The reason a restaurant dish tastes like that is almost never the kitchen. It is one detail nobody tells you: pickle juice in the chicken marinade, powdered sugar in the flour, club soda in the fish batter, a bay leaf in the rice. Learn the detail and the copycat recipe stops being an approximation. These copycat restaurant recipes cover the ones people actually miss, from Olive Garden zuppa toscana and the salad dressing, to Red Lobster cheddar bay biscuits, Chick-fil-A sandwiches, Cinnabon cinnamon rolls, Wendy’s chili and a whole run of Starbucks and Sonic drinks. The one thing I will not copy is a cinnamon roll, because I make my mother’s recipe and always will. Everything else here is fair game, and most of it costs a quarter of the check.
1. Olive Garden Salad Copycat
The dressing is the entire reason anyone orders this salad, and it is five minutes in a jar: olive oil, white vinegar, mayonnaise, grated parmesan, lemon juice, sugar, garlic powder, garlic salt and Italian seasoning, shaken until it emulsifies. The mayonnaise is what makes it cling. Build the salad the way the restaurant does, with red cabbage, carrot, roma tomatoes, jumbo olives, onion, croutons and pepperoncini, and keep some dressing back for the table.
Get the full tutorial at Yellow Bliss Road.
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2. Dollywood Cinnamon Bread
The Grist Mill at Dollywood sells around 350 loaves an hour and mills the flour on site, which tells you what the line is like. This copycat starts with a one pound loaf of frozen bread dough, so the hard part is already done. Cut five deep slits across the top, brush butter into every one of them, press on cinnamon sugar, rise thirty minutes and bake at 300 for forty. The glaze is powdered sugar and milk.
Get the full tutorial at DIY Joy.
3. Copycat Carraba's Bread Dip Spices
Make the dry blend once and you have restaurant bread dip on demand for months. Crushed red pepper, cracked black pepper, oregano, basil, parsley, garlic powder, onion powder, rosemary and coarse sea salt, plus fresh crushed garlic, all mixed together. To serve, a tablespoon of the blend into a shallow dish with a third of a cup of good olive oil. Five minutes, and the rest keeps in an airtight jar.
Get the full tutorial at Savory Experiments.
4. Copycat Texas Roadhouse Fried Pickles
Oil at 375, dill pickle slices drained well and tossed in flour seasoned with Cajun spice, oregano, basil and a little cayenne, fried two or three minutes until golden. Do not crowd the pot, because overlapping pickles steam instead of crisping. The dip is mayonnaise, horseradish, ketchup and Cajun seasoning, mixed in under a minute. Twenty minutes total and they have to be eaten right away, which has never been a problem.
Get the full tutorial at All She Cooks.
5. Copycat Red Lobster Biscuits
Grate the cold butter straight into the dry ingredients rather than cutting it in, then stir the milk through only until it barely comes together. Those two things are the whole recipe: butter left in pieces is what makes the layers, and a worked dough is what makes them tough. A quarter cup scoop onto the sheet, thirteen to fifteen minutes at 425, then brush the garlic parsley butter over while they are still hot. Eight biscuits, twenty five minutes.
Get the full tutorial at Creations By Kara.
6. Copycat O'Charley's Loaded Baked Potato soup
Red potatoes boiled in chicken stock rather than water, only until three quarters done so they hold their shape in the pot. Then a butter and flour roux, half and half, milk, melted Velveeta and three cans of cheddar cheese soup, plus a little hot sauce that you will not taste but will notice if you leave it out. Thirty minutes on low at the end. Bacon, cheddar and chives on top.
Get the full tutorial at The Chunky Chef.
7. Copycat Olive Garden Zuppa Toscana
Italian sausage, russet potatoes, kale and a cup and a half of heavy cream, done in thirty five minutes. The kale is the part people get wrong: strip the leaves from the stems in a V, wash it properly because grit hides in there, and add it at the very end so it wilts rather than boils. Bacon goes in with it. This is the copycat that tastes closest to the original of anything here.
Get the full tutorial at The Country Cook.
8. Crockpot Chicken Gnocchi Soup
Chicken breasts, onion, carrots, celery, garlic, broth and Italian herbs go in the crockpot on low for six hours, or ten minutes at high pressure if you would rather. Shred the chicken in the pot, then stir in evaporated milk, a cornstarch slurry and the gnocchi, which needs no pre-cooking at all. Spinach wilts in last. Evaporated milk instead of cream is why this one is lighter than the restaurant version.
