Cloning Recipes, for Fun and Savings!

January 06, 2012

It started with biscuits. (Doesn’t every good story?)

I decided one day, on a whim that I wanted those delicious cheddar biscuits you get when you eat at Red Lobster. I did not, however, want the cost of dining out. So, stomach grumbling, I used my powers of 'Internet researchery' and found a recipe online that some clever chef had put together. Thirty minutes later, I had twelve amazing biscuits, indistinguishable from Red Lobster's. Tasty success!

This simple accomplishment sparked a passion for creating inexpensive, tastes-like-restaurant meals and led to attempts at both the southwestern style eggrolls on Chili’s menu and (when I got really brave) the chicken and gnocchi soup that is my go-to order at Olive Garden. I can even make a passable Minsky's-like buffalo chicken pizza and buffalo wings reminiscent of Buffalo Wild Wings.

Now, I am no gourmet chef or culinary genius, but I’m fairly adept at following directions, and boy am I tenacious! It helps that way more talented chefs than I have already reverse-engineered and deconstructed almost every restaurant menu imaginable and produced easy-to-understand recipes. You can find these recipes (sometimes known as secret recipes, cloned recipes, or copycat recipes) with a simple Google search. But if you’re the kind of person who feels better with a cookbook in hand, check out our catalog for some great cloned recipes!

- Mariah H.
Reference Resources