Menu Description: “Creamy marsala wine sauce with mushrooms over grilled chicken breasts, stuffed with Italian cheeses and sundried tomatoes. Served with garlic mashed potatoes.”

This recipe includes a marsala sauce that even marsala sauce haters will like. My wife is one of those haters, but when she tried this sauce, her eyes lit up, and she begged for more. Great, now I won’t have to eat it alone.

Not only is Olive Garden's delicious marsala sauce hacked here (and it’s easy to make), you’ll also get the copycat hack for the chain's awesome Italian cheese stuffing that goes between the two pan-cooked chicken filets. Build it, sauce it, serve it. The presentation is awesome, and the flavor will knock their socks off.

Try this dish paired with my recent free clone of Olive Garden’s Garlic Mashed Potatoes for the complete O.G. Stuffed Chicken Marsala experience.

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

Menu Description: "Spicy, shredded beef, braised with our own chipotle adobo, cumin, cloves, garlic and oregano."
 
The original Mexican dish barbacoa was traditionally prepared by cooking almost any kind of meat goat, fish, chicken, or cow cheek meat, to name just a few, in a pit covered with leaves over low heat for many hours, until tender. When the dish made its way into the United States via Texas the word transformed into "barbecue" and the preparation changed to incorporate above-ground techniques such as smoking and grilling. The good news is that we can recreate the beef barbacoa that Chipotle has made popular on its ginormous burritos without digging any holes in our backyard or tracking down a local source for fresh cow faces. After braising about 30 pounds of chuck roasts, I finally discovered the perfect Chipotle Mexican Grill barbacoa burrito copycat recipe with a taste-alike adobo sauce that fills your roast with flavor as it slowly cooks to a fork-tender delicacy on your stovetop over 5 to 6 hours. Part of the secret for great adobo sauce is toasting whole cumin seeds and cloves and then grinding them in a coffee grinder (measure the spices after grinding them). Since the braising process takes so long, start early in the day and get ready for a big dinner, because I've also included clones here for Chipotle's pico de gallo, pinto beans, and delicious cilantro-lime rice to make your burritos complete. You can add your choice of cheese, plus guacamole and sour cream for a super-deluxe clone version.

Source: Top Secret Recipes Unlocked by Todd Wilbur.

The talented chefs at Benihana cook food on hibachi grills with flair and charisma, treating the preparation like a tiny stage show. They juggle salt and pepper shakers, trim food with lightening speed, and flip the shrimp and mushrooms perfectly onto serving plates or into their tall chef's hat.

One of the side dishes that everyone seems to love is the fried rice. At Benihana this dish is prepared by chefs with precooked rice on open hibachi grills, and is ordered a la cart to complement any Benihana entree, including Hibachi Steak and Chicken. I like when the rice is thrown onto the hot hibachi grill and seems to come alive as it sizzles and dances around like a bunch of little jumping beans. Okay, so I'm easily amused.

This Benihana Japanese fried rice recipe will go well with just about any Japanese entree and can be partially prepared ahead of time and kept in the refrigerator until the rest of the meal is close to done.

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes by Todd Wilbur.

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

I’m not sure when it happened, but it appears that Taco Bell changed its seasoned beef recipe. I hacked the recipe several years ago for the book Step-by-Step, and I recall the recipe had much more oat filler, so that’s how I cloned it. Taco Bell came under fire in 2011 for the significant amount of oats in the recipe that the chain was listing as “spices.” And after that, Taco Bell was more transparent about ingredients. But somewhere along the way it appears the company tweaked the recipe to include less filler and more flavor, so a new Top Secret Recipe had to be created.

This recipe makes a duplicate of the beef currently served at Taco Bell. If you want to turn it into a Chalupa—which the restaurant makes by deep frying the flatbread used for Gorditas—the instructions are here. But you can also use this new, improved beef hack for anything you’re copying, whether it's tacos, burritos, Enchiritos, Mexican Pizzas, or a big pile of nachos.

The secret ingredient in our hack is Knorr tomato bouillon. This flavor powder adds many ingredients found in the original recipe and provides the umami savoriness that’s required for a spot-on clone of the famous seasoned ground beef. To get the right flavor, you need to find "Knorr Tomato Buoillon with Chicken Flavor" powder. Not the bouillon cubes.

Menu Description: "A traditional topping of roma tomatoes, fresh basil and extra-virgin olive oil. Served with freshly toasted ciabatta bread."

Olive Garden's recently redesigned bruschetta recipe improves on the Italian chain's previous version. The tomato salad includes a little sun-dried tomato and balsamic vinegar, and it is now served in a separate dish rather than on the bread. Now the bread doesn't get soggy. The tomatoes are finely diced before mixing with the other ingredients, and the ciabatta bread is sprinkled with a little grated Parmesan cheese before it's toasted. Try to find a nice, chewy loaf of Italian bread for this dish—get the best bread in the store. The better your bread, the better your bruschetta.

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 2 by Todd Wilbur.

This super simple salsa can be made in a pinch with a can of diced tomatoes, some canned jalapenos, fresh lime juice, onion, spices and a food processor or blender. Plus you can easily double the recipe by sending in a larger 28-ounce can of diced tomatoes, and simply doubling up on all the other ingredients. Use this versatile salsa as a dip for tortilla chips or plop it down onto any dish that needs flavor assistance—from eggs to taco salads to wraps to fish. You can adjust the heat level to suit your taste by tweaking the amount of canned jalapenos in the mix.

