that goes over the top, and that recipe is here, too. 

Try my IKEA Swedish Meatballs copycat recipe below. It was my #2 most popular of 2023. Check out the other most popular unlocked recipes of the year: Church's Chicken Original and Spicy Fried Chicken (#1), Chipotle Guacamole (#3), Subway Cookies (#4), IHOP Thick 'N Fluffy French Toast (#5).

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

Menu Description: "In cream sauce, topped with melted sharp cheddar."

There are many ways to order potatoes from the Ruth's Chris menu including steak fries, julienne fries, shoestring fries, cottage fries, Lyonnaise, baked and au gratin.

Here's a traditional, classic recipe for the delicious side dish inspired by the Ruth's Chris creation. You may use less of the cream and milk mixture in your version, depending on the size baking dish you use and the size of your potatoes. Stop adding the creamy mixture in your version when it is level with the sliced potatoes in the baking dish. Be sure to use a casserole dish that has a lid for the first stage of baking.

Try my Ruth's Chris Au Gratin Potatoes copycat recipe below, and click here for more of my copycat recipes from Ruth's Chris Steak House.

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes by Todd Wilbur. 

In March of 2024, Taco Bell introduced Cantina Chicken, a versatile menu item that can be ordered on tacos, burritos, quesadillas, and bowls. The slow-roasted chicken is seasoned with chilies, onion, and garlic and is often paired with the chain’s Avocado Verde Salsa, which I’ve already cloned for you here.

For my Taco Bell Cantina Chicken copycat recipe, I’ve made the process quick and easy by using a cooked rotisserie chicken, which can be found in most supermarkets and big box stores. Once you’ve chopped the chicken into bite-size pieces, combine it with chicken broth and the secret combination of spices below in a large sauté pan over medium heat.

When the liquid has cooked off, you’ll have four cups of chicken, which you can use in your homemade tacos, burritos, bowls, or whatever you’re craving.

This is my #2 most popular recipe of 2025. Check out the other most popular recipes of the year: On the Border Enchiladas (#1), Carrabba's Pollo Rosa Maria (#3), Taco Bell Meximelt (#4), and Crumbl Classic Pink Sugar Cookie (#5).

And here's the list of our most popular recipes of all-time.

Source: Hack That Dish by Todd Wilbur.

This menu replacement for the chain’s Stuffed Chicken Marsala offers a tasty variation on the popular theme. It features breaded chicken tenderloins arranged on fettuccine pasta with wilted spinach and sautéed mushrooms and doused with plenty of delicious creamy marsala sauce.

For my Olive Garden Chicken Marsala Fettuccine copycat recipe, I paid special attention to the mushroom marsala sauce, which I originally hacked for the Stuffed Chicken Marsala and then improved for this hack. The sauce contains mushrooms, and you’ll also need more to sauté later. An 8-ounce tub of mushrooms is the perfect amount for the whole recipe.

Give yourself an hour to brine the chicken for flavor and juiciness, and 30 minutes for the coated chicken to sit in the fridge so that the breading stays put. This recipe makes two huge servings but can easily be split into four more modest portions.

Find all of my Olive Garden copycat recipes here.

Source: Hack That Dish by Todd Wilbur.

I’m not sure why I got called out at Maggiano’s. Perhaps I asked too many questions. For whatever reason, my cover was blown during this clandestine meatball mission.

While sitting at the restaurant bar enjoying a plate of Maggiano’s fantastic meatballs, Adrian, the manager, poked his head around the corner and asked, “Are you the guy who copied our tenderloin medallions recipe?” He was right. Several years ago, I posted my version of the chain’s signature dish, so I was forced to admit it was me. I thought that would be the end of my intel gathering for the day, but the opposite happened.

“I couldn’t believe how close you got,” he said, referring to the balsamic cream sauce on the medallions. I thanked him for the compliment and told him the dish was one of my favorites, so I had to clone it properly. There was a vibe of mutual respect, so I saw an opportunity to ask him about the chain's meatballs, including the meat he uses. Adrian told me that Maggiano’s makes their meatballs with just ground chuck and not with other meats such as pork and veal, which are often used in traditional formulas.

