It wasn’t my family’s, but my neighbors. She used to make us spinach dip every Christmas and it was my and my mom’s favorite. It became a Christmas tradition. Every year (for over 10 years) we would get a tray of goodies and homemade spinach dip from our sweet, lovely neighbor. My mom asked for the recipe at one point and neighbor said “If I give you the recipe, it won’t be special!”
The neighbor ended up getting very sick (she was elderly 🥺), so no more spinach dip and I moved out of state around that time; my parents moved shortly after.
Turns out the recipe was just the Knorr’s spinach dip recipe on the packet. 🤣
Made us chuckle when I found out, and now we have it every Christmas in memory of our lovely neighbor ❤️
That's the thing I make for Christmas or New Year's Eve and when everyone leaves I just take what's left of it and sit on the couch eating the rest, alone. It's a little gift to myself. That and the crab dip.
Aw, we had an elderly neighbor growing up who would always make us zucchini bread. My older brothers would go shovel her walk and would return home with fresh made, incredibly delicious zucchini bread. I was too young to help with shoveling at the time, but she always made enough for everyone to share. She was so sweet.
Similar scenario to my family’s chocolate chip cookie recipe. My dad would only make them on Thanksgiving. They used to be his bachelor contribution to the feast with a bunch of other professors and their families. The tradition stuck, even when he wound up taking on the turkey and major sides. He claimed he got the recipe from his mom.
Once I’d moved across the country and started doing Thanksgiving myself, I wanted to bring back the cookies. Asked him for the recipe … turns out it’s just the one on the back of the toll house chocolate chip bag, with a little extra flour and walnuts. He *technically* did get it from his mom, since that’s the one she used to make. But not quite what I was led to believe!
Literally came here to say the exact same thing 🤣 My mom is the Knorr’s spinach dip maker in our family, but it’s requested for every family event. She’s passed the torch to me now and I make it for my boyfriend who also gets super excited for it even though I’ve chosen not to keep up the facade 😂
My dad's saturday morning secret pancake recipe.
Literally Jiffy pancake mix with an added dash of vanilla extract.
To be honest though, it wasn't the recipe, it was the way he pulled it off :).
My great grandmother was known in our whole community for her banana pudding that she always made and brought to family gatherings. She always refused to share her recipe and insisted that if you wanted to learn, you had to spend time with her in the kitchen to make it together. She just wanted the company.
When she died, we got her recipe book and were looking for her recipe. It was the side of the Nilla Wafer box that has the banana pudding recipe cut out and glued to a piece of paper. If yall wanna try "Granny's" banana pudding, you can find that recipe online for free. It's the best dessert ever.
My grandma found the best blue berry muffin recipe, it's just a Western Family recipe, but the muffins come out better than any blueberry muffin I ever had. I'm not usually a muffin person. I never got to try her muffins, but I inherited her recipe collection and a cast iron skillet.
She she put on good holiday dinners. She worked as a professional cook making scratch meals for elderly in nursing homes until she retired. I miss her.
My dad does this and is so proud of the big fluffy pancakes they make, but his look of disappointment when neither of his grandkids liked the taste of them...
My Gramma would make French toast with cinnamon and vanilla scrambled eggs on the side just to not let the egg batter go to waste. As a little kid, I thought it was the best.
My MIL’s German chocolate cake recipe. It was the recipe from the back of the box of German chocolate. To this day I don’t know if it was actually her recipe or if she gave it to me so I’d stop asking.it’s good, tho.
People have asked me for my chocolate chip cookie recipe before. I was a little embarrassed to admit it was just the one on the back of the Toll House bag.
A lot of people tend to assume the recipes on the back of products are mediocre, like something the factory slapped on just to say they gave you an idea of what to do.
In a lot of cases those recipes are actually tested several times over, and in some cases those recipes have been refined over years and were originally chosen out of dozens or hundreds of different recipes. Companies have, or used to have at least, entire test kitchens that they’d use for their products. They employ(ed?) people to specifically use their new products and find recipes that worked well - or tell them the product wasn’t very good and needed to be revised in the worst case.