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 2 by Todd Wilbur.

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

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 2 by Todd Wilbur.

Menu Description: "Crunchy and crisp battered green beans with a cool creamy Cucumber-Wasabi Ranch dip."

T.G.I. Friday's new finger food offering might just make you forget about French fries. At least for a little while. Flavorful green beans are coated with tasty breadcrumbs, then fried to a golden brown, and served with a side of creamy wasabi dipping sauce. This item has quickly become the top seller on the chain's new appetizer menu as Friday's becomes the first major casual restaurant to introduce a dish that has been popular for several years at upscale chains.

Creating a home version isn't just a matter of breading and frying fresh green beans. My first attempts using a breading technique employed for perfect onion rings produced beautiful looking fried beans, but they were undercooked and had an overwhelming green bean flavor that was absent from the Friday's version. So, I had to figure out a good way to get the green bean-ness out of there. After a few tests that included steaming, baking, and boiling, I finally settled on blanching the beans in a flavorful broth. The secret technique, which you'll find here, tenderizes the beans while injecting pleasant flavor that closely resembles the Friday's favorite.

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 3 by Todd Wilbur.

Menu Description: "Grilled beef medallions drizzled with balsamic glaze, served over fettuccine tossed with spinach and gorgonzola-alfredo sauce."

This menu item builds on Olive Garden's great alfredo sauce recipe with the addition of gorgonzola cheese. The tangy cheese sauce works well with the sweet-and-sour balsamic reduction drizzled over the beef medallions. Find three 6-ounce sirloin steaks or whatever cut you prefer and slice each of them into four 1 1/2-ounce fillets. Get pounding with a kitchen mallet and make those steaks about 1/2-inch thick and they will grill up to same size as the medallions on the original dish. Between the pounding and the meat tenderizer in the beef seasoning, you will turn even the cheapest cut of beef into a tender morsel. Build your dish as described below and you will have re-created the taste and presentation of the original rich, tasty, fulfilling dish.

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 3 by Todd Wilbur.

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

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

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

This recipe is so easy, even a 2-year old can make it. Check out the video. 

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 2 by Todd Wilbur.

Don Gordon and Dean Biersch's vision of a fun place for delicious food and great beer became a reality in Palo Alto, California in 1988. Now there are more than 40 Gordon Biersch locations in 17 states serving custom-brewed beer, and an extensive menu of entrees and appetizers including these easy-to-clone, flavorful French fries. No need to make this Gordon Biersch garlic fries recipe from scratch. Just grab a bag of frozen French fries at your local supermarket, and bake or fry a pound of them following the directions on the bag. When the fries are done, toss them with the secret garlic mixture and serve.

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 3 by Todd Wilbur.

As you can probably guess, KFC's Extra Crispy Tenders are chicken tenderloins coated with the same delicious breading as the Extra Crispy Chicken. These tenders come in servings of two, three, six, or twelve, with your choice of dipping sauces on the side including Buffalo, barbecue and the new Finger Lickin' Good Sauce.

An important secret revealed in this recipe is a specific type of ground black pepper. Find Tellicherry pepper, which is black pepper ground from mature peppercorns that have had time to develop more flavor. This ingredient is essential for a good hack, and I confirmed its use at KFC after chatting with the man who sold Harland Sanders his first pressure fryers, Winston Shelton, in Louisville, Kentucky. Winston, who was a good friend of Colonel Sanders for many years and claims to have seen the original secret recipe, whispered to me one day that Tellicherry pepper is the secret to the famous fried chicken’s special aftertaste. After conducting a side-by-side taste test with Tellicherry pepper and standard table pepper, I believe Winston is right.

Tellicherry black pepper costs a little more than the younger stuff, but this tasty ingredient is essential if you want a good clone of the famous crispy fried chicken. Be sure to grind it fine.

There’s one copycat recipe for these famous biscuits that’s posted and shared more than any other, and it’s downright awful. The dough is formulated with self-rising flour, baking powder, powdered sugar, shortening, and buttermilk, and many complain that the recipe creates dough that’s much too loose and the resulting biscuits are a complete disaster. Yet there the recipe remains on blogs and boards all over the interweb for unsuspecting home cloners such as yourself to waste time on. But that won’t happen anymore, because I have made a good recipe that works the way it should, guaranteeing you’ll get amazing golden buttermilk biscuits that look and taste just like a trained Bojangles’ pro made them.

In addition to the obvious overuse of buttermilk, the recipe I found has many problems. The author gets it right when calling for self-rising flour, which is flour containing salt and a leavening agent (aka baking powder), but why would the Bojangles’ recipe be designed to use self-rising flour and then add additional leaving? Well, it wouldn’t. Biscuits are job #1 for self-rising flour, and the leavening in there is measured for that use, so there’s no need to add more. If you were planning to add your own leavening, you’d probably start with all-purpose flour. And let's just be clear: baking powder tastes gross, so you want to add as little as possible, not more than necessary.  

