See if I hacked your favorite here. Use this original technique, and these handy step photos, to make extra crispy potatoes the Shakey's way. You can use my CPK Sedona White Corn Tortilla Soup recipe below to make a soup that tastes just as good as the original without most of the oil and fat. After 30 minutes of cooking, youll end up with about the same amount of sauce as in a large jar of the real thing. But the new flavor is for a limited-time-only, and when its gone, my exclusive Chipotle Pollo Asado recipe may be the only way to satisfy your deep desire. Rub the chicken with melted butter and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Place your clucker breast-side up on a rack in a roasting pan. Built by the Worcester Lunch Car Co. back in 1940, Gilley's PM Lunch in Portsmouth is one of America's best diners, albeit small enough that for much of its life, the restaurant was actually a . . Ochoa took the deal, and El Pollo Loco grew from 17 to more than 200 outlets over the following decade. Add in diced onions and minced garlic. Simmer over medium heat for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Use the steps below and in about an hour youll have 8 servings of a soup that is a culinary doppelganger to Panera Bread's Baked Potato soup, and at a mere fraction of the cost. You can also make El Pollo Loco Flame Broiled Chicken, pinto beans, Spanish rice and more. The $30 restaurant dish consists of three 2-ounce tenderloin steaks, swimming in a fantastic balsamic cream sauce with sliced portabello mushroomsbut a home version of Maggiano'sBeef Tenderloin Medallions is only seven easy steps away, and it won't hit you in the wallet as hard as the pricey original. Keep that extra prep time in mind when planning your soup. Lets call him Skippy. The first bite you take will make you think of a fresh cinnamon roll, and then you cant stop eating it. Give yourself an hour to bake the potatoes and around 30 minutes to prepare the soup. I incorporated all those missing ingredients into my Olive Garden Braised Beef Bolognese recipe, tweaked a few other things, and then tested several methods of braising the beef so that it comes out perfectly tender: covered, uncovered, and a combo. Garnish each serving with shredded cheese, crumbled bacon and green onions, and then humbly await your due praise.Try my Tony Roma's Baked Potato Soup recipe below, and find more of your favorite Ruby Tuesday copycat recipes here. All rights reserved. I used to like their burgers. Season the soup with cumin, garlic, and ground black pepper. If not, a regular blender or food processor will work fine to pure the soup so that it has the smooth consistency of the original CPK tortilla soup, but with only a miniscule two grams of fat per serving. It wasnt tough and chewy as I expected it to be. Drain about one tbsp. Vegetarian Tortilla Soup. Enable collaborative features and customize widget: King's Hawaiian Original Hawaiian Sweet Rolls, KFC Extra Crispy Fried Chicken (Improved), Buffalo Wild Wings Buffalo Wings and Sauces, Olive Garden Italian salad dressing recipe, California Pizza Kitchen (CPK) Sedona White Corn Tortilla Soup Low-Fat, Jimmy Dean Pancakes and Sausage on a Stick. Try my Applebee's Chicken Wonton Tacos recipe below, and find more copycat recipes from Applebee's here. Re-creating Applebee's Chicken Wonton Tacos requires cloning four parts; none of which are difficult: Grilled chicken, coleslaw, secret dumpling sauce, and the crispy wonton shell to hold all of it together. The secret process starts by coating the potato slices with the dry breading mix, which contains salt. Despite his affliction, Shakey Johnson was still able to bang out toe-tapping Dixieland jazz on the piano night after night in the pizza parlor he opened in Sacramento in 1954, where live jazz accompanied the thin crust pizza and cold pitchers of beer. This recipe was our #4 most popular in 2019. Chick-fil-A uses natural roasted chicken flavor in their version, and we can do the same by using Better Than Bouillon Roasted Chicken Base found in many stores and online. Give yourself an extra hour for this important marinating step. Slightly lower heat to medium and add butter and chopped onions. Put the lid on and cook on low for about 8-10 hours. In the early 90's Boston Chicken was rockin' it. 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). When its not on the menu, no problem, you can make my recipe for Panda Express Firecracker Chicken in no time. For many years this entre has been a top menu choice at Maggiano's, the 54-unit Italian chain from Brinker, the same company that operates Chilis Grill & Bar. Pair my El Pollo Loco Flame Broiled Chicken recipe below with my copycat recipes for El Pollo Locoavocado salsa, pinto beans, Spanish rice, and bbq black beans. Source: Top Secret Recipes Unlocked by Todd Wilbur. Give my Wendy's seasoned potatoes recipe a try. That means the company holds about 65 percent of the $1.2 billion quick-service seafood business. But now you can eat it anytime you want, with no reservations, at a tableyou own. The whole dish took just a few minutes for the enthusiastic chef to prepare, and before I knew it I was out the door with a huge box of hot chow mein ready for hacking. You might