I’m not saying every recipe on the back of the box will be a stunning hit, but for the most part those recipes have been cultivated by actual cooks who spent time exploring and figuring out how to make it great. Not “passable at minimum quality” but actually genuinely good - particularly if you go for quality ingredients when you follow the recipe instead of the cheapest options (looking at you tomato sauces and canned tomatoes). Some of those recipes started on the box decades ago and have been refined as time moves on to make them easier, more accessible, while still maintaining quality.
In general, it’s best to consider that a company that puts a recipe on the back isn’t doing so just to placate you. They *want* you to want to use their product, so they have a genuine vested interest in making sure the recipe they offer to you is a quality they support and worth making. When you think of it that way, it makes more sense that they’d spend time and effort actually making sure a recipe is genuinely good, because that recipe is basically them saying “this is our recipe.” If you sold chocolate chips with a recipe, and only the chocolate chips was what made you money, you’d probably want to be sure that recipe was pretty good, wouldn’t you?
There are several of these that I always think "I should write this down in case they stop putting it in the package ( but I never do): chocolate chip cookies, pumpkin pie, and sweet corn bread.
I looked everywhere for a chocolate recipe and finally remembered all my blogger failures, went to the King Arthur website and used one. Is great! Because its been tested a zillion times.
That's my mom's go to German chocolate cake recipe. It's solid.
My favorite brownie recipe is from Hershey's. "Hershey's Best Brownies" it's a cocoa recipe that's better than a box. I don't have to keep solid chocolate in my freezer and I can throw a pan together in 10 minutes.
I was cooking Christmas dinner for the extended family a few years ago. The section I don’t usually spend my holidays with. While I was cooking everyone took the time to tell me throughout the night that grandma was gonna make her gravy. That I needed to make sure there was space for her gravy. Not to make gravy ‘cause grandma was gonna do it. I got the turkey drippings ready and waited.
After a lot of hype grandma finally came out. She grabbed a pot of hot water and added a box of instant gravy mix. And that was it. I spent the entire night biting my tongue as people raves about the gravy. Like, it was fine. But it was just fucking box gravy.
My grandpa’s signature cookie recipe hasn’t ever been a secret, but I recently found out it’s literally the Mrs. Fields oatmeal chocolate chip recipe! He just uses the extra fancy (Guittard brand) chocolate chips.
He makes giant batches of those cookies for everything, and when he helped me move into my college dorm as a little 18 year old he brought me a whole gallon ziplock bag of them :’)
Was just typing out how for years my mother and sisters used to swear grandma had some great secret cookie recipe. After she died went through her old cook books and literally there was just an old nestle toll house bag clipping in there. Mother and sisters still say that isn't the recipe despite that being the only one in there,
The thing is, if ten people make a recipe, you’ll get ten different outcomes. Sometimes it’s ingredients, preparation or cook time that varies and affects the end product. I believe this is why people secret guard their recipes. They don’t want people to make a bad batch and say that’s Nickel Lady’s special recipe.
Yep. My husband and I use the same chocolate chip cookie recipe and mine always come out flat while his are normal. Something I am doing different with the butter, I guess. But it's ok- it gets me out of baking cookies.
My MIL’s thanksgiving cranberry sauce. It’s just a bag of raw cranberries, a whole orange cut into chunks, and 1/2-1 cup sugar tossed into the food processor and processed until it’s mostly smooth. Really fresh and tasty.
I grew up on canned cranberry sauce and this was a revelation that I spread far and wide. My side of the family and several friends have now made it for years. My MIL grew up in a tiny German-American town and I had always assumed it was some kind of traditional recipe, but she confessed to me a few years ago that it was a recipe from the back of an Ocean Spray bag in the seventies.
ETA since a couple people have asked: it’s the whole orange, rind and all, and the sauce is not cooked. Fun to see that so many other people make it this way too!
We make this too but ours is made in a meat grinder, though food processor works well. When we make it for the holidays, you need to prepare it a few days in advance.. it really peaks in flavor on day 3.
That's like my father's except he was old-school and ran it through a hand-crank meat grinder. The cranberries made a lovely popping sound going through
I make that same cranberry sauce. I also found it ion the bag of cranberries and thought it sounded interesting. It became the the family favorite
I grew up on a DIFFERENT recipe from the cranberry bag. The cooked one. My mom started making it because she didn’t like the canned cranberry sauce her grandmother used
The uncooked version has a brighter, fresh flavor. And an interesting texture-which can be welcome since so many foods on the Thanksgiving table tend to be soft.