It’s also important to handle the dough the same way that workers at Bojangles’ do. They make biscuits there every 20 minutes and there are plenty of YouTube videos showing the preparation technique. In a nutshell, the dough is mixed by hand (because their dough is so large, but for this recipe use a mixing spoon), then it’s folded over a few times on a floured countertop before it’s rolled out. This gentle handling of the dough prevents the gluten in the flour from toughening and adds layers, so your biscuits come out of the oven tender and flakey.

For the best results, find White Lily flour. This self-rising flour is low in gluten and makes unbelievably fluffy biscuits. If you use another self-rising brand, you’ll still get great biscuits, but the gluten level will likely be higher, the biscuits will be tougher, and you’ll probably need more buttermilk. Head down to the Tidbits below for details on that.

And I noticed another thing most biscuit recipes get wrong. For biscuits that are beautifully golden brown on the top and bottom, you’ll want to bake them on a silicone baking mat (or parchment paper) at 500 degrees F. Yes, 500 degrees. Seems hot, but this high temp works well with self-rising flour, and in 12 to 15 minutes the biscuits will be perfectly browned. Counterintuitively, it’s the lower temperatures that end up burning the biscuits, and the higher temperature cooks them just right. At lower temps the biscuits must stay in the oven longer to cook through, which exposes the surfaces to more heat, and they end up too dark on the outside, especially the bottom. For even better results, use the convection setting on your oven, if you have that. Set the temp to 475 degrees F. and your biscuits will look they came straight from the drive-thru.

Menu Description: "Parmesan, Romano and mozzarella cheese, clams and herb breadcrumbs baked in mushroom caps."

Breadcrumbs, clams and three types of cheese are baked into white mushroom caps in this clone of a top pick from Olive Garden's appetizer menu. Mix all the stuffing ingredients together in a bowl, fill the mushroom caps, sprinkle on some minced red bell pepper, cover the mushrooms with a blanket of mozzarella cheese slices, and bake. After 15 minutes you'll have a great appetizer or hors doeuvre for 4 to 6 people—that's twice the serving size of the dish from the restaurant.

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 2 by Todd Wilbur.

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

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

Menu Description: "A creamy hot dip of artichokes, spinach and Parmesan with pasta chips."

Just about every aspect of the Olive Garden restaurants was developed from consumer research conducted in a corporate think tank by the General Mills Corporation. Restaurant-goers were questioned about preferences, such as the type of food to be served, the appearance and atmosphere of the restaurant, even the color of the candleholders on each table. The large tables and the comfy chairs on rollers that you see at the Olive Garden restaurants came out of those vigorous research sessions.

I'm not sure if this dish came from those sessions, but according to servers at the Olive Garden, the Hot Artichoke-Spinach Dip is one of the most requested appetizers on the menu. The restaurant serves the dip with chips made from fried pasta, but you can serve this version of the popular appetizer with just about any type of crackers, chips, or toasted Italian bread, like bruschetta.

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes by Todd Wilbur.

Menu Description: “Banana Cream Cheesecake Topped with Bavarian Cream and Fresh Sliced Bananas.”

I’ve learned a lot about cheesecakes over the last couple decades in the process of duplicating a variety of popular versions for the Top Secret Recipes cookbooks, and I’ve made a lot of mistakes. But the biggest secret I’ve discovered for baking picture-perfect cheesecakes is using a water bath. By baking the cheesecake in a pan filled with just a little water you add moisture to the oven, thereby allowing the top of the cheesecake to expand as it cooks without developing what will look like an aerial view of the San Andreas Fault. If you don’t over mix your filling and use a water bath, you’ll bake a restaurant-quality cheesecake every time. You also need to have a good recipe of course, and this one here is great if you like banana cream pie. It’s quickly become a top choice at the restaurant chain because of the banana flavor hidden in each layer. And everyone knows that Nilla Wafers go great with bananas, so these ground-up cookies make the perfect crust.

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 3 by Todd Wilbur.

In the early 90's Boston Chicken was rockin' it. The home meal replacement chain's stock was soaring and the lines were filled with hungry customers waiting to sink their teeth into a serving of the chain's delicious rotisserie chicken. So successful was the chain with chicken, that the company quickly decided it was time to introduce other entree selections, the first of which was a delicious barbecue sauce-covered ground sirloin meatloaf. But offering the other entrees presented the company with a dilemma: what to do about the name. The bigwigs decided it was time to change the name to Boston Market, to reflect a wider menu. That meant replacing signs on hundreds of units and retooling the marketing campaigns. That name change, plus rapid expansion of the chain and growth of other similar home-style meal concepts sent the company into a tailspin. By 1988, Boston Market's goose was cooked, and the company filed for bankruptcy. Soon McDonald's stepped in to purchase the company, with the idea of closing many of the stores for good, and slapping Golden Arches on the rest. But that plan was scrapped when, after selling many of the under-performing Boston Markets, the chain began to fly once again.  Within a year of the acquisition Boston Market was profitable, and those meals with the home-cooked taste are still being served at over 700 Boston Market restaurants across the country.

Source: Even More Top Secret Recipes by Todd Wilbur.