Thanks to Adrian, I had some good information for starting my recipe. Still, I was about to get more valuable tips when, five minutes later, Maggiano’s executive chef Alberto, with a thick Italian accent, came out to say “hello.”

Alberto explained their braising process to make the delicious, fall-apart tender meatballs. He also stressed the importance of forming the meatballs loosely in your hands and not packing the meat. "These are meatballs, not snowballs", he says. You should be able to “cut the meatballs with a plastic spoon” in Alberto's kitchen.

So, with helpful tips from Adrian and Alberto, here’s my version of the chain’s fabulous meatballs and hacked marinara sauce, which should be the most accurate copycat recipe of this dish that you’ll ever get.

Try my Maggiano's Italian Meatballs copycat recipe below, and find more of my Maggiano's copycat recipes here.

Source: Hack That Dish by Todd Wilbur.

IHOP 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 copycat 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 an IHOP in your house.

This recipe was my #5 most popular of 2023. Check out the other most popular unlocked recipes of the year: Church's Chicken Original and Spicy Fried Chicken (#1), IKEA Swedish Meatballs (#2), Chipotle Guacamole (#3), Subway Cookies (#4).

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

With delicious versions on the menus at Panda Express, Pei Wei, and P.F. Chang’s, the orange chicken space is certainly competitive (click on the brands for my recipes). That’s why it’s so impressive that The Cheesecake Factory serves up one of the best orange chicken entrées of any chain, including chains that specialize in Chinese food.

For this easy entrée hack, I’ve included a recipe for breading and frying the chicken yourself, but you may prefer to bake or fry pre-breaded frozen chicken strips or nuggets and toss them in the sauce you make here. The sauce is the big secret in this recipe, and the version I’ve whipped up for you has just the right amount of sweet, sour, and spicy to match the real thing.

Add some rice and stir-fry vegetables, and you’ll have two large Cheesecake Factory-size entrées with this hack, or you can split it into four more modest portions.   

Try my Cheesecake Factory Orange Chicken copycat recipe below, and check here for some great dessert ideas.

In late 2021, Popeyes debuted a new macaroni and cheese recipe made with cheddar, cream, and butter, and browned nicely on top like it was just pulled out of Mom’s home oven. After analyzing the real thing from Popeyes in my kitchen lab and experimenting with multiple batches, I was eventually able to reproduce the dish so the same great mac & cheese taste can now come out of your OWN home oven. And the best part: it's super easy to make. You'll like that.

I created my Popeyes Mac & Cheese copycat recipe using the same ingredients used by the chain: cheddar cheese, whole milk, heavy cream, unsalted butter—all wholesome foods without any weird stuff. We'll make a quick roux for the cheese sauce using a little flour, and I’m also adding easy-melting American cheese into the mix for its keen ability to keep the sauce from becoming grainy, as cheddar-based sauces tend to do.

Combine the sauce with the pasta, brown the top under a broiler, and you just home-styled your way to a delicious mac & cheese masterpiece.

Get more cool Popeyes hacked recipes here.

My Domino’s spicy specialty chicken copycat recipe gives you a new way to turn frozen breaded chicken from any supermarket into an impressive appetizer. And this Top Secret Recipe comes with my complete formula for duplicating the chain’s famous sweet mango habanero dipping sauce to give your dish its fiery personality.

Top your chicken with a blend of Cheddar and mozzarella cheese, jalapeño slices, and pineapple, and bake it on a strip of parchment paper until the cheese is bubbly and browned around the edges.

Find more of your favorites from Domino's here. 

A popular staple of any Chinese chain is fried rice, so it better be good, and the version served at Panda Express most certainly is. Here's my easy Panda Express Fried Rice recipe for when you need a stress-free, low-cost side for your entrées. But I do suggest that you cook the white rice several hours or even a day or two before you plan to make the finished dish. I found that the cooked rice called for in this recipe works best when it's cold. 