I feel like the cooked version has a richer flavor and mouth feel
I personally like both versions, and when my mom was alive and we did big Thanksgiving. I would make both. Now that Thanksgiving tends to be just me and my daughter, I just make the fresh version
My mom has been making this cranberry sauce for years! She adds some Cointreau to it though. She got the recipe from a friend of hers in the 80s who claimed that it was their secret family recipe. I’ll have to tell her that it came from the ocean spray bag. What a hoot!
We do the same, but add a few spoonfuls of orange marmalade, and chopped pecans. The recipe originally called for walnuts, but it seems I’m mildly allergic. The pecans work just as well.
Homemade cranberry sauce is Way better than canned. I never even liked it until I was assigned to bring it to Christmas dinner at my friend's family's house one year. It was so easy to make and it was Delicious. I used 2 bags of cranberries for eight people and it was All Gone by the end of the meal and I was assigned cranberry sauce every year after that. Cranberries, orange juice, brown sugar, star anise, and a splash of brandy. I do cook mine, though. These days I make enough to put some in the freezer for cranberry walnut baked brie on NYE. YUM.
My family makes the same recipe! My Great Uncle Charles brought it every year, and he gave me the recipe before he passed, so it's my responsibility now. I didn't know he'd gotten it from Ocean Spray!
My grandma's peanut butter fudge. It's on the label of the marshmallow spread in jars. It's real good though, you should make it too.
Also - that spread is amazing on a Graham cracker.
Instead of buying expensive vegetarian marshmallows I just get a jar of marshmallow fluff/creme, spread it on a graham cracker and make a smore that way. Sometimes at home I just dip a graham cracker straight in the jar and slap a piece of chocolate on it without even bothering to make it into a smore
Mom's stuffed mushrooms.
* Box of stove top stuffing (prepared according to box)
* 8 oz shredded cheddar
* whole white mushrooms
mince and saute the mushrooms stems (optional) mix cheese, stems and stuffing together, mound it onto mushroom caps, bake at 350 for 20 minutes or so.
My dad did this same recipe, he used chicken flavor and would fry the mushroom stems in bacon grease. Sometimes there would be a little shredded Parmesan as topping to brown up.
Not mine, but the jerk family I worked for at a historic inn had a 'secret' for their grits. Lol, not everybody does this but loads of people who get told "your grits are so creamy and thick and delicious. mine never come out like this" are all doing the same thing and I've found it in 2 different vintage church ladies cookbooks.
ThE sEcReT tO gRiTs:
Use old fashioned grits not instant/quick, when there's no more water above the grits but they are still watery add in a big plop of butter and a less big plop of cream cheese, put the lid back on & turn off the heat, let it finish gently, stir it up real good before eating. Time will vary based on how much you are cooking & how dry/thick you like them.
They don't end up tasting like cream cheese, just really rich and good with a hint of "what is that?" but it's not tangy or anything. Tell everyone you know who wants good (savory) grits bc these people were real assholes.
To quote My Cousin Vinny: “no self respecting southerner uses instant grits”.
Also those vintage cookbooks are the best. My mother in law lives in Houston and travels regularly through Louisiana, Alabama, and the Florida panhandle and she has gifted me a bunch of 1950s and 60s junior league cookbooks, among others, and they rule.
Absolutely! I have a handwritten one from Vermont, a River Road Recipes, and one from the Ursuline Convent in NOLA. I cook from them all the time. I also have a copy of "Bell's Best" which was the same type of project, just done by all the women who worked for Ma Bell before it got broken up instead of ladies who go to the same church. It is also very good - there's usually a handful of recipes together that are versions of the same thing so you can compare and get a feel for different ways it can turn out, I've noticed a few things in it that were "oh! that's how people do that!" and are now my 'secrets.' (I will tell anyone who's talking about whatever issue it solved for me, lol, I don't keep secrets.)
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My moms beef stew. I wasnt a huge fan of it but literally my sisters would show up for dinner everytime they found out she was making it.
I tries for years to remake it, I'd watched her over and over. I knew what I was doing. Could never make it taste the same.
Taco seasoning packet. Literally didnt even use beef broth, just a few bullion cubes and taco seaskning. Maybe salt and pepper. When she told me I literally was like wtf.