When I first hacked this recipe back in 1997 for the book, Top Secret Restaurant Recipes, Hooters wings looked different than they do today. The chain used to leave the pointy end of the wing attached to the middle piece, or “flat,” which, frankly, is unnecessary because there is very little meat on the tip segment. Today the chain serves wings like everyone else, drumettes and flats, completely separated, and delivered by waitresses in the same bright orange shorts as when the chain started in 1983.

One thing that wasn't available to me back then was the opportunity to examine the chain’s packaging for the lists of ingredients on signature items like sauces and breading. Today, since they sell these items as retail products, I can take advantage of labelling laws which require ingredients to be clearly listed, and see what really goes into these recipes. Using that new information I’ve made a few small tweaks to improve this recipe from over 20 years ago, including two versions of the kickass wing sauce—medium and hot—for your wing-devouring pleasure.

When pondering casual chains with the best Monte Cristo sandwiches, two come to mind: Bennigan's and Cheddar's. They are both turkey, ham and cheese sandwiches, battered and crispy on the outside, dusted with powdered sugar, and served with raspberry preserves for dipping. Yes, it probably sounds strange if you've never had one, but monte cristo alums know it all tastes really great together. I hacked Bennigans' version years ago for my cookbook Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 2, and recently, on a trip to Charlotte, North Carolina, was I able to get a taste of Cheddars' signature version of this famous sandwich.

I planned for this mission by bringing along a cooler of ice so that I could get a fresh sample safely back home on the plane. Once I was back in the lab in Vegas I subjected the sandwich to a series of tasty tests, ran through several versions of batter, and eventually assembled this new Cheddar's Monte Cristo copycat recipe that I think is even better than Bennigan's version. The better batter is the big secret here—it's light and crispy, and perfectly golden brown, and the sandwich features two cheese, both white and yellow American cheese. Will this be the best monte cristo you've ever had? Do this to find out...

Menu Description: "Quickly-cooked spiced chicken served with cool lettuce cups."

While working on the formula for P.F. Chang's Vegetarian Lettuce Wraps, I discovered that there were several ways I could improve the clone recipe for the Chicken Wraps that I published in Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 2. I've now perfected the flavor of the stir-fry with the addition of mirin (a sweetened sake syrup) and oyster sauce, both of which you can find in your market where the Asian foods are stocked. The "special sauce" that you spoon over your wraps has also been tweaked and perfected. And fnally, after reducing the amount of chicken from two breasts fillets to just one, I think this new and improved version of P.F. Chang's most popular dish is the absolute best clone it can be. 

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 3 by Todd Wilbur.

In the 1970's, food conglomerate General Mills expanded its growing restaurant business. A research team was organized to study the market, and to conduct interviews with potential customers on what they want in a restaurant. Seven years later, in 1982, the first Olive Garden restaurant opened its doors in Orlando, Florida. Today it is the number one Italian restaurant chain in the country with over 470 stores.

One of the all-time favorites at Olive Garden is the Italian salad dressing served on the bottomless house salad that comes with every meal. The dressing was so popular that the chain sells the dressing by the bottle "to go." You won't need to buy a bottle, though. With our Olive Garden Italian salad dressing recipe you can make your own version that tastes just like the original, and it's way cheaper. The secret to thickening this dressing is to use dry pectin, a natural ingredient often used to thicken jams and jellies. Pectin can be found in most stores in the aisle with baking and cooking supplies or near the canning items.

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes by Todd Wilbur.

If you like sweet with a little bit of heat, and if you like salmon, then this hack from Outback is the copycat recipe for you. Grilled salmon is brushed with the restaurant's top secret Firecracker Sauce and then it's topped with simple-to-make mango salsa. Those fabulous formulas are all here, and I’ll also show you how to cook the salmon the same way the restaurant does for a perfectly awesome kitchen clone.

Menu Description: "Known as Buffalo chicken wings here in the States."

No, Outback Steakhouse is not the country's largest importer of Australian woodland kingfisher wings. Despite the name, these tasty wings don't come from the wild birds also known as kookaburras. Instead, this appetizer is made the old fashioned way—with good old American chickens. And as with the traditional recipe, these wings are coated with Louisiana hot sauce; but it's the breading that makes them unique. This clone Outback Steakhouse kookaburra wings recipe uses a secret blend of powdered cheese sprinkles and spices. Kraft powdered cheese can be found near the Kraft Parmesan cheese or near the macaroni and cheese kits in your supermarket. If you can't track it down, use Molly McButter cheese sprinkles. If you can't find that, get a box of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese (it's cheap) and use the cheese inside it.

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 2 by Todd Wilbur.

The Sweet Onion Chicken Teriyaki Sandwich, one of Subway's biggest new product rollouts, is made with common ingredients: teriyaki-glazed chicken breast strips, onions, lettuce, tomatoes, green peppers, and olives. But what sets it apart from all other teriyaki chicken sandwiches is Subway's delicious Sweet Onion Sauce. You can ask for as much of the scrumptious sauce as you want on your custom-made sub at the huge sandwich chain, but you won't get any extra to take home, even if you offer to pay. Now you can pour a copycat version of the sauce to your home-built sandwich masterpieces whenever you want.

Source: Top Secret Recipes Unlocked by Todd Wilbur.