also like my #1 recipe of 2020, Rao's Homemade Marinara Sauce. An even better solution is to copy the Rao's Marinara sauce for yourself using this new and very easy recipe. Pre-shredded cheese is dusted with cornstarch so that the shreds dont stick together in the bag, and it wont melt as smoothly as cheese you shred by hand. Before he became America's sausage king, Jimmy Dean was known for crooning the country hit "Big Bad John." Peel the skin carefully off of the chicken and discard. Check out the other four most unlocked recipes for the year: Qdoba 3-Cheese Queso (#2), Panda Express Fried Rice (#3), Outback Baked Potato Soup (#4), Chipotle Carne Asada (#5). Chicken Tortilla Soup: Preheat a pot with oil over medium-high heat. Place the burger in the center of the wrap followed by the cheese, pickles, onion, ketchup, mustard and lettuce. And when the first rolls gone, you are powerless to resist grabbing for just one more. Find more of my Olive Garden clone recipes here.Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes by Todd Wilbur. Serve the soup with homemade tortilla . Drizzle the top of the casserole with the extra 1/2 cup dressing, garnish with extra pickles if desired, and serve. Since Panera Bread makes all its ingredients known, it's not hard to find out that theres no chicken broth in the original recipe, yet every copycat recipe I located online calls for chicken broth, as well as other ingredients clearly not found in Panera's version. As for the fried tortilla strip garnish that tops the soup, you can go the hard way or the easy way on that step. Island's Restaurant is known for their delicious island- and spice-inspired menu. Menu Description: A deliciously different way to taco. But itll work on just about any mixed greens salad or burrito bowl you come up with at home, or use it as a dip for chicken fingers, taquitos, and Southwestern eggrolls. Stir in the ketchup, mustard, and Worcestershire sauce. Obviously, a clone is needed for this one, stat. Cut the tortillas into strips that are inch wide and 1 inches long. For two years after the first Olive Garden restaurant opened in 1982, operators were still tweaking the restaurant's physical appearance and the food that was served. 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. You can slice the cabbage yourself, but a coleslaw kit thats a combo of sliced cabbage and shredded carrots is a big time-saver. Top with the remaining cheese, and bake until the cheese is melted, an additional 5 minutes. You can find Frank's pepper sauce by the other hot sauces in your market. Its not called baked potato soup because the potatoes in it are baked. Northshore These can be done up to a day ahead of time, or substitute . If youd like to complete the dish the way its served at the restaurant (as in the photo), add some garlic mashed potatoes on the side, using my hack for Olive Garden Garlic Mashed Potatoes. Just be sure to leave plenty of room in the taco for the delicious fillings to come. Set to high pressure for 40 minutes (thick large chicken breasts need 40 minutes from frozen and 30 minutes not frozen). 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 entre, including Hibachi Steak and Chicken. The TV exposure led to acting roles for Jimmy, as a regular on Daniel Boone, and in feature films, including his debut in the James Bond flick Diamonds are Forever. This recipe was our #4 most popular in 2020. Return chicken to the pot and simmer 5 minutes then add lime juice. My wife is one of those haters, but when she tried this sauce, her eyes lit up, and she begged for more. They are a little more expensive than typical canned tomatoes, but they will give you some great sauce. Find more of my Panda Express copycat recipes here. Wonton taco shells are not a thing you can usually find in stores, so well make our own using wonton wrappers and a skillet of hot oil. Hopefully, everyone at your house is hungry, because the Olive Garden dinner portion is two chicken fillets, and my Olive Garden Chicken Parmigiana recipe will yield a total of four 2-piece servings. Check out the other four most unlocked recipes for the year: Panda Express Chow Mein (#1), Qdoba 3-Cheese Queso (#2), Panda Express Fried Rice (#3), Outback Baked Potato Soup (#4). Step 1 In a large slow cooker, combine chicken, black beans, corn, peppers, onion, fire-roasted tomatoes, cilantro, garlic, cumin, chili powder, salt, and chicken broth. Add the bones, with some salt and pepper, then bring to a boil. This tasty ingredient adds an MSG-like savoriness to Paneras soup, and we can duplicate it by using nutritional yeastoften called "nooch"now found in many stores, including Whole Foods. Cook for 8-10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until veggies are tender. I eventually settled on a simple wet batter made with seasoned salt, flour, and little cornstarch for crunch to best match the flavor, crispiness, and red/orange tint of the real thing from Americas first pizza chain. The name was inspired by Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island. In 1946 Jerome launched a new restaurant called Jerry's and it was a booming success, with growth across the country. 