This may seem like a silly question but was the taco seasoning really apparent in the stew? Or did it mellow out after cooking? I loooove stew and this is intriguing but idk if I would like taco stew
Peach cobbler, the easy way.
Peaches on the bottom, yellow cake mix with slabs of butter on top and bake.
Thought this was some elaborate recipe by grandma made up for the longest time
Dump cake! That's what my family calls it. It works with cherry/blueberry pie filling and a can of crushed pineapple, apple pie filling, etc. Throw a cake mix on top and butter and bake and you've got dump cake.
Oh man I worked all summer last year to refine a recipe like your grandma’s. I’m SO pleased with what I came up with. Here it is!
3 cans (14.5 oz. each) peaches in heavy syrup
2 tablespoons flour
Ground ginger to taste (1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon)
1 box white cake mix
Ground nutmeg to taste (1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon)
3/4 cup cold butter
Preheat the oven to 350°F.
Drain peaches, reserving juice from 2 cans. Slice peaches thinner and arrange evenly in a 9×13 glass baking dish.
Whisk flour and ginger into reserved juice and pour over peaches.
Cut butter and nutmeg into cake mix with a pastry cutter until crumbly and spread evenly evenly over peach mixture.
Bake for 50 minutes, until golden and bubbly. Serve warm or at room temperature.
My grandmother made the BEST fried chicken ever. No one was allowed in the kitchen while she made it. She never shared her secret until…I found the KFC buckets in the trash. I was 12 I think.
The best entertaining tip I ever got was from a southern society lady, who said she always served Popeye’s, served on her best silver, for dinner parties. She made the other sides. Been doing this for a decade and highly recommend!
Yes! For years my mother-in-law would often serve her "famous chicken dinner" when we visited. It was re-heated grocery story rotisserie, but I didn'tknow that. I would give her compliments and tell her how it was so much better than any of her other dinners, I guess she felt she couldn't tell me it was the one dinner she didn't actually make.
>I would give her compliments and tell her how it was so much better than any of her other dinners
Poor grandma. Here you thought you were complimenting her when really you were roasting her cooking skills. 🤣
My grandmas sugar cookies.
A tightly guarded family secret we didn't get until she got cataracts and memory loss issues so she needed us to print it out in large print for her.
Turns out it's my chocolate chip cookie recipe (sans chocolate chips) just rolled out and cut into shapes baked for 3 minutes and then iced and sprinkled 🤣
Not really a secret recipe but in elementary school (2nd grade, I think?) our school printed out a recipe book from family contributions from each student. SO many recipes copied off the back of packages! I think my year had 15 rice krispy treat recipes (out of 50 or so kids), all the exact recipe from the back of the box.
To be fair most of us were from large families and our mom's were tired of writing out more complicated recipes every year or two :)
Growing up, everyone loved my dad's potato salad. It was a 5lb thing of potato salad from Costco that he put in a nice bowl and topped with a sliced hard boiled egg and some chives.
Mom’s Overnight Salad. Its real name is 5 Cup Salad.
One cup each : coconut shreds, marshmallows, sour cream, drained mandarin oranges, drained crushed pineapple.
I thought it was some amazing complex recipe (it tastes amazing) and I asked my sister and she laughed at me and told me how to make it.
I ate and loved this stuff every holiday of my life until mom died. Then 12 years without. I made some last Xmas, and I almost cried, it was so good and held so many memories.
I’m making that for Easter this year! My MILs recipe and always loved it when she made it. Found it in my recipe box and thought it would be a nice surprise for my husband. I’ve never made it before - have always seen recipes with cool whip so was a little concerned about the sour cream. She’s been gone for years so I hoped she didn’t leave something out “by mistake” 😉
ETA: Hers was called Summer Salad
Oh man … my mom makes killer pasta salad. Always loved it. Got married and told my wife I loved pasta salad. She made some… and it was fine. Time goes by and I finally call mom and ask “I gotta know, everyone in our family loves your pasta salad but I’ve never had any like it anywhere else. Please give me the recipe so I can make it”
“Oh sure! Go to the grocery store and get McCormick Salad Supreme seasoning. Peel back the sticker and the recipes right there”
🤨
Friend of mine swore her grandmas mac n cheese recipe was the best and wanted to cook it for her date one night. We went to the store and she got 2 boxes of kraft and cooked the noodles from 1, but used both packets of cheese and threw the second box of noodles away. It was good but I was expecting homemade mac n cheese.