There are a few decent bottled salad dressings out there, but there's nothing on the shelf that compares in taste to this homemade version of the house dressing from Bonefish Grill. Not only that, it's a heck of a lot cheaper to make your own vinaigrette from scratch. And check out the easy steps: Mix everything together in a bowl, microwave for 1 minute, whisk to emulsify, then chill. If you're a salad lover, this is the clone for you. 

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 3 by Todd Wilbur.

Menu Description: "With pieces of chicken marinated in a spicy peanut-ginger and sesame sauce, green onions, bean sprouts, julienne carrots, cilantro and roasted peanuts."

After the first California Pizza Kitchen opened in Beverly Hills in 1985 success came quickly: there are currently 78 restaurants in 18 states. In 1992, huge food conglomerate PepsiCo paid over $70 million for a 70 percent share of the company-just eight years after Larry and Rick started the company. As for those two, well, they pocketed $18 million apiece, or around 70 times their initial investment in 1985. 

Thai Chicken Pizza is one of the oldest varieties of pizza still on the menu, and remains a favorite. If you prefer, you can make this California Pizza Kitchen Thai Chicken Pizza recipe with a store-bought package dough or dough mix, but I recommend making the crust yourself. If you decide to do that, make it one day ahead of time so that it can rise slowly in the refrigerator. If you liked this, be sure to check out our CPK BBQ chicken pizza recipe.

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes by Todd Wilbur.

Menu Description: "Our specialty! French Vanilla ice cream with a crunchy, crispy cinnamon coating. Served with your choice of honey, chocolate or strawberry topping."

Cooks at Chi-Chi's chain of Mexican restaurants are instructed to not memorize recipes for the dishes they make. Management says each chef is required to consult the company cookbooks every time they whip up a meal, so that each dish tastes exactly the same in every Chi-Chi's any time of the day. Perhaps it's that practice that has made Chi-Chi's the largest Mexican restaurant chain in the country. 

This crispy-coated ice cream sundae is not exactly fried as you may expect by the name. The scoop of vanilla ice cream is actually rolled in cornflake crumbs that have been flavored with sugar and cinnamon, giving it the appearance and texture of being fried. It's a simple idea that tastes just great, and is well worth the try. Chi-Chi's calls this their "specialty" and claims it's the most requested dessert item on the menu.

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes by Todd Wilbur.

The problem with adding sauce to fried food is that the wet sauce makes the crunchy fried food not so crunchy. Panda Express manages to keep the crispy beef in Beijing Beef crispy even though it may be sitting for over 20 minutes in the sauce until it’s served to a hungry you. My early attempts at hacking my favorite dish at the massive Chinese food chain all resulted in gummy, soggy beef that was more like a flat dumpling than the delicious crunchy strips of joy they were meant to be. Then, finally, on one batch, I decided to fry the coated beef for much longer than I intuitively felt it should be cooked, resulting in dark browning on the cornstarch, and an even darker piece of meat beneath it. I predicted a beef jerky experience, but when I took a bite, I found it to be perfect! The meat was not tough and chewy as I expected. And when this seemingly overcooked beef was stirred into the sauce, it stayed crispy until served, just like the real thing.

Now, with the mystery of the crispy beef solved, we’ve finally got a great hack for this famous sweet and spicy dish.

After years of fielding requests to clone the delicious signature soup from this 100-unit chain, I was finally able to secure a couple carry-out samples from Max & Erma's at the Cleveland airport while I was there on biz trip. Wrapped in a bundle of napkins and tucked into a carry-on bag, my samples arrived home in Vegas still warm and ready for analysis. For this one you'll need some white and dark fillets of chicken and a half pound hunk of cheese to shred. It's all that Cheddar cheese that makes this tortilla soup so good. And you'll definitely want to shred your own, since the pre-shredded stuff—while also more expensive—just doesn't melt as well in the chicken broth as cheese that's been shredded just before it goes into the pot. 

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 3 by Todd Wilbur.

Update 2/8/17: This recipe may work better if you first make a sauce with the cheese before adding it to the soup. After step #2, combine 2 tablespoons of butter with 2 tablespoons of flour in a medium saucepan. Whisk in 1 cup of milk until thickened, about 3 minutes. Remove it from the heat and stir in the cheese until it's melted. Keep the cheese sauce warm over low heat until you need it. Reduce the cornstarch to 1 tablespoon and dissolve it into the chicken broth in a large saucepan. Add the chicken, sauteed vegetables, and remaining ingredients for the soup (except the cheese sauce) and bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer 10 minutes. Stir in the cheese sauce and simmer the soup for another 10 minutes while you bounce to step #4.

Panera’s top soup pick in the summer is a creamy vegetarian chowder that’s full of flavor and very simple to duplicate at home once you know an important flavor secret. I started my hack using a vegetable broth since that’s what all the other “copycats” call for, but I found its strong vegetable flavor dominated the soup, so I quickly bailed on that plan. Starting over, I referred to the soup ingredients posted online by Panera Bread and noticed there is no broth in the soup, which means every copycat recipe I found online is wrong. I didn’t want to make the same mistake in my recipe, but without the broth this soup would be severely lacking in flavor, and that’s no good either.