As for a shortcut, bagged frozen peas and carrots will save you from the hassle of petite-dicing carrots since the carrots in those bags are the perfect size to produce an identical clone. And they're already cooked. 

This recipe was our #3 most popular in 2021. Check out the other four most unlocked recipes for the year: Panda Express Chow Mein (#1), Qdoba 3-Cheese Queso (#2), Outback Baked Potato Soup (#4), Chipotle Carne Asada (#5).

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

Braised and shredded pork shoulder is a staple of Mexican cuisine that Chipotle prepares with a simple blend of flavors, and a surprising ingredient you may not have expected: juniper berries. Once you track those down (they’re easy to find online), the berries are combined with thyme and bay leaves in a braising liquid that will transform your own pork roast into an easily shreddable thing of beauty in under 3 hours. Then you can use your Chipotle carnitas clone on tacos, in burritos, or in a bowl over rice and beans just like they do in the restaurant.

When picking your pork roast, try to find one without too much fat. If your roast has a thick cap of fat on it, trim off the excess. You want some fat in your braising liquid, but if the cap of fat is too thick, it may not fully render down and you’ll get chunks of fat in the shred.

It’s often assumed that the pork butt is from the rear end of the pig, even though cuts from the back region already have a name: ham. The pork butt, also known as a Boston butt, is cut from the other end, the upper shoulder of the pig. It’s called a “butt” because in pre-Revolutionary War New England the roasts were stored and transported in barrels called “butts”, and the confusing name stuck.

This recipe was our #5 most popular in 2020. Check out the other four most unlocked recipes for the year: Rao's Homemade Marinara Sauce (#1), Olive Garden Lasagna Classico (#2), King's Hawaiian Original Hawaiian Sweet Rolls (#3), Pei Wei Better Orange Chicken (#4).

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

Source: Top Secret Recipes Unleashed by Todd Wilbur.

This 220-unit downscaled version of P.F. Chang’s China Bistro targets the lunch crowd with a smaller menu that features bento boxes, bowls, and small plates. Obviously, a clone is needed for this one, stat.

The name “Wei Better Orange Chicken” is a competitive callout to Panda Express's signature orange chicken, which is made with pre-breaded and frozen chicken. Pei Wei claims its orange chicken is prepared each day from scratch with chicken that is never frozen, so we’ll craft our Pei Wei Better Orange Chicken recipe the same way. But rather than assemble the dish in a wok over a high-flame fast stove like they do at the restaurant, we’ll prepare the sauce and chicken separately, then toss them with fresh orange wedges just before serving.

By the way, Pei Wei Better Orange Chicken goes very well with white or brown rice, so don’t forget to make some.

This recipe was our #4 most popular in 2020. Check out the other four most unlocked recipes for the year: Rao's Homemade Marinara Sauce (#1), Olive Garden Lasagna Classico (#2), King's Hawaiian Original Hawaiian Sweet Rolls (#3), Chipotle Mexican Grill Carnitas (#5).

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

Source: Top Secret Recipes Unleashed by Todd Wilbur.

Two friendly Atlanta, Georgia neighbors built the first Waffle House in 1955. With the dimpled breakfast hotcake as a signature item, the privately held chain grew into 20 Southern U.S. states. Today tasty food at rock-bottom prices, plus 24-hours-a-day service, makes Waffle House a regular stop for devoted customers any time of the day or night. And don't even think about referring to your server as a waitress—they're called "associates."

For the best clone of the 50-year-old secret waffle recipe, you should chill the batter overnight in the fridge, just as they do in each of the restaurants. But sometimes you can't wait. If you need instant gratification, my Waffle House waffle copycat recipe still works if you make the waffles the same day. Wait for at least 15 to 20 minutes before using the batter so that it can thicken a bit. That'll give you time to dust off the waffle iron and heat it up.

How about some homemade Jimmy Dean Breakfast Sausage to go with those waffles? Check out my copycat recipes for famous breakfast items here.

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 2 by Todd Wilbur.