Get the full tutorial at Scrummy Lane.
9. Copycat Chick Fil-A Sandwich Recipe
Two secrets, and neither is the chicken. First, the breasts marinate in pickle juice for an hour, which seasons them right through. Second, two tablespoons of powdered sugar go into the flour dredge, which is what gives that coating its particular sweetness and browning. Fry in peanut oil at about 350 for two minutes a side, toast the buns in butter, add pickles. Any day of the week, including Sunday.
Get the full tutorial at Moms Need To Know.
10. Cheesecake Factory Copycat Creamy Sundried Tomato Fettuccine
Greek yogurt and sour cream stand in for heavy cream here, which sounds like a compromise and is not, as long as you whisk them in fast over low heat so nothing splits. Julienned sun-dried tomatoes, a can of petite diced tomatoes, tomato paste and parmesan build the sauce, spinach wilts in at the end, and a cup of reserved pasta water is there to loosen it. Thirty minutes, four servings.
Get the full tutorial at Table For Two.
11. Long John Silver's Copycat Batter Dipped Fish
Club soda is the whole trick. It goes into seasoned flour with cornstarch, baking powder and baking soda, and the batter foams as you stir, which is what makes the coating light instead of heavy. Oil at 350, cod cut into three ounce pieces, two to three minutes until the batter is golden and the fish floats. Drain on a wire rack rather than paper, or the bottom goes soft.
Get the full tutorial at CopyKat.
12. Applebee's Copycat Oriental Dressing
Five ingredients, one bowl, ten minutes: honey, rice wine vinegar, mayonnaise, dijon and an eighth of a teaspoon of sesame oil. That last measurement is not a typo and it is not shyness. Sesame oil takes over anything it is in, so a pinch of it reads as flavor and a splash reads as a mistake. It makes about twelve tablespoons and it is as good on a sandwich as it is on a salad.
Get the full tutorial at Carrie's Experimental Kitchen.
13. Chipotle Copycat Chicken
The marinade is red onion, garlic, adobo sauce, ancho chile powder, olive oil, cumin and oregano blended smooth and topped up with water to a cup, then poured over the chicken in a bag for anywhere from thirty minutes to overnight. Cook it on the stovetop, the grill or in the oven at 400 to 165 degrees inside. Four pounds at once, which is the point: this is what makes a week of bowls.
Get the full tutorial at Culinary Hill.
14. Cinnabon's Cinnamon Rolls
A full cup of brown sugar and three tablespoons of cinnamon, which is roughly double what a normal roll carries and exactly why these taste like the mall. Roll the dough to sixteen by twelve inches and a quarter inch thick, cut inch and a half slices, and use real cream cheese frosting while the rolls are warm but not hot. About two hours ten minutes, most of it rising. Twelve rolls.
Get the full tutorial at Jo Cooks.
15. Copycat Red Lobster Cheddar Bay Biscuits
Bisquick, garlic powder, cold cubed butter, milk and cheddar, and the instruction that makes it work is to mash the mixture with a fork or biscuit cutter rather than stirring it. Mashing leaves the butter in pieces, which is what makes the layers. Spoon them out, bake at 350 for twelve to sixteen minutes, then baste with garlic parsley butter the moment they come out. Twenty five minutes for sixteen biscuits.
Get the full tutorial at Savory Experiments.
16. Steakhouse Sweet Brown Molasses Bread
The dark color comes from a tablespoon of natural baking cocoa, not from a long bake, and molasses and honey do the sweetness. It wants regular cocoa rather than Dutch process, which behaves differently with the yeast. Two rises take most of the three and a half hours. Shape it as sixteen rolls in a nine by thirteen or six small loaves, and eat it warm with butter, the way the steakhouse serves it.
Get the full tutorial at It's Always Autumn.
17. Starbuck's Lemon Loaf Cake
Three other lemon loaves were tested and thrown out before this one landed, all for the same fault: the crumb was dry inside, and soaking it in syrup only wet the outside. That is a useful thing to know before you start, because it tells you the moisture has to be built into the batter. Dense, fluffy, pronounced lemon, and a creamy powdered sugar glaze poured over the top.