In many soup recipes, the broth or stock is important for the umami quality provided by the yeast extract added to the product. Yeast extracts are one of the many ways food manufacturers add an MSG flavor-enhancing effect without adding true MSG. Panera does in fact list “yeast extract” as one of the ingredients in the soup, so I needed to find a readily available ingredient that provides the same savory quality. Enter nutritional yeast—or “nooch” as it’s often called—a flakey, nutrient-packed, vegan ingredient that’s growing quickly in popularity thanks to the savory, cheesy flavor it adds to a variety of foods (it’s great on popcorn). Nooch is also popular with the vegans and vegetarians since it’s fortified with vitamin B12, an essential nutrient that's mainly found in animal-sourced foods.

Now, with nooch in there, along with yellow corn, red skin potatoes, poblano pepper, tomatoes, cilantro, and other tasty things, no broth is required. Just add water and a little patience. 

Here's how to build a cheeseburger in crispy spring roll dough and make the secret 4-ingredient dipping sauce, for a perfect hack of one of Cheesecake Factory’s newest appetizers. I found the best solution for a good clone was to first cook two 4-ounce Angus patties—with 15% fat so the beef stays juicy—in a saute pan until browned. I then grilled some onion in the same pan, and mixed it into the crumbled patties, with ketchup, and diced American cheese. 

I tried several different wrappers and found the thinnest wrappers to work the best. Try to find wrappers that say “super thin” on them. Thicker dough wrappers will blister when fried, which is not how the restaurant version looks, although the thicker wrappers still make tasty spring rolls. Rice paper wrappers will give you a chewier, less crispy bite, but are a good option if you're interested in a gluten-free version. If you go with rice paper, you won’t need the cornstarch solution to seal them. Just dipping the wrapper in a little water makes the rice paper pliable and naturally sticky.

Here's a clone for the instant dressing mix you buy in the .7-ounce packets. When added to vinegar, water, and oil, you get one of the best-tasting instant salad dressings around. But what if you can't find the stuff, or it is no longer sold in your area, as I've heard is the case in some cities? Or maybe you just want to save a little money by making your own? Use the recipe below to make as much dry mix as you want, and save it for when you need instant salad satisfaction. I've used McCormick lemon pepper in the recipe here because it contains lemon juice solids that help duplicate the taste of the sodium citrate and citric acid in the real thing. The dry pectin, which can be found near the canning supplies in your supermarket, is used as a thickener, much like the xanthan gum in the original product.

Source: Even More Top Secret Recipes by Todd Wilbur.

Menu Description: “Grilled chicken breast strips and rotini pasta oven baked in a creamy Alfredo sauce with a layer of melted cheese.”

Pizza Hut announced its new pasta dishes in 2008 with an email campaign claiming the company was changing its name to “Pasta Hut.” The date was April 1^st, and the blast was an April Fool’s publicity stunt that helped make the chain’s new Tuscani pastas one of the company’s most popular new product launches. Each of the three varieties of pasta are covered with cheese and baked until light brown on top. The Creamy Chicken Alfredo Pasta garnered the most hacking requests here, all pleading to know how to duplicate the delicious alfredo sauce. I burned through several pounds of pasta and many quarts of cream, but finally landed on this top secret formula. Now make this delicious dish in your own kitchen. No foolin'.

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 3 by Todd Wilbur.

This delicious fall offering arrives frozen to each Starbucks store and is thawed out just before opening in the morning. The pumpkin cream cheese muffins were especially popular in the fall of 2008. According to my local Starbucks manager, a memo fired off to all stores warned of a shortage in the product and that inventory in most states would be depleted before the holidays arrived. That was enough information to get me quickly working on a hack recipe, and here you go. First, sweeten some cream cheese and get it back in the fridge to firm up. It's much easier to work into the top of the muffins when it's cold. The pumpkin seeds that are sprinkled on top of each muffin get candied in a large skillet with brown sugar and cinnamon. Line a 12-cup muffin tin with paper muffin cups, add the muffin batter and some cream cheese, top with the candied pumpkins seeds, and then bake. Soon you'll have a dozen fresh clones of the amazing muffins, and you'll always be prepared for the next pumpkin cream cheese muffin shortage.

Source: Top Secret Recipes Unlocked by Todd Wilbur.

Menu Description: "Chicken breast tenderloins sauteed with bell peppers, roasted garlic and onions in a garlic cream sauce over angel hair."

This dish is a big favorite of Olive Garden regulars. Chicken tenderloins are lightly breaded and sauteed along with colorful bell peppers and chopped red onion. Angel hair pasta is tossed into the pan along with a healthy dose of fresh scampi sauce. If you're cooking for two, you can prepare this dish for the table in one large skillet, saving the remaining ingredients for another meal. If you're making all four servings at once, you need two skillets. If you can't find fresh chicken tenderloins (the tender part of the chicken breast), you can usually find bags of them in the freezer section. 

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 2 by Todd Wilbur.

When 20-year old Rocky Aoki came to New York City from Japan with his wrestling team in 1959 he was convinced it was the land of opportunity. Just five years later he used $10,000 he had saved plus another $20,000 that he borrowed to open a Benihana steakhouse on the West Side of Manhattan. His concept of bringing the chefs out from the back of the kitchen to prepare the food in front of customers on a specially designed hibachi grill was groundbreaking. The restaurant was such a smashing success that it paid for itself within 6 months. 