In Maggiano’s hit starter, large slices of zucchini are breaded and fried until crispy, sprinkled with Parmesan cheese, and served with a bright lemon aioli for dipping. This is the top pick from the appetizer menu, according to servers at the upscale Italian chain, and I had to be sure my hack could satisfy even the most fervid fans of the original.   

The first order of business for my Maggiano’s Zucchini Fritte copycat recipe was to figure out how to replicate the ultra-crispy coating that is a standout feature of the real thing. It’s clear that the zucchini is breaded with panko, but I needed a batter to make the panko stick to the zucchini. My first batter, made with flour, didn’t produce the standout crunchiness of the real thing. So, I called in the cornstarch. Cornstarch batters are notoriously crispy, so I combined cornstarch with the flour for the batter and finally discovered the crunchy breading I was searching for.

After the breading was cracked, I focused on the formula for a dipping sauce made with variations of mayo, sour cream, cream, and lemon juice until I had the ratios right for a perfect match. I brought it all together on a plate, finished it off with a sprinkling of grated Parmesan cheese and freshly minced Italian parsley, and my mouth thought I was at Maggiano’s.

If you like Maggiano's, you'll also love my copycat recipe for Maggiano's Beef Tenderloin Medallions. 

The menu describes this dish as "Parmesan-crusted chicken served over pasta with mushrooms, bell peppers, and onions in a spicy New Orleans sauce." Of the many great pastas on The Cheesecake Factory's menu, this one consistently ranks as a top choice, so a Top Secret Recipes hack was inevitable. 

Your homemade Cheesecake Factory Louisiana Chicken Pasta copycat starts with the delicious yet straightforward New Orleans sauce, made like Alfredo sauce, with paprika for color and cayenne pepper for zing. The chicken is breaded with a combination of panko breadcrumbs and Parmesan cheese and pan-fried to a golden brown. 

In true Cheesecake Factory style, this recipe makes four very large servings, but you can also serve this dish on one big platter for a nice family-style feast.

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

Source: Top Secret Recipes Step-by-Step by Todd Wilbur.

In April 2020, restaurant chains in the U.S. closed their dining rooms due to the Covid-19 pandemic and needed a way to stay connected with their customers. Chipotle’s solution was to have corporate chef Chad Brauze “reveal” the chain’s secret recipe for the guacamole on the corporate Instagram account, which was picked up by the news and then re-posted on the Today Show website.

Chains have shared versions of their secret recipes on news shows in the past, but I’m usually skeptical of the recipes since I’ve rarely found that any of those formulas are the actual restaurant versions. More often than not, one or more ingredients are eliminated or substituted so that your final product is close but not exact. And that's precisely what Chipotle did.

Chef Chad's Instagram cooking video from his home kitchen is a good guacamole recipe, but it’s not Chipotle’s guacamole recipe. The formula includes most of the ingredients you would need for a perfect hack—but it’s missing one: lemon juice. According to Chipotle’s website and cooks at the restaurant, Chipotle adds lemon juice in addition to lime juice to its famous guacamole.

With this information and a heaping sample of the authentic guac, I tweaked Chef Chad’s formula to make my Chipotle Guacamole copycat recipe more like the real one, which is made fresh several times a day at the restaurant. Even with the additional acid (lemon juice) in the mix to preserve the color, this guacamole is best if eaten within several hours of making it while it’s still bright green.

This recipe was our #3 most popular of 2023. Check out the other most popular unlocked recipes of the year: Church's Chicken Original and Spicy Fried Chicken (#1), IKEA Swedish Meatballs (#2), Subway Cookies (#4), IHOP Thick 'N Fluffy French Toast (#5).

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

Source: Hack That Dish by Todd Wilbur.

It finally happened. I created this new clone recipe for Cracker Barrel's Country Fried Steak only to realize, much later, that I had already cloned it eight years prior in my book, Top Secret Recipes Step-by-Step. However, I'm okay with this unplanned redo because this version is significantly improved, with several enhancements over my first hack from many moons ago.  

Most chicken-fried steak recipes, including my previous Cracker Barrel copycat recipe, call for cube steak—round steak that’s scored in a butcher’s tenderizer—which may not be as tender as you like it to be. Connective tissue that remains intact will make some bites chewy, yet if the steak is over-tenderized, it will fall apart when cooked.