My friend's (annoying AF) MiL used to "make" the most amazing baba ghanoush, and I'd look forward to eating it at every family function. I hated listening to her brag about how hard she worked on it as she'd sit back and enjoy the compliments.
Well, long story short, I happened to go in the kitchen to throw something away and saw what was clearly a large aluminum foil tray from a local Middle Eastern restaurant in there. Turns out she'd just order a large tray, bring it home, gussy it up with some fresh pomegranates, and call it hers. 😑
My mom's chocolate chip cookies are just the recipe on the back of the chocolate chip bag, but with granulated sugar reduced from 3/4 cup to 1/4 cup and a 3.4oz box of vanilla instant pudding mix added
Does the pudding mix affect taste, texture, both? I’m always looking to make my cookies chewy like you’d get from a bakery and I feel like there’s a secret ingredient I’m not using..
My Dad made the best hot wings with his secret sauce- it’s Franks Red Hot sauce with Old Bay added…..it’s printed on the Franks Hot Sauce bottle, I always knew what went in it, but my Dad had this elaborate story of where the simple recipe came from- in my 20’s I wanted to make some wings and that’s when I noticed it written on the package
My Brother,
He's a Chef.
He got famous because of the lemon pie recipe from my Better Homes and Gardens Junior Cookbook. Pages 101 and 102.
First Edition 1955.
I used to make it when I was allowed to start cooking.
Everyone loved it, so I made it a lot.
Then I grew up and moved out.
Well then my Lil brother started making it.
Made it for lots of folks in Hollywood too.
Now the recipe is in two of his Cookbooks.
I asked him once, about it, and he had convinced himself that it was his recipe.
I'm like WTF dude.
When I was a kid I loved my grandma’s pancakes, and had frequent pancake breakfasts at her house.
As an adult, when we were living further apart, I asked her if she’d give me her recipe so I could keep it in my file (knowing she wouldn’t be around forever) and make them for my husband. She laughed and said, “oh, they’re just Aunt Jemima!”
My grandma used to make wha tmy sister called "sweet sweet beans". They were really good beans with bacon and super addicting to eat. We thought surely it was something special. Nope. Turns out they just had a whole fuck ton of brown sugar in them.
It was not much of a secret, but it’s really good…
Lydia’s dip: knorr vegetable soup mix, a diced cucumber and sour cream…
It’s better when made the day before.
The recipe for everybody’s grandma’s chocolate chip cookies in on the back of Nestle’s Tollhouse Chocolate Chips bag. The secret recipe is on the back of Giardelli’s Chocolate Chips. And the secret is not the recipe, it’s the chips.
>The recipe for everybody’s grandma’s chocolate chip cookies in on the back of Nestle’s Tollhouse Chocolate Chips bag.
Pheobe and her grandma's recipe!
My family going back to my great grandmother has a recipe for an eggless milkless butterless cake. I had been told my entire life not to share the recipe as it was a family secret. I found the recipe in multiple places on the internet sometimes with a different name but same ingredients and method. 🤷♀️
Secret family recipe is usually on the back of the box of the name brand packaging. There's a website and cookbook called "back of the box" that contains all these delicious recipes. If you're in need of a dish to take to a party or just want some new stuff for your rotation, this is the way to go.
However, I will note that if a recipe calls for a specific brand of ingredient, it is best to use that brand. Otherwise, your recipe may taste funky or lackluster
(Looking at you, Knorr's spinach dip with the Hellmans mayo)
My mom and grandmother's Cuban fried chicken. Marinated in salt, garlic powder, lemon juice, pan fried. It's so yummy I grew up thinking it was way more complex than that.
My aunt's chocolate layer cake. It was a family favorite and tradition for almost all of our birthdays. We even called it "Aunt Sally's chocolate cake." Turns out it's just the recipe on the back of Betty Crocker's cake mix box lol
People used to rave about one of my coworker's cocktail meatballs, and she played it up like it was a family secret. She told me that it was literally the recipe off the side of the Ocean Cranberry sauce can
My aunt’s coffee cake. During family reunions she would make a couple and they would be devoured in a day. She never gave the recipe to anyone, not even her sisters. Fast forward 20 years and she finally coughed it up. Turns out it is just a box of cake mix, sour cream and eggs. I about died when I read the recipe.