The most popular items at the restaurant are the Hibachi Chicken and Hibachi Steak, which are prepared at your table on an open hibachi grill. But, since most home kitchens are not fitted with an hibachi grill, you'll have to improvise. You will likely have to use two pans for this Benihana hibachi chicken and steak recipe; one for the meat and mushrooms, and the other for the remaining vegetables. And since many of today's cooking surfaces are coated with scratchable, nonstick coatings, we won't be slicing the meat and vegetables while they are sizzling on the hot cooking surface as the Benihana chefs do.

Grab my clone recipes for the Ginger and Mustard Dipping Sauces here! 

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes by Todd Wilbur.

Menu Description: "Select pork, hickory-smoked then hand-pulled, so it's tender and juicy. 'An old Southern delicacy' with our famous vinegar-based bar-b-que sauce. Served with fries, ranch beans and homemade coleslaw."

Take a big honkin' bite out of one of these and you'll soon know why it's the Hard Rock Cafe's most popular sandwich. The pork is hickory smoked for 10 hours, but since we're impatient hungry people here, we'll cut that cooking time down to under 4 hours using a covered grill and carefully arranged charcoal. Just sprinkle wet hickory chips over the hot charcoal arranged around the inside edge of a grill (such as a round Weber), and let the smoking begin. You can certainly use an actual smoker if you've got one, and go the full 10 hours. You should try to make your cabbage a day ahead of time so it has time to marinate.

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 2 by Todd Wilbur.

Menu Description: “Crispy, fried flour tortillas stuffed with spicy grilled chicken and cheese, served with cool avocado-lime dipping sauce.”

This Top Secret Recipes version of the best-selling signature appetizer dish from the popular steakhouse chain will produce a serving that’s two-and-a-half times bigger than the plate you get at the restaurant. That makes this recipe the perfect choice for any big game get-together or festive holiday shindig where you've set your sights on becoming the event’s finger food superstar. You can make the wraps early in the day or even the day before and then fry them off at party time, but I would make the avocado-lime dipping sauce as close to serving time as possible since the avocado in the sauce will brown after a couple hours. I found it most convenient to use a Cheddar and Monterey Jack cheese blend which is easy to find in most stores, but if your market doesn’t have the blend simply use ½ cup each of the two shredded cheeses. 

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 3 by Todd Wilbur.

Menu Description: “Our house specialty with cream, jalapenos and cheddar cheese.”

These slightly spicy au gratin potatoes are cooked at a low heat several hours in advance of the dinner house’s evening opening. When an order for the signature side comes into the kitchen a generous serving of the potatoes is portioned out, topped with grated sharp cheddar cheese, and baked again at a high temperature until browned. The real trick to this Fleming's potato au gratin recipe is to slice the potatoes very thin—1/16 of an inch to be exact—and the only way to do that is with a slicer, such as a mandoline. The rest of the prep involves making a basic béchamel sauce using cream, and then carefully layering the sauce and sliced potatoes in the baking dish. The potatoes are baked for 2 hours and then chilled in the restaurant, so this can be a great make-ahead dish for entertaining. You can also serve the potatoes immediately by topping them with cheese, cranking up the oven, and heading straight into the second baking step.

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 3 by Todd Wilbur.

Menu Description: "Chicken breasts lightly sauteed and topped with lemon butter sauce and capers."

Buca di Beppo's most popular chicken dish was deliciously simple to reverse-engineer: I asked the server to check on what kind of dairy is used in the sauce and whether or not white wine is cooked into it. After getting the information I needed, I ordered the dish to go with the sauce on the side and got to work back in the lab. Several versions hit the sink as I successfully experimented with various amounts of wine, butter, and cream. it was only after I decided to chill the sauce that I got the information that I needed. The sauce formed a firm solid in the fridge, which indicated that I needed a lot more butter than first estimated. I made the proper adjustments and the sauce that sat in my pan was a perfect match that could surely stand up to a blindfolded taste test. The rest of the secret technique required pounding the chicken breasts until thin. This tenderized the chicken and made each piece the same size as the original. A quick saute later, I was arranging the chicken on a serving platter, adding capers, spooning on plenty of sauce, and I had before me a beautiful culinary carbon copy indistinguishable from the popular menu pick.

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 3 by Todd Wilbur.

When these cookies are cool, be sure to seal them up real tight in something like Tupperware or a Ziploc bag. That's the way to keep them moist and chewy like the original GrandMa's Big Cookies. In fact, he real product claims to be the only national cookie brand that guarantees the freshness of the product or double your money back. That confident gurantee comes from the current manufacturer, Frito-Lay, which purchased the GrandMa's Cookies brand from General Mills back in 1980.

Source: Even More Top Secret Recipes by Todd Wilbur.

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

Menu Description: "Oven baked with fresh apples and pure Sikiyan cinnamon glaze."

