Healthy Fast Food You Can Make at Home

No matter how well you eat on a regular basis, it’s only human to get slammed with a serious urge for some good old-fashioned fast food once in a while. And sure, sometimes, absolutely nothing hits the spot like a real Big Mac or tastes as nostalgic as a Dairy Queen Blizzard. But if those cravings strike more often than you’d like, you may want some alternative ways to satisfy them—after all, everything from quality of ingredients to nutrition labels can be sketchy for many of those menu items. These 23 copycat recipes come as close as possible to the originals without wrecking your healthy-eating goals.

Appetizers, Snacks, and Sides

1. Papa John’s: Easy Garlic Knots

While these may not be as wholesome as from-scratch garlic knots, using packaged pizza dough does save you some of the ingredients, steps, and elbow grease of going 100 percent homemade. Plus, there are only two tablespoons of butter in the whole recipe, so no matter how you slice (or knot) them, they’re a better choice than what Papa John’s gives you.

2. Cheesecake Factory: Baked Avocado Egg Rolls

We’re not huge calorie counters over here, but even our jaws dropped when we learned that The Cheesecake Factory’s avocado egg rolls clock in at 960 calories per serving. There’s simply no need for that, especially when this identical version can be made easily, quickly, and using a much healthier baking method.

3. KFC: Oven-Baked Fried Chicken Tenders

Marinated in a copycat spice mix dredged in buttermilk and breadcrumbs, these chicken tenders taste like they’ve come right out of Colonel Sanders’ kitchen. The only difference? These are baked instead of fried, so they don’t have to be just a once-in-a-while treat.

4. Panera Bread: Power Kale Caesar Salad

While we’re celebrating Panera Bread’s recent move to strip its entire menu of food additives, not everyone has a branch of the restaurant nearby. Solution: Toss together your own clean-eating take of its popular Power Kale Caesar salad. From the grilled chicken to the tangy dressing down to the cheesy baked Parmesan crisps, it’s just like the original.

5. P.F Chang’s: Chicken Lettuce Wraps

P.F Chang’s is an actual sit-down restaurant instead of a fast-food joint, but technicalities are irrelevant when those irresistible chicken lettuce wraps are involved, right? This quick, homemade recipe gets the crunchy, meaty, sweet, and salty filling down to a T, meaning you can have wraps on the table in 20 minutes whenever the craving strikes.

6. Wendy’s: Chili

You could do worse than ordering the chili at Wendy’s, but you could do a lot better too—by making your own at home! Packed with lean beef, pinto beans, and classic chili spices, this version not only tastes fresher, but also lets you control how much sodium is going into your bowl.

7. Arby’s: Oven-Baked Curly Fries

For some reason, fries just taste better when they’re curly. But don’t wait until the next time you drive past an Arby’s to get your fix of the crispy spirals. Use a peeler (or a spiralizer if you have one) to turn potatoes into those all-important coils, and use a flour-and-egg coating plus the oven-baked method to get them golden and crunchy without a drop of oil.

8. Chick-Fil-A: Chicken Noodle Soup

Everyone’s got a chicken noodle recipe up their sleeve, even Chick-Fil-A. Recreate the fast-food version at home with this recipe. Using prepared rotisserie chicken, carrots, and plenty of egg noodles, it’s the quintessential, brothy bowl of comfort.

23 Healthier Recipes That Feed Your Fast-Food Addiction

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