We've Got Food At Home–Why Copycat Recipes Hit Harder Now Than Ever

Forbes

11-04-2025

No kid ever wanted to hear the words 'we've got food at home' when all they wanted was a Happy Meal. It usually meant no drive-thru, no McDonald's money, and no break from family dinner. But somewhere along the way, that phrase started to shift. What once signaled denial now reflects creativity, control, and a little culinary pride—especially when what's at home is a copycat recipe for a McRib, a Crunchwrap Supreme, or the latest Starbucks drink you didn't quite want to spend $8 on.
At the heart of this shift is the rise—not of the trend, but of the visibility—of copycat recipes: dishes designed to replicate well-loved branded items, often with a few tweaks for cost, taste, or dietary preferences. And while the internet is now flooded with TikToks, YouTube videos, and food blogs dedicated to reverse-engineering our favorite menu items, the instinct behind copycat cooking isn't new—it's just evolved.
Today, there are entire corners of the internet ready to break down that new Starbucks drink you spotted on Instagram for when you don't want to splurge on another little grande moment. Before Taco Bell brought back its Mexican Pizza, or McDonald's revived the SnackWrap creators were reverse-engineering the famed snack from scratch to keep the craving alive. These recipes often come from a place of emotional or culinary curiosity—not controversy. Unlike handbag dupes, food copies are seen less as knockoffs and more as homage.
Even so, copycat recipes aren't a novel concept. They've been around long before the internet gave us step-by-step videos.
In the 1980s and '90s, publications like Gourmet, the Deseret News, and the Los Angeles Times ran reader-request columns where people wrote in asking how to recreate dishes they remembered from restaurants, theme parks, and food courts. A 1989 column featured a request for oatmeal-raisin cookies from Disneyland. In 1988, it was Medieval Times' herb-basted potatoes.
By the 1990s, you could find 'homemade' versions of Sbarro's baked ziti and even shelf-stable pasta sauces like Healthy Choice. Some recipes came with fanfare, others with a sense of quiet insistence: I loved this. I don't see it anymore. Can I make it myself?
We've always thought we could make it cheaper. We've always thought we could make it ours. And increasingly, brands are beginning to recognize just how powerful that impulse really is.
The only thing that's changed is how—and how widely—we share that impulse.
That drive to preserve something fleeting sits at the heart of the Unlimited Time Menu, a campaign launched by Knorr earlier this year that paired chef Joshua Weissman with food creator Kevin Noparvar (aka HowKevEats). The goal: to help home cooks recreate fast food's most beloved limited-time offerings year-round with pantry-friendly ingredients.
But part of what makes this collaboration stand out is how differently each of them arrived at this moment.
Knorr's Unlimited Time Menu is one example of how brands are leaning into the pull of copycat recipes—not as a novelty, but as a reflection of how people want to engage with food right now. By tapping into fast food dupes, the campaign speaks to a deeper cultural desire: the need to feel in control of what we eat and when we eat it. That impulse isn't just about saving money or skipping the drive-thru. It's about reclaiming the experience—bringing joy and creativity into home cooking, and making familiar flavors your own.
Campaigns like this reflect something broader: a shift in how we relate to food itself. When people take the time to recreate the meals they crave, it becomes less about convenience and more about connection—whether to a memory, a moment, or a personal sense of care. In that way, copycat recipes don't just preserve a taste. They reshape our relationship to it.
Weissman's path is one of early rejection followed by creative return. He went through a brief fast food phase as a kid, but since he cooked at home from an early age, he quickly started wanting to make things that tasted better. By the time he was working in restaurants, he had cut fast food out almost entirely. It wasn't until the now-iconic chicken sandwich sparked his curiosity that he reentered the fold. After reading the buzz, he thought, 'There's no way this is worth it.' But that first bite sparked a lightbulb moment: 'I'm professionally trained. I could make this a million times better at home. But honestly, anybody could.' That frustration—and the curiosity behind it—led to his But Better series, which rebuilds fast food favorites from scratch with bolder flavor and better ingredients.
Noparvar, by contrast, never fully left fast food behind—but his relationship with it changed over time. 'When I was a little kid, I ate fast food,' he said, 'but then my mom went on this insane run of only letting me eat her home cooking.' Years later, through creating content on TikTok, he rediscovered it—trying long-forgotten chains and menu items with fresh perspective. That journey back became part of his appeal: What happens when you revisit the foods you once took for granted?
'Some of the most surprising things came from places people didn't expect—like Arby's,' he said.
Weissman approaches food like a technician; Noparvar comes to it like a storyteller. One rebuilds flavor from the ground up, the other tracks how it shows up in real life. That shared lens—the desire to understand, recreate, and connect—sits at the heart of what makes copycat recipes matter.
While the tools and tutorials for recreating fast food meals stretch far and wide across the internet, Weissman offers something that feels approachable and practical for first-timers: a framework. He explained that most fast food items really come down to two steps. First, figure out what the food item is and identify the components. Then, make those components at home.
For him, it's not about memorizing recipes—it's about thinking modularly. 'If you want to make a chicken nugget sandwich,' he said, 'look up a chicken nugget recipe, look up a sandwich recipe, and combine the two.' The goal is to break it down and then build it back up.
Noparvar, while not a chef, brings a valuable takeaway from the home cook's point of view. He's spent years eating across the country, building a Rolodex of what great fast food should taste like. Seeing how things were recreated in the kitchen sparked something for him: a reminder that it's not as hard as it looks. 'There are a lot of forums that share what to do, and if you make it, I think people would really be surprised how easy it is to follow,' he said. 'It turns out almost exactly the same.'
That kind of accessibility is part of the magic—it's what makes the copycat moment feel less like a gimmick and more like an entry point.
But what's happening here goes beyond kitchen tips—it reflects a broader cultural shift in how we interact with food, memory, and scarcity.
Fast food has always thrived during moments of economic uncertainty. It's convenient, familiar, indulgent—and consistent. But in 2024 and beyond, it's not just about affordability. It's about how fast food has become part of a much bigger hype cycle—one that mirrors the drop culture we see in fashion, sneakers, and streetwear.
Menu items debut like seasonal collections, disappear without warning and generate FOMO-fueled buzz. A new launch might trend for 48 hours and vanish by next week. That kind of scarcity creates urgency—but it also exposes how much of the fast food calendar is driven by financial decisions, not necessarily by consumer need or emotional resonance.
That's why copycat recipes hit differently now. They're not just saving you money or offering a workaround. They're a quiet form of rebellion against that limited-time-only logic. They let people savor the food they love without depending on a brand to keep it available. You're no longer at the mercy of a marketing calendar or quarterly rollout—you're recreating the experience on your own time, in your own kitchen.
When the item gets pulled, the line's too long, or the budget gets tight, you've still got the recipe—or at least a copycat recipe that hits close enough to satisfy. In a moment where food has become performance, copycat cooking reclaims it as memory, ritual, and choice.
We got food at home. And this time, it's on purpose.