Get the full tutorial at Let The Baking Begin.
18. Portillo's Chopped Salad
Ditalini pasta, cooked al dente and cooled completely, is what makes this a Portillo’s salad rather than a chicken salad, and cooling it fully matters because warm pasta wilts the lettuce. Iceberg and romaine, red cabbage, roma tomatoes, green onion, chicken, bacon and gorgonzola, dressed in a sweet Italian balsamic vinaigrette. Add the blue cheese last so it stays in crumbles. Serves eight.
Get the full tutorial at Gonna Want Seconds.
19. Copycat Taco Bell Mexican Pizza
Taco bowl shells baked flat are the shortcut that makes this possible at home, and finding them is the only genuinely fiddly part. Refried beans and seasoned ground beef on four of them, taco sauce and colby on the other four, broiled until the cheese melts, then stacked. Toppings go on at the end. Thirty minutes for four, and it is a fair bit better than the drive through version.
Get the full tutorial at Life With The Crust Cut Off.
20. Chipotle Cilantro Lime Rice
The rice is boiled like pasta, which is the whole secret: basmati goes into eight cups of boiling water with a bay leaf, cooks uncovered ten to twelve minutes, then gets drained and rinsed with hot water. That rinse takes the starch off, which is why it comes out fluffy with a little chew and never sticky. Lime and lemon juice both go in at the end, with the cilantro.
Get the full tutorial at Culinary Hill.
21. Copycat TGI Friday's Green Bean Fries
Blanching the beans in chicken broth rather than water is the detail worth stealing here, and the ice bath straight afterwards is what keeps them bright green. Dry them well, run the flour and breadcrumbs through a blender for ten seconds so the coating comes out fine, then egg, dredge, and freeze the tray for twenty five minutes before they meet the oil. The dip is ranch, grated cucumber and wasabi horseradish.
Get the full tutorial at Budget Savvy Diva.
22. Copycat Applebee's 4 Cheese Mac&Cheese Honey Pepper Chicken
This is the long one, about eighty minutes, and it is really three recipes stacked: buttermilk chicken tenders dredged in a heavily seasoned flour, a honey pepper sauce simmered twenty minutes with pineapple juice and cider vinegar, and a four cheese sauce for the pasta. Make the honey pepper sauce first and let it cool while everything else happens, because it thickens as it sits. Bacon over the top.
Get the full tutorial at The Chunky Chef.
23. PF Chang's Chicken Lettuce Wraps Copycat Recipe
Fifteen minutes, one pan, and the sauce is four things: hoisin, soy, rice vinegar and sriracha. Ground chicken browns with garlic and onion, the sauce goes in for two minutes, then water chestnuts and green onion for another minute, which is what keeps that crunch. Spoon it into butter lettuce leaves and eat them like tacos. Four servings, and it is a good one for a night when nobody wants anything heavy.
Get the full tutorial at I Save A2Z.
24. Monterey Chicken Chili's Knock Off Recipe
Chicken breasts bake at 350 until the juices run clear, and only then does the barbecue sauce go on, for a final three to five minutes. Sauce it at the start and all that sugar burns black. Bacon and grated colby jack go over the top and the pan runs under the broiler for under a minute, then diced roma tomatoes and sliced green onion at the end. Four servings in about forty minutes.
Get the full tutorial at Creations By Kara.
25. Little Caesar's Crazy Bread
The dough goes together in a food processor, which is faster than a mixer and gives you a smooth elastic ball in a couple of minutes. It rises up to two hours, then gets patted into a rectangle, cut in half vertically and into about eight strips across. Bake at 375 for eighteen minutes, then brush with melted butter and garlic salt and hit it with parmesan while it is hot.
Get the full tutorial at CopyKat.
26. Wendy's Chili Knock Off
Four and a half pounds of ground beef, two kinds of canned beans, Rotel, stewed tomatoes, four cans of tomato sauce and two packets of mild chili seasoning, simmered at least three hours and honestly better all day. This is a stockpot recipe, not a weeknight one, and the volume is the point. Make it when the house is full, freeze half, and remember it tastes better on day two than day one.
Get the full tutorial at Mama Loves Food.