To ensure that every bite of this clone is perfectly tender, I avoid cube steak altogether and start with lean ground beef, similar to recipes for Salisbury steak or Hamburg steak. Forming the ground beef into steaks and then freezing them ensures they hold together, making the breading and cooking process more manageable. And when served, every bite is guaranteed to be fork-tender. 

Of course, this iconic clone recipe wouldn’t be complete without a spot-on hack for the famous sawmill gravy that gets spooned over the top. I’m including a fresh hack for the gravy that improves on my original formula, and it's super easy to make with just six ingredients.

This was my #2 most popular recipe of 2024. Check out the other most popular recipes of the year: Old Spaghetti Factory Rich Meat Sauce (#1), Crumbl Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chunk Cookie (#3), Cheesecake Factory Steak Diane (#4), Portillo's Chocolate Cake (#5).

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

Source: Hack That Dish by Todd Wilbur.

For years, I’ve been hearing about a delicious seafood dipping sauce at Japanese steakhouses called "shrimp sauce" or "yum yum sauce." Research revealed many independent Japanese steakhouses with "the best sauce," but it was the name of an 11-unit chain called Kobe Ichiban in Central Florida that came up most often.

When I next found myself in Orlando, Florida presenting some cooking demos at a home show, I dropped in on Kobe Ichiban for dinner and there it was: the light orange creamy dipping "yummy" sauce that everyone was raving about. It was sweet and sour and salty and creamy, and it tasted amazing on the shrimp—as well as on everything else.

I poured some into some small plastic storage bags I had with me (always come prepared!), then popped them into a cooler for the long trip back to Las Vegas. Back in the underground lab, I developed my Kobe shrimp yum yum sauce copycat recipe below. Now, you can enjoy this much-requested delicious dipping sauce anytime.

Find more of my copycat recipes for famous sauces here.  

Social media shredded Chipotle’s first queso dip which debuted in 2017, calling it “gritty,” “bland,” “watered-down,” and “a crime against cheese.” Chipotle was in desperate need of a re-do.

In early 2020, after months and months of test-marketing an improved cheesy dip recipe in Dallas, Detroit, and San Diego, the Mexican chain introduced Queso Blanco to the entire U.S., and this time the reviews were much better.

Chipotle claims their new formula contains exactly 13 ingredients, including 2 kinds of cheese and 3 different chile peppers. With cornstarch as the thickening agent, the preparation starts by making a white sauce with milk and cream. When the cheese is fully melted and smooth, the veggies go in, and in about 10 minutes it’s ready to serve.

Use my Chipotle Queso Blanco copycat recipe as a dip with tortilla chips or as a topping on your copycat Chipotle carne asada or carnitas tacos and barbacoa burritos. Find all my Chipotle recipes here. 

I’m not sure why Einstein Bros. claims there are just four cheeses in the new Twice-Baked Hash Brown when the ingredients clearly list six kinds of cheese, plus cream cheese. Regardless, the shredded Asiago, Romano, Parmesan, provolone, and mozzarella listed there can be found combined in an “Italian Blend” at many supermarkets, making for an easy start to our home clone. And don’t just be thinking about breakfast for these cheesy potatoes. They work great as a side for any meal.

In the detailed description of the new item, Einstein Bros. claims the hash browns contain two kinds of schmears, which is true, but a little misleading because one of them is just plain cream cheese. The other is onion-and-chive cream cheese, which we can make from scratch. We’ll combine those two shmears into one blend by doubling the cream cheese added to our onion-and-chive schmear formula.

Follow my Einstein Bros. twice baked hash brown copycat recipe below, and mix everything together. Then, load the ingredients into a standard 12-cup muffin pan with circles of parchment paper cut out to fit into the bottom of the 12 cups. Without these parchment circles, the hash browns may stick and break when they’re released. You can also use paper muffin cups, if you don’t mind the less crispy, ridged sides.

