Latest news with #JoshuaWeissman
Forbes
02-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Celebrate The Kentucky Derby With This At-Home Menu By Joshua Weissman
Joshua Weissman showcases his Kentucky Derby At-Home menu, featuring playful twists on Southern ... More classics like mac and cheese, chicken biscuits, and salted potato chip cookies. The Kentucky Derby finally gets underway this Saturday, May 3, at the legendary Churchill Downs in Louisville. The event billed as 'the most exciting two minutes in sports' draws upwards of 150,000 trackside, making it the most-watched and attended horse race in the United States. And while it's known for elaborate fascinators, bold bets, and mint juleps, the spread is also a crowd pleaser. This year, Churchill Downs tapped chef and digital creator Joshua Weissman to take the party from the track to your kitchen with a new Kentucky Derby At-Home menu. Weissman, a New York Times bestselling author with a knack for internet-breaking recipes, was given full creative license to craft a menu that reflects the Derby's tradition-driven but never boring energy. 'Food is such an important part of Derby Day festivities,' he said, 'so I was excited to curate a selection of approachable dishes that honor both the tradition and unexpected nature of the race, all with some fun twists.' The result is a mix of Southern comfort and cocktail pairings with clever updates like baked mac and cheese, honey butter chicken biscuits, salted potato chip chocolate chunk cookies, and Boulevardier Negroni. Whether you're tuning in for the horses or just here for the caramel corn, Weissman's menu makes it easy to keep the vibes high and the kitchen stress low. He spoke to Forbes about the tasty collaboration. Joshua Weissman's honey butter chicken biscuit brings Southern comfort to your Derby Day spread. I think all of the dishes capture that balance. For example, classic southern foods like fried chicken and biscuits are elevated with unique flavors and techniques in my Honey Butter Chicken Biscuit recipe. The honey butter, which is emulsified then drizzled generously all over the top, gives the dish a mouthwatering finish. Generally, I love taking classics that people know and love and making them wildly better than people remember. There's nothing worse than hosting a party and feeling like you're not even able to enjoy it. Where's the fun in that? The Kentucky Derby is such an iconic event and while the race itself only lasts two minutes, people at home will be hosting parties that last far longer. When developing the Kentucky Derby At-Home menu for this year, my priority was making everything elevated yet easy: dishes that are fun and exciting yet easy to make at scale, and easy to set up on a platter, plate, or hot tray. This way, hosts can actually enjoy the festivities too and hangout while people grab bites through the day. For the Perfectly Baked Mac and Cheese and Honey Butter Chicken Biscuit, I focused on doubling down on what makes them great while emphasizing technique to make them far above the average mac and cheese or chicken and biscuit. For example, the honey butter in the Honey Butter Chicken Biscuit being properly emulsified makes a huge difference in both the flavor and texture of that sauce which alone changes the whole experience. I'm excited for fans watching the Kentucky Derby at home this year to try out these recipes and impress their guests. Cookies and popcorn are classic, timeless snacks but my unique twists on them are unexpected and exciting, just like the Kentucky Derby! While the race is a quintessential American sporting event, it's filled with surprises, and I wanted my dishes to mirror that energy. Easy-to-eat snackable items are also the perfect Kentucky Derby party food, allowing guests to eat while enjoying the races and company of others. Joshua Weissman's Boulevardier Negroni is a bourbon-forward twist on a classic. A Boulevardier Negroni goes good with everything in my opinion, and pairs very well with anything on my Kentucky Derby At-Home menu. Even though it's so simple to make, it feels like an elevated drink that can enhance your Derby celebration. It makes you wanna stick that pinky up when you sip. There's a way to prep everything on my Kentucky Derby At-Home menu in advance. Make the cookie dough and chill it. Make your biscuit dough ahead. Marinate your chicken, make your breading for the chicken and keep it in a clear plastic bag waiting. Set yourself up so all you're doing is a quick cook or assembly on the day of so you can enjoy Derby Day experience with family and friends. Have fun with presentation and be creative. The final step in each of the recipes for my Kentucky Derby At-Home menu includes a recommendation for plating. For example, with the Cobb salad, I suggest arranging single rows of each ingredient to make the different colors pop out: the green of the lettuce and avocado, the yellow of the egg, and the red of the tomato. Similarly, with the crudité, I recommend using a shallow bowl and standing the vegetables up to give the dish an elevated look. The worst thing you can do when hosting or cooking is to not find ways to have fun. Mistakes can happen. Just try your best but always remember to have fun. From the food to the fashion and of course, the race, the Derby is such a cultural event with so many different elements for fans to have fun with. My favorite thing to do is to make the full recipes anyway and have leftovers! While your party may come to an end, you can still transport your tastebuds to the racetrack after guests are gone. Alternatively, you can pick 1-2 recipes and cut them in half. For any Kentucky Derby celebration, I would highly recommend you toss the salted potato chip chocolate chunk cookies in though.