27. Man Catching New Orleans Beignets
Evaporated milk in the dough is what gives beignets their particular richness, and the recipe makes fifty, which is not a mistake. The dough rises two hours, rolls out to a quarter inch, and cuts into two inch squares with a pizza cutter. Flour your counter heavily, because this dough is genuinely sticky. Fry at 350 and bury them in powdered sugar while they are still too hot to hold.
Get the full tutorial at Ashlee Marie.
28. Best Ever Guacamole Chipotle's Copycat Recipe
Jalapeño, red onion and cilantro go into the bowl before the avocado, so the seasoning is already distributed and you can mash once instead of stirring the avocado to paste. Lemon juice and lime juice both, which is the detail most guacamole recipes miss. Then the trick worth keeping: bury an avocado pit in the finished bowl and press plastic wrap right onto the surface, and it will not go brown.
Get the full tutorial at The Slow Roasted Italian.
29. Panda Express Chow Mein
Yakisoba noodles, cooked and drained without their spice packets, are the exact right noodle here and they are in most supermarkets. Everything else is onion, cabbage and celery sliced thin, caramelized hard on high heat, then the noodles, soy sauce and oyster sauce tossed through at the end. Twenty five minutes with about half the oil of the original, and the high heat is what makes it taste takeaway rather than boiled.
Get the full tutorial at Dinner Then Dessert.
30. Copycat Mocha Frappe
Freeze brewed coffee in ice cube trays and blend those cubes instead of plain ice, which is the one idea worth stealing from this whole drink: no watery frappe, ever. Almond milk or dairy milk, chocolate syrup and a little sugar go in with them. Makes five, costs almost nothing, and it means a pot of leftover coffee is now a reason to be pleased instead of something to pour out.
Get the full tutorial at The Chunky Chef.
31. Homemade Shamrock Shake Recipe
Three cups of vanilla ice cream, a cup and three quarters of whole milk, a teaspoon of peppermint extract and green food coloring. That is it, and you do not even need a blender, because softened ice cream shaken in a mason jar gets you there. Five minutes for two large shakes. Go easy on the peppermint the first time, since extract is strong and there is no walking it back.
Get the full tutorial at Baking Beauty.
32. Copycat Starbucks Strawberries And Cream Frappuccino
Milk, vanilla ice cream, ice, four or five real strawberries and strawberry syrup, blended for about six minutes of total effort. The optional quarter teaspoon of xanthan gum is what stops it separating into juice and foam while you drink it, which is the whole reason the coffee shop version holds together. Makes two. Use real berries as well as the syrup or it tastes like candy.
Get the full tutorial at Mom Foodie.
33. Sonic Cherry Limeade Copycat Recipe
Twelve ounces of Sprite, two maraschino cherries, an eighth of a lime cut into two wedges, three tablespoons of the liquid out of the cherry jar, and crushed ice. The cherry jar liquid is the whole thing and it is the ingredient everyone pours down the drain. Cherries and one lime wedge in the bottom of the glass, ice, Sprite, then the cherry liquid and the second wedge squeezed over the top.
Get the full tutorial at Wheel N Deal Mama.
34. Starbucks Caramel Brulee Latte Copycat
Espresso or strong coffee goes into a saucepan with a cup of milk and gets whisked constantly over high heat until it froths and just begins to boil, which is how you get a café texture with no machine on the counter. Off the heat, stir in two tablespoons of caramel sauce and a tablespoon of vanilla syrup. Whipped cream and a caramel drizzle, and the whole thing takes five minutes.
Get the full tutorial at Happy Healthy Motivated.
35. Sonic's Lemonberry Slush
The step that separates this from any other blended lemonade happens before the blender goes on: chopped strawberries are mashed with a quarter cup of sugar and left in the refrigerator for half an hour so they give up their juice. Then it all goes in together with a third of a cup of lemon juice, a cup of water and a tray of ice cubes. Thirty five minutes for two, and most of that is waiting.
Get the full tutorial at Jen Around The World.
36. Jamba Juice Caribbean Passion Smoothie Copycat Recipe
Mango passion juice, ten strawberries, half a cup of peaches, a cup of orange sherbet and ice. The sherbet is doing the work that ice cream does in a milkshake, which is why this tastes like the shop version rather than like a fruit smoothie. The maker’s lighter swap is orange juice and fat-free creamer in its place, with the honest note that the quantity is a guess. Makes four.
Get the full tutorial at Live Like You Are Rich.