Bake them the first time for 30 minutes, then cool and store. Now you have a dozen servings of cheesy hash brown potatoes that are easy to finish off by baking them a second time until crispy. These Einstein Bros. Twice Baked Hash Browns are great served with breakfast, or for dinner as your starchy side alongside beef, chicken, lamb, and many other savory entrées.      

You can also make homemade Einstein Bros bagels, sandwiches, and shmears. See if I hacked your favorites here.

Source: Top Secret Recipes Unleashed by Todd Wilbur.

Menu Description: "Quickly-cooked steak with scallions and garlic."

Beef lovers go crazy over this one at P.F. Chang's. Flank steak is cut into bite-sized chunks against the grain, then it's lightly dusted with potato starch, flash-fried in oil, and doused with an amazing sweet soy garlic sauce. The beef comes out tender as can be, and the simple sauce sings to your taste buds. 

I designed my P.F. Chang's Mongolian Beef copycat recipe using a wok, but if you don't have one, a sauté pan will suffice. You may need to add more oil to the pan to cover the beef in the flash-frying step. 

P. F. Chang's secret sauce is what makes this dish so good, and it's versatile. If you don't dig beef, you can substitute with chicken. Or you can brush it on grilled salmon.

I've cloned some of the best dishes from P.F. Chang's. Click here to see if I coped your favorite.

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 2 by Todd Wilbur.

If those cute little cookie peddlers aren't posted outside the market, it may be tough to get your hands on these thin mint cookies—the most popular cookies sold by the Girl Scouts every spring. One out of every four boxes of cookies sold by the girls is Thin Mints. 

My Girl Scout cookie thin mint copycat recipe uses an improved version of the chocolate wafers created for my Oreo cookie clone in the second TSR book, More Top Secret Recipes. That recipe creates 108 cookie wafers, so when you're done dipping, you'll have the equivalent of three boxes of the Girl Scout Cookies favorite. That's why you bought those extra cookie sheets, right? You could, of course, reduce this recipe by baking only one-third of the cookie dough for the wafers and then reducing the coating ingredients by one-third, giving you a total of 36 cookies. But that may not be enough to last you until next spring.

Click here for more of your favorite Girl Scout Cookies. 

Source: Even More Top Secret Recipes by Todd Wilbur.

Update 11/16/17: You can make an even better clone using a chocolate product that wasn't available when I created this recipe. Rather than using the semi-sweet chocolate chips combined with shortening and peppermint for coating the cookies, use Ghirardelli Dark Melting Wafers. You will need 2 10-ounce bags of the chips, mixed with 1/2 teaspoon of peppermint extract (and no shortening). Melt the chocolate the same way, and dip the cookies as instructed.

Slow-roasted prime rib with "au jus" is a specialty of the popular steakhouse chain, and now you can easily duplicate it at home with these preparation secrets.

This prime rib is served with a delicious jus for dipping, so for my Texas Roadhouse Prime Rib copycat recipe, you'll want a 5-pound roast with bones. After slicing off the bones to use in the jus, tie up the roast, rub it with the marinade/seasoning blend, and let it sit for 24 hours to soak up the goodness.

The next day, you'll sear the roast and slow-cook it for nearly 3 hours, which will give you plenty of time to make the jus with beef broth, carrot, celery, onion, and those bones you sliced off the roast. After about 90 minutes, the beef broth will have reduced to one-quarter its size and will become a fabulous sauce.

After your cooked prime rib has rested for a bit, it's ready to slice—it should be medium-rare and perfectly pink. Serve it with the warm jus and some creamy horseradish on the side.

Try more of my Texas Roadhouse Rolls copycat recipes here.

Crumbl co-founder Sawyer Hemsley used to beg his mom to bring home his favorite pink sugar cookies, sold at a local Utah hospital by a group called The Pink Ladies. This chewy vanilla cookie, topped with pink almond icing and inspired by Sawyer’s childhood favorite treat, is now among the top three most popular cookies at the national chain, and customers anxiously await its appearance in the featured cookies of the week.

