Melting Pot

This 140-unit chain is America's go-to restaurant for great fondue since 1975. The four-course menu includes a salad, a broth fondue entrée with a variety of meats and vegetables, and a selection of chocolate fondues for dessert.

But the dining experience starts with a delicious cheese fondue served with various sliced breads, apples, and vegetables for dipping. The most popular of the cheese fondues is this one made with medium cheddar and just a little Emmentaler Swiss cheese melted into beer and combined with garlic and spices. Talking with a manager at my local Melting Pot, I learned that the chain uses Milwaukee's Best or Colt 45 in the fondue, so make sure you use a mild (and cheap) lager beer. He told me that the mild flavor of these beers doesn't overpower the cheese. Use a traditional fondue pot intended for cheese/chocolate fondue.

Check out my Melting Pot Traditional Swiss Fondue recipe in "Top Secret Recipes Step-by-Step". 

Melting Pot cocktail sauce is a simple formula of ketchup, horseradish and lemon juice. It's a perfect sauce to have nearby when you're looking for a classic, great-tasting dip for your fondue-cooked shrimp and lobster. 

Find out how to hack the chain's delicious signature cooking style here: Melting Pot Coq Au Vin Fondue.

Re-creating the signature cooking style at the country's most famous fondue chain required hacking the flavorful simmering broth in which all the proteins and vegetables are cooked. This was tricky since only some of the prep is performed tableside at the restaurant.

When a server brought the warm broth to my table, it was already seasoned with a few mystery ingredients. The pot was left alone to heat up on the center burner, which was the perfect time for me to scoop out ½ cup of the liquid and seal it up in a small jar to take back to the lab for further analysis. When the server came back to the table after five minutes, she added a few more ingredients to the pot: fresh garlic, mushrooms, green onions, Burgundy wine, and black pepper. I took mental notes on the amounts and wrote them into my phone before I forgot.

The server told me the hot liquid base was vegetable broth, so I figured some Swanson in a can would do. But later, after further taste-testing, I found the broth in my stolen sample to be more savory than any of the canned broths I tried. I then made a broth by dissolving a vegetable bouillon cube in boiling water and found the flavor to be a much closer match to the sample I had swiped. The bouillon is also cheaper than the broth, and I'm okay with that.

After a few tweaks to the seasoning additions, I had a good Melting Pot broth recipe that could stand up to any taste test. Use this to cook chopped veggies, chicken, beef, and shrimp. And if you want the complete Melting Pot experience, you're going to need my hacks for the six dipping sauces. So here you go: Cocktail Sauce, Curry Sauce, Gorgonzola Port, Green Goddess, Ginger Plum, and Teriyaki.

My Melting Pot Coq au Vin Fondue recipe is designed for a 2-quart fondue pot. If you have a 3-quart pot and would like a bigger fondue party (lucky you), refer to the Tidbits below for that adjustment.

Check out my Melting Pot Cheddar Cheese and Traditional Swiss Fondue recipes in "Top Secret Recipes Step-by-Step". 

If you like curry, you'll love this sweet-and-sour yogurt-based curry sauce, sweetened with sugar and citrus juices, and kicked up with just a pinch of cayenne pepper. Use my Melting Pot curry sauce recipe with your fondue-cooked chicken and shrimp. It's also good on vegetables.  

Find out how to hack the chain's delicious signature cooking style here: Melting Pot Coq Au Vin Fondue.

It would have been great to find a brand-name plum sauce that is a perfect match to the ginger plum sauce served at The Melting Pot, but after trying several popular brands, none of them was quite right. The sauce that came the closest is made by Lee Kum Kee, and I found the best solution was to use that bottled sauce as a base and transform it into a clone by adding a few other ingredients.

You'll find that this sweet-and-sour sauce tastes delicious on your fondue-cooked shrimp and chicken. 

Find out how to hack the chain's delicious signature cooking style here: Melting Pot Coq Au Vin Fondue.

It only takes a little bit of port wine to perfectly match the flavor of the Melting Pot Gorgonzola Port sauce, which tastes great on your fondue-cooked beef and vegetables.

Find out how to hack the chain's delicious signature cooking style here: Melting Pot Coq Au Vin Fondue.

All you need is cream cheese, sour cream, and fresh herbs to make my Melting Pot Green Goddess dipping sauce for your fondue-cooked veggies.

Find out how to hack the chain's delicious signature cooking style here: Melting Pot Coq Au Vin Fondue.

The Melting Pot sells this thick sauce by the bottle and uses it as a marinade for sirloin in several of the entrées. But there's no need to buy the bottle since you can now whip up an easy clone of your own at home with this new Top Secret Recipe.

Use my Melting Pot Teriyaki sauce for dipping cooked steak, chicken, and shrimp.

Find out how to hack the chain's delicious signature cooking style here: Melting Pot Coq Au Vin Fondue.