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). Its two or three more, plus a few extra to take home for tomorrow. Click here to see if I coped your favorite. Flip chicken, and continue cooking until a . Add tortilla strips in small batches and fry until crisp. My version skips that part by adding the raw potatoes directly into the pot with the other ingredients, where they cook in 20 minutes, and the soup is ready to eat in less time than other recipes take just to get the potatoes done. For this banana bread knock-off, I settled on a blend of both baking powder and baking soda for a good crumb and dark crust that perfectly resembles the original. Add onions, 1/3 cup cilantro, and garlic. How to make this creamy chicken tortilla soup recipe. This recipe was our #2 most popular in 2022. This clone recipe will make enough for 8 big portions, but if you make slightly smaller slices this is easily enough food to fill twelve lasagna-loving bellies. So, I first got a sample of Maggianos Alfredo sauce and figured out how to replicate it. Click here for more of your favorite copycat recipes. Even the tomato sauce was changed as many as 25 times. Simply combine the basic ingredients in my El Pollo Loco Creamy Cilantro Dressing recipe in a blender, and you'll soon have more than one cup of the delicious dressing cloned and ready to pour over any of your home salad creations. Bring to a boil; reduce heat. "The thick-and-creamy texture and rich taste of Tony Roma's best-selling baked potato soup is easily duplicated with a little flour, some half-and-half, and most notably, instant mashed potatoes. All other copycats I saw got it wrong when it came to the nut blend, so if you want a true knock-off, this is the Starbucks Banana Bread recipe to bake. Winston saw the Colonel's handwritten secret recipe for KFC Original Recipe chicken, and he told me one of the secret ingredients is Tellicherry black pepper. The salt in the blend will draw water out of the potatoes, magically transforming the dry breading into a wet batter in about 20 minutes. If your roast has a thick cap of fat on it, trim off the excess. Other hacky hacks for this recipe miss that point and add over an hour to the preparation process by preheating an oven and baking the potatoes, all while hungry stomachs are growling on the sidelines. Use my King's Hawaiian Sweet Rolls recipe for sandwiches, sliders, or simply warmed up and slathered with soft European butter. I used to live near an Islands and now I am far away so great to be able to make this at home. 3. Panera keeps its soup gluten-free by thickening it with a combination of rice flour and cornstarch, rather than wheat flour. The chain was so successful with chicken, the company quickly decided it was time to introduce other entre selections, the first of which was a delicious barbecue sauce-covered ground sirloin meatloaf. Place the lid on the instant pot and turn the valve to the sealed position. Reduce to a simmer for about a half hour. Char vegetables 10 minutes, total, turning occasionally. This huge chicken chain offers seven delicious dressings to top three salad choices, and this is my current favorite of the bunch. Chang's Mongolian Beef recipe using a wok, but if you don't have one, a saut pan will suffice. You might also likemy #1 recipe of 2019,Texas Roadhouse Rolls. Source: More Top Secret Recipes by Todd Wilbur. Crafting an Olive Gardens signature Lasagna Classico recipe became the perfect opportunity to create a beautiful multi-layered lasagna hack recipe that uses up the whole box of lasagna noodles and fills the baking pan all the way to the top. Check out more of my famous breakfast food clone recipes here.Source: Top Secret Recipes Unlocked by Todd Wilbur. Later, when an order comes in, the pizza is built into one of the par-baked crusts and finished off. Tortilla Soup. Use my Boston Market Meatloaf recipe below to copy the same flavor of that first non-chicken dish, a delicious barbecue sauce-covered ground sirloin meatloaf. And when they're done, top the meatballs with your favorite marinara or use my hack here to re-create Raos famous sauce. Menu Description: "Quickly-cooked steak with scallions and garlic. Just made this and it tastes exactly like the Islands one. Chipotles popular limited offering is a good example of how straightforward and flavorful carne asada can be. The slaw is best when it has some time to sit and wilt a bit, so plan ahead for the best flavor. The technique I settled on was cooking the sauce covered for 2 hours, then uncovered for 1 additional hour so that the sauce reduces and the beef transforms into a fork-flakeable flavor bomb. I used dry chow mein noodles (also called Chinese stir fry noodles) which are easy to find and cheap, and dark soy sauce to get that great caramel color. The #1 dish is clearly the made-to-order pizza, but the chains trademarked crispy battered potato slices are a close runner-up and a perfect tasty subject to hack. Most of that time is spent waiting for the chicken to roast (up to 90 minutes -- although you can save time by using a precooked chicken, see Tidbits) and letting the soup simmer (1 hour). 1 cups cheddar cheese, shredded 1/3 cup cream cheese, softened For Topping Corn or Flour Tortillas, See notes Instructions Heat 2 Tbsp. 