My Crumbl Classic Pink Sugar Cookie copycat recipe begins with a buttery vanilla dough that bakes slowly and is done cooking before you see any browning. The center stays slightly undercooked, ensuring that the cookie, which is served cold, remains chewy in the middle. Keeping the moist center fresh and the soft frosting firm may explain why these cookies are served chilled.

The secret to the flavor of the simple buttercream frosting is just a touch of natural almond extract, and the color comes from four drops of red food coloring. Spread it on with a small frosting knife and place the dozen cookies you make with this secret formula into your refrigerator before serving, just like the real ones.

This is my #5 most popular recipe of 2025. Check out the other most popular recipes of the year: On the Border Enchiladas (#1), Taco Bell Cantina Chicken (#2), Carrabba's Pollo Rosa Maria (#3), and Taco Bell Meximelt (#4).

And here's the list of our most popular recipes of all-time.

Croatian immigrant Joseph Vlasic moved to America in 1912 and built a creamery in Detroit, Michigan, to make cheese. His business grew, and during World War II, Vlasic began producing pickles, which were a huge success. He created Vlasic Foods in 1957 and passed it down to his son Bob in 1960, who then sold it to the Campbell Soup Company in 1978 for $33 million.

One of Vlasic’s most popular pickles in grocery stores across America is the sweet-and-sour slices, often eaten straight out of the jar or used on sandwiches and burgers. For my Vlasic Bread & Butter Chips copycat recipe, I used Persian cucumbers, which have thin skin and a mild taste that works perfectly here. You’ll need eight of them.

The Vlasic pickles are sweetened with corn syrup, but I opted for organic agave syrup and the recipe worked great. The rest of the brine is a simple combination of white wine vinegar, mustard seeds, celery seeds, onion, and garlic. Just a touch of turmeric adds the perfect light yellow tint.

The real thing contains calcium chloride to keep the pickles crispy, so I included it in this recipe if you’d like to add it. You can find this ingredient online—one brand is Pickle Crisp—and you’ll need 1/8 teaspoon per 16-ounce jar.

Try my Vlasic Bread & Butter pickle chips copycat recipe below as a snack or on one of my copycat sandwich recipes here.

After a recent search for the best Cuban sandwich from a national chain, I found the winner at Cheesecake Factory. It had all the elements you want from a good Cuban: roasted pork, ham, Swiss cheese, pickles, and mustard, all on a toasted roll. After just one bite, I knew I needed to clone it, and my fate was sealed.

For any good Cuban sandwich, the star of the show is the roasted pork, so I started there. After marinating, searing, baking, and braising several pork loins, I was sure I had found the best way to flavor and cook it. The trick to keeping the typically lean pork from drying out and becoming tough was to brine, sear, wrap, and bake it until it hit 145 degrees in the middle.

Starting with good bread is also important, so you’ll want to track down some Cuban sandwich rolls. If you can’t find Cuban rolls, you can also use French or Italian rolls. Just be sure they’re on the soft side and not too crusty. A panini press is preferred for this recipe, but if you don’t have one, you can use a heavy pan as a weight to press down on the sandwich as it browns on one side, then flip the sandwich over to brown the other side.

Try my Cheesecake Factory Cuban Sandwich copycat recipe below, and click here for more of my copycat recipes for Cheesecake Factory's famous cheesecakes, appetizers, entrées, soups and more!

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.

Panera sells other cookies, but the star in the chain’s cookie display is this 6-ounce beauty packed with two kinds of chocolate, salty pretzels, and plenty of chewy caramel bits. This cookie lives up to its name, delivering a unique experience with every bite—almost like enjoying several different cookies simultaneously.

For my Panera Bread Kitchen Sink Cookie copycat recipe, I needed a cookie base that baked to a light brown around the edges while staying chewy in the middle. After accomplishing that mission, I experimented with the ratio of fillings. I sliced my cookies through the middle and compared their cross-section to the original to determine which ingredients needed adjustment. Then, I kept baking batches until my cookies matched Panera's.