Forbes
11-04-2025
- General
- Forbes
We've Got Food At Home–Why Copycat Recipes Hit Harder Now Than Ever
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.
Yahoo
09-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Chef and Content Creator Joshua Weissman Teams Up with The Kentucky Derby to Bring Bold Race Day Flavors to At-Home Celebrations
'Kentucky Derby At-Home' Menu Features Modern Race Day Bites, Perfect for Easy & Elevated Entertaining LOUISVILLE, Ky., April 9, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Churchill Downs Racetrack ("Churchill Downs") announced a partnership with chef, New York Times best-selling cookbook author and content creator Joshua Weissman to help fans create the ultimate at-home race day celebration for the 151st running of the Kentucky Derby. Drawing on his Southern roots and fun, approachable culinary style, Joshua curated an exciting race day menu of dishes that blend regional comfort food with bold flavors, perfect for celebrating 'Kentucky Derby At-Home.' "The tradition of The Kentucky Derby is unlike anything else, extending far beyond the racetrack, and I'm thrilled to help bring the spirit of the Derby to those watching from home this year," Joshua Weissman said. "Preparing a spread for an event as legendary as the Derby can feel intimidating, but my goal with this menu was to craft a collection of approachable dishes that are both easy to make and also put a fresh take on classic race day favorites." Leveraging his culinary expertise and social media savviness, including a keen sense of online food trends and a strong connection to his millennial and Gen Z followers, Joshua thoughtfully put together a spread of easy-to-enjoy snacks and bite-sized Derby-inspired dishes. Each item features a modern or unexpected twist that will bring any Derby party to the next level and won't interrupt the excitement of race day viewing. "Joshua's love for food, creativity in the kitchen and passion for entertaining his online audience make him the ideal partner to curate this year's 'Kentucky Derby At-Home' menu," said Casey Ramage, vice president of marketing and partnerships at Churchill Downs Racetrack. "The menu Joshua put together embodies the energy of the Kentucky Derby with adventurous takes on traditional offerings that will make any at-home celebration just as thrilling as the race itself." For more information, including recipes and images for Joshua's at-home Derby menu, please visit To learn additional details about this year's race, please visit The Kentucky Derby 151 At-Home MenuCrafted by Joshua Weissman Pretzel Sticks with Mustard Mayo Sauce Honey Butter Chicken Biscuit Cobb Salad Perfectly Baked Mac and Cheese Crudité Spicy Sweet Caramel Corn Salted Potato Chip Chocolate Chunk Cookies Boulevardier Negroni About the Kentucky Derby The $5 million Kentucky Derby takes place on the first Saturday in May at historic Churchill Downs in Louisville, Ky. Inaugurated in 1875, the legendary 1 1/4-mile race for 3-year-old Thoroughbreds is the longest continually held major sporting event in the United States and the first leg of horse racing's Triple Crown series. Also known as, The Run for the Roses® and The Most Exciting Two Minutes in Sports®, the Kentucky Derby is the most attended horse race in the nation. The 151st Kentucky Derby will take place on Saturday, May 3, 2025. Tickets for the 151st Kentucky Oaks and Kentucky Derby on May 2-3 are available by visiting and or by calling (502) 636-4447 to be a part of the most extraordinary Kentucky Derby yet. View original content to download multimedia: SOURCE Churchill Downs Racetrack