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). So obviously I walked out. The shells are then partially baked and set aside. The two-stage rising process is also a crucial step in this much requested homemade Olive Garden breadstick recipe. Click here for more of my Chick-fil-A copycat recipes. I've included a simple technique here for making the breaded fried onions from scratch (for the most accurate clone), but you can skip that step by substituting French's canned French Fried Onions that are sold in most markets. Good thing you can follow my Long John Silver's Batter-Dipped Fish recipe below and enjoy that same great flavor at home. Quesos can be made with a variety of cheeses that include queso fresco, asadero, and Muenster, but this particular queso includes a cheese you probably didnt expect: Swiss. According to Skippy, the balsamic cream sauce is as simple as mixing a sweet balsamic glaze with the chains creamyAlfredo sauce. For a good home clone, be sure to smash the avocado until no chunks remain and let the dressing sit for at least an hour before you use it so the dried herbs, onion, and garlic can rehydrate and the flavors can bloom. His singing success launched a television career on ABC with The Jimmy Dean Show, where Roy Clark, Patsy Cline, and Roger Miller got their big breaks. Preheat oven to 375F. Remove the bones and add the contents of the skillet, along with the meat, cayenne and chili powder, lime juice and salt to taste. 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). For a great chicken tortilla soup that doesnt skimp on chicken and comes packed with other goodies like two kinds of beans, corn, chiles, onion, celery, garlic, and cilantro youll want to make my recipe for Chick-fil-As hearty version. P. F. Chang's secret sauce is what makes this dish so good, and it's versatile. The actual work involved is minimal -- most of your time is spent chopping the vegetable ingredients. Once that was done, I measured increments of balsamic glaze into the Alfredo sauce until the color and flavor matched the original. This recipe was our #3 most popular in 2019. of lime juice 1 tbsp. Menu Description: "Here they are in all their lip-smacking, award-winning glory: Buffalo, New York-style chicken wings spun in your favorite signature sauce. 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. Healthier Slow-Cooker Chicken Tortilla Soup. Heat canola oil in 12-inch skillet on medium-high. Be the first to get Todd's latest hacked recipes, sent to your inbox every week. The easy way is to grab a bag of the new habanero-flavored Doritos, which happen to be similar in spiciness to the strips used at the restaurant. It's that sort of dedication that creates fabulous dishes like this popular soup. The talented chefs at Benihana cook food on hibachi grills with flair and charisma, treating the preparation like a tiny stage show. If you like Uno, you'll love this! Menu Description: Creamy potato soup topped with melted cheese, bacon, and green onions.. Step 2 Cover and cook on . Add onion, garlic and jalapeo and cook until onion is softened. Menu Description: Creamy marsala wine sauce with mushrooms over grilled chicken breasts, stuffed with Italian cheeses and sundried tomatoes. Update 1/9/17: Replace the 10 cups of water with 8 cups of chicken broth for a shorter simmer time and better flavor. Its 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. It was only three years later that Ochoa got the attention of bigwigs at Dennys, Inc., who offered him $11.3 million for his U.S. operations. Instructions. Add garlic and cook for 1 more minute. But on the last day, I got lucky: "One extra-large Mexican Chicken Chili, please." On my CMT show Top Secret Recipe I chatted with Winston Shelton, a long-time friend of KFC founder Harland Sanders. Its not overly mysterious since Chipotle is transparent about the ingredients used for the restaurant's entire menu53 ingredients in allbut identifying those is only the beginning of the process. Those are red bell peppers and they are roasted, peeled, and seeded along with the poblano and jalapeos before they are diced and added to the cheese sauce. His idea was to create an efficient outlet that could serve freshly madecinnamonrolls in shopping malls throughout the country. The sauce cooks on low heat, never bubbling, so that it stays smooth and creamy. Sprinkle with taco seasoning and chili powder and give it all a good stir. Drain and salt. If that isnt in the stars for you, you could buy a bottle of the sauce at your local market (if they even have it). That name change, plus rapid expansion of the chain and growth of other similar home-style meal concepts, sent the company into a tailspin. As for the fried tortilla strip garnish that tops the soup, you can go the hard way or the easy way on that step. Yep, these seasoned potatoes are gluten-free. Getting a table at the 123-year-old original Raos restaurant in New York City is next to impossible. Island's Restaurant is known for their delicious island- and spice-inspired menu. Other recipes will call for some form of broth here, but the broth is unnecessary, and it's not in the real thing so a good clone recipe wouldn't include it. My Qdoba 3-cheese queso recipe was our #2 most popular in 2021. Copying that