Fresh, high-quality ingredients and traditional recipes are what makes this growing chain a frequent favorite for anyone who stops in. The star of the show is the incredible apple pancake, the chain's signature dish. To make a dead-on clone, Granny Smith apples are sauteed in butter, brown sugar and cinnamon, then allowed to cool for a bit. That way, when the batter is poured into the pan, the apples and glaze stay anchored to the bottom. This technique also prevents the glaze from penetrating into the batter as the pancake bakes since there is now an apple barrier preventing any mixing of the ingredients. When the pancake comes out of the oven it's flipped over onto a plate and the apples are right there on top, dripping with a delicious cinnamon-sugar glaze. You won't need any syrup for this one, that's for sure. Just a light dusting of powdered sugar on top. Then dig into an apple pancake unlike any other.

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 2 by Todd Wilbur.

In Zagat's 1995 New York City Restaurant Survey, Le Cirque 2000, one of the city's most upscale restaurants, received a 25 rating out of a possible 30. In the same guide, Al "The Soup Nazi" Yeganeh's Soup Kitchen International scored an impressive 27. That put the Soup Nazi's eatery in 14th place among the city's best restaurants for that year.

It was common to see lines stretching around the corner and down the block as hungry patrons waited for their cup of one of five daily hot soup selections. Most of the selections changed every day, but of the three days that I was there, the Mexican Chicken Chili was always on the menu. The first two days it was sold out before I got to the front of the line. But on the last day I got lucky: "One extra-large Mexican Chicken Chili, please." Hand over money, move to the extreme left. 

Here is a hack for what has become one of the Soup Nazi's most popular culinary masterpieces. If you like, you can substitute turkey breast for the chicken to make turkey chili, which was the soup George Costanza ordered on the show.

Source: Top Secret Recipes Unlocked by Todd Wilbur.

Update 1/9/17: Replace the 10 cups of water with 8 cups of chicken broth for a shorter simmer time and better flavor. I also like using El Pato tomato sauce (recipe calls for 1/2 cup) for a bit more heat. 

This 8-unit Scottsdale Arizona-based chain founded in 1999 was named one of the top 10 steakhouses in the country by the Gayot restaurant and travel guide, and is planning to build 40 additional restaurants over the next 10 years. Mastro’s restaurants are known for their elegant settings and delicious prime beef served on 400-degree plates, but this side dish ranks high among the most popular menu choices. As if the creamy gorgonzola cheese sauce isn’t incredible enough, this dish is topped with a bubbling cheese layer that includes mozzarella, Fontina, and Pecorino; plus a little Grana Padano, which is similar to Parmigiano-Reggiano. You can track down all of these cheeses separately and make your own cloned blend, or you can use a pre-shredded Italian cheese blend found in most markets that will include from 4 to 6 Italian cheeses in one bag. Even though the bagged blend is not exactly what is used at the restaurant, I found these cheese blends to be an easy and inexpensive substitute that taste very close to the original. When using the pre-blended cheese spread 1½ cups over the top of the pasta and get on with the broiling.

Source: "Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 3" by Todd Wilbur.

Mastro’s signature dessert is sinfully good. How can it not be? It’s buttery pound cake with a warm cream cheese filling, crowned with vanilla ice cream and a drizzle of homemade raspberry sauce. This formula makes 3 cakes when you bake them in 5-inch ramekins, which gives you cakes that are the same size as those served in the restaurant. And each one will easily serve two people. You can make this dessert the day before you plan to serve it just as the chefs at the restaurant do. When each butter cake order comes into the Mastro’s kitchen, a cake is microwaved until hot, the sugar topping is melted with a chef’s torch (the kind used for crème brulee), then the cake is topped with ice cream and raspberry sauce. If you don’t have a torch to melt the sugar crystals, you can just skip that step and serve the cake with the raw sugar un-torched. It still tastes great.

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 3 by Todd Wilbur.

As the seasons change so does the menu, at this popular 1064-unit casual restaurant chain. You'll find this item in the "Low-Fat and Fabulous" column during the summer months where it's been a favorite since 1997. As with any salad, the waistline violator is the traditionally fat-filled dressing that's drizzled in gobs over the top of very healthy greens. A tablespoon of dressing is usually around 10-12 grams of fat each. So if we can just figure out a cool way to make the dressing fat-free, we're well on our way to making huge salad—four of them to be exact—with only 12 grams of fat on the entire plate. Most of those grams come from the chicken breast, while the crunchy chow mein noodles pick up the rest. Just be sure to plan ahead when you make this one. The chicken should marinate for a few hours if you want it to taste like the original. Get ready for some big, meal-size salads.

Nutrition Facts
Serving Size–1 salad
Total Servings–4
Calories per serving–575
Fat per serving–12g

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

I first created the clone for this Cajun-style recipe back in 1994 for the second TSR book, More Top Secret Recipes, but I've never been overjoyed with the results. After convincing a Popeyes manager to show me the ingredients written on the box of red bean mixture, I determined the only way to accurately clone this one is to include an important ingredient omitted from the first version: pork fat. Emeril Lagasse—a Cajun food master—says, "pork fat rules," and it does. We'll could get the delicious smoky fat from rendering smoked ham hocks, but that takes too long. The easiest way is to cook 4 or 5 pieces of bacon, save the cooked bacon for another recipe (or eat it!), then use 1/4 cup of the fat for this hack. As for the beans, find red beans (they're smaller than kidney beans) in two 15-ounce cans. If you're having trouble tracking down red beans, red kidney beans will be a fine substitute.

Source: Top Secret Recipes Unlocked by Todd Wilbur.