To create the best clone, I found it best to measure the eggs. Since all large eggs are not the same size, I discovered that beating the eggs and measuring 1/3 cup for the recipe yielded more reliable results. Also, it's best to line your baking sheet with parchment paper rather than a silicone baking mat. Since these cookies are so big, they'll spread too much on the slippery surface of silicone mats and will come out thinner than you’d like. Parchment paper grips more, creating cookies that best resemble the Panera version.

Panera Bread has amazing soups too! See if I hacked your favorite here. 

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.

Source: Hack That Dish by Todd Wilbur.

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. grocery 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?

Source: Hack That Dish by Todd Wilbur.

The secret to the signature flavor of the most popular grilled dishes at Carrabba's, including the Pollo Rosa Maria, is a top secret grill baste applied to the food as it cooks. According to servers at the chain, the base formula contains butter, oil, vinegar, and seasoning, and it flames when applied to the grilling chicken, giving the dish a fantastic smoky flavor.

The chain's famous lemon butter sauce and mushrooms top the Fontina cheese and prosciutto-stuffed chicken breasts for an impressive signature entrée you can perfectly duplicate with my easy Carrabba's Pollo Rosa Maria copycat recipe below.

This is my #3 most popular recipe of 2025. Check out the other most popular recipes of the year: On the Border Enchiladas (#1), Taco Bell Cantina Chicken (#2), Taco Bell Meximelt (#4), and Crumbl Classic Pink Sugar Cookie (#5).

And here's the list of our most popular recipes of all-time.

Source: "Top Secret Recipes: Step-by-Step" by Todd Wilbur.

Subway’s most popular freshly baked cookie will remind you of biting into a scrumptious slice of berry cheesecake. The cookie dough contains a hint of cream cheese, and the cookie is studded with creamy white chocolate chips and flavorful real raspberry baking bits.

The challenge of making a good clone was re-creating the raspberry bits found in the real cookie through easy steps that anyone could manage. I experimented with raspberry candy bits similar to Turkish Delight, gummies, and fruit rolls, but each technique took much too long. Eventually, I mixed concentrated raspberry purée with white chocolate chips and created meltable raspberry baking bits that were easy to make and delicious.

I’ll show you how to make those raspberry bits with simple steps and photos. Then, you’ll combine these bits with white chocolate chips and other ingredients to create a batch of 22 cookies that come out of your oven crispy on the edges and chewy in the middle, just like the real ones at the world’s biggest sandwich shop.

Try my Subway Raspberry Cheesecake cookie recipe below, and find my recipes for Subway Chocolate Chip, Double Chocolate Chip, and White Chip Macadamia Nut cookies here.

Source: Hack That Dish by Todd Wilbur.

The chewy, fresh-out-of-the-oven cookies sold at Subway are baked daily at the sandwich shop with frozen dough pucks provided by Otis Spunkmeyer. So, I guess you could say that this copycat recipe for several of Subway’s most popular cookies is also a clone of several of Otis Spunkmeyer’s most popular cookies.

Perhaps the biggest secret revealed here is the butter/oil blend. Most cookie recipes call for just softened butter as the fat component, but that can add too much butter flavor. According to the ingredients list for these cookies, they contain a blend of oil and butter, which worked best as a 2-to-1 ratio of butter to oil after baking through a number of test batches. This fat blend helped improve the texture with crispier edges and a chewier middle, and the butter flavor was perfectly muted. Also, just one egg is added here—most cookie recipes like this add two—to make the cookies less cakey.

Below you'll find my Subway cookies copycat recipes for Chocolate Chip, Double Chocolate Chip, and White Chip Macadamia Nut. I'll show you how to form the dough into pucks that can be frozen and either baked right away or saved for several weeks so that you can serve a batch of freshly baked cookies in just 20 minutes, with minimal effort, whenever you like.

This recipe was my #4 most popular of 2023. Check out the other most popular unlocked recipes of the year: Church's Chicken Original and Spicy Fried Chicken (#1), IKEA Swedish Meatballs (#2), Chipotle Guacamole (#3), IHOP Thick 'N Fluffy French Toast (#5).

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

In 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 copycat 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.