delicious, flakey crust was the task that took me the longest. Then he took a chance on what would be his most successful venture in 1969, with the opening of the first Long John Silver's Fish 'n' Chips. When picking your pork roast, try to find one without too much fat. Make delicious homemade Cinnabon Cinnamon Rolls at home with my recipe below, or try my improved recipe here, which I perfected with the help of Cinnabon HQ. I've cloned some of the best dishes from P.F. My Islands Tortilla Soup recipe produces a copycat with awesome flavor and texture, since you'll be making fresh chicken stock from the carcass of the roasted chicken. Add more hot stuff to taste if you wish. Try my Benihana Japanese Onion Soup recipe below, and complete the Benihana experience with more of my recipes here.Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 2 by Todd Wilbur. Add broth, quinoa, and seasonings. Plan ahead to brine your chicken breast for a couple of hours so that it's moist and flavorful. I first published my KFC Extra Crispy Fried Chicken recipe in Even More Top Secret Recipes,but recently applied some newly acquired secrets and tips to make this much-improved recipe of one of the most familiar fried chicken recipes in the world. 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. Okay, so I'm easily amused.My Benihana Japanese fried rice recipe will go well with just about any Japanese entre, and can be partially prepared ahead of time and kept in the refrigerator until the rest of the meal is close to done. 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. Remove chicken and shred. I anticipated a beef jerky experience, but when I took a bite, I found it to be delicious! You might also like to try my Boston Market side-dish recipes here.Source: Even More Top Secret Recipes by Todd Wilbur. Just be sure not to marinate it for more than 2 days or the acid in the marinade may toughen your steak and you certainly don't want that. Make my McDonald's French Fries recipe for the classic fish 'n chips experience.Source: Top Secret Recipes by Todd Wilbur. The tables are owned by regulars who schedule their meals months in advance, so every table is full every night, and thats the way its been for the last 38 years. Source:Top Secret Recipes Unlocked by Todd Wilbur. Definitely making this over & over againthanks for the recipe! The chicken is made the same way as in my Top Secret Recipe for Chick-fil-A Southwest Chicken Saladits brined for four hours to infuse it with flavor before it gets grilled. Wendys uses a blend of food starches plus rice flour for the breading on their version, but my tests confirmed that cornstarch is all youll need for a great clone of Wendy's seasoned potatoes. Season with freshly ground black pepper. It appears that Chipotles new chicken is marinated in a vacuum meat tumbler similar to the way the Mexican chicken chain El Pollo Loco does it. The first El Pollo Loco in the United States opened in Los Angeles in December 1980 and was an immediate success. Preparation. But that plan was scrapped when, after selling many of the under-performing Boston Markets, the chain began to fly once again. Tortilla Soup at Islands Restaurant "Delicious tortilla soup and the burgers are always juicy and flavorful. Thats great, now I wont have to eat alone. These sauces are very thick, almost like dressing or dip, so we'll use an emulsifying technique that will ensure a creamy final product where the oil won't separate from the other ingredients. Meanwhile, create the tortilla strips that will top the soup. Add chicken breasts and remaining soup ingredients to the pot. Top your finished soup with shredded cheese, crumbled bacon, and green onion, and every spoonful will taste like a fullydecked-out baked potato. 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. If you want to make meatballs that taste like the classic original, use my Rao's meatballs recipe below. With a few I'm good. Heat oil in a Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Whisk the eggs with 3 tablespoons of water and a teaspoon of salt and black pepper. There are many acceptable ways to formulate good queso, but to make this specific queso the ingredients must be correct, and most copycat recipes seem to get it wrong. 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. Serve topped with mozzarella, crispy tortilla strips and a . A little bit of nooch will provide the umami deliciousness that replaces chicken broth or bouillon. Pretty cool right? Menu Description: "Spicy, shredded beef, braised with our own chipotle adobo, cumin, cloves, garlic and oregano." It blends the flavors of potatoes, kale, and Italian sausage in a slightly spicy chicken and cream broth. If you like lasagna, you're going to love this version. The problem with adding sauce to fried food is that the wet sauce makes the crunchy fried food not so crunchy. Fortunately, I could squeeze in a reservation at the Las Vegas Raos location a few weeks before it closed its doors forever at Caesars Palace in late November 2021. When the marinara is done, top the chicken with the sauce and mozzarella and stick it under your hot broiler until bubbling. Now you've just cloned the chain's Loaded Tortilla Soup, and you're a better person for it.