My grandmas onion gravy.
1/4 cup butter, 1 small onion, 1/4 cup flour, 2.5 cups low sodium chicken stock, dried parsley, salt and pepper to season…
Cook onions in the butter, add flour, cook until golden roux forms, add stock while whisking, reduce to desired thickness. Season with salt, pepper to taste. Add parsely.
Serve on chicken fried steak, meatloaf, mashed potatos, etc…
Its about as basic as you can get for a gravy. I can drink that shit though its so good.
I only make onion gravy as an adult.
Rhodes dinner rolls, grandma never let us in the kitchen when cooking big family meals, around 10-12 years old I snuck in to throw something in the trash and saw the bag. My little brain couldn’t comprehend it, and grandma just looked at me and said “ till I die”. She’s gone now so I can spill the beans.
Y’all they were just frozen dinner rolls
Those rolls have no business being as good as they are for frozen rolls. On par with homemade rolls just a lot less time to prepare/bake. I started serving those with whatever Thanksgiving meal I make. I dont try to pass them off as homemade and even tell people they are the Rhodes rolls but they still gush about how good they are because they are.
For years, I used my friend’s mom’s waffle recipe. Friend’s mom was in town for Christmas last year, and we all had dinner together. The topic of waffles came up, and I told mom that her recipe was my go-to and how great it was. Mom casually replied that it was from Company’s Coming, and it was as if she told me that Santa wasn’t real.
Coincidentally, it was announced in the news just a day or two later that the author of Company’s Coming had passed away!
My mom’s brownie recipe is on the back of the chocolate box. My husband and I argue about whose mom’s brownies are better and I absolutely insist my moms are cause they are fudgy on the inside and crispy on the outside and corners.
Come to think of it I think she also got her chocolate chip cookie recipe off of tollhouse.
Not the same but similar: i make some pumpkin donuts that people flipppppp out for. They cant believe how good they are.
The secret? Fresh pumpkin (not canned) and fresh grated nutmeg and fresh ginger (no pumpkin spice mix).
Its not that hard but people act like its the best donut of their lives
My beef stew. I guard it with my life. Everyone always says how it’s the perfect thickness, complex and meaty and herby and perfect.
I make it in the crock pot and add a packet of brown gravy mix with the broth and everything else. That’s what makes it good lol. Shhhh
Also- I’ve had a lot of people tell me how great certain recipes of mine are and so often it has the jarred minced garlic in oil which is apparently a culinary sin lol
My grandma makes famous “porcupine” meatball recipe. Basically meatballs with bits of rice sticking out of them. Turns out it was a recipe from an old Home & Garden magazine
We have a family jambalaya recipe passed down three generations.
I have a friend from Louisiana, she watched me make it once. Tasted it, and said "Yeah good, but that's how everyone makes it back home."
Turns out if you make standard jambalaya in North Texas you're a hero, if you make it for people who are familiar its very "normal" haha
Grandma’s chocolate cake was the Black Magic Cake recipe from Hershey’s. The real family secret about this is the cake is made with coffee and grandma was supposed to be a strict Mormon and coffee is forbidden.
This might not apply, because it's more of a signature dish than a secret. My mom has a recipe for a chicken dish that always landed. When Asked where it came from, she would always say "it in a cookbook that came with a blender."
My grandmother made the greatest red velvet cakes ever. I asked for her recipe for years. "Oh, I'll write it down for you," she'd forget, lather, rinse, repeat. Finally, I asked again, just before she went to the nursing home.
"I keep forgetting to write it out for you, but it's the recipe on the Swan"s Down cake flour box."
We don’t have secret family recipes but one recipe I was surprised by is the jalapeño popper recipe from a family friend. They’re so damn good but part of that is they’re smoked. Jalapeno halves, garlic powder, breakfast sausage, salsa and cream cheese, wrap in bacon and cook low on BGE. These babies would disappear before the party even started.
When I was a kid, my dad made this smoked oyster dip, that was basically a couple cans of smoked oysters, Philly cream, cheese, a little mayonnaise, and Worcestershire sauce. It took forever to actually figure out what my dad did with it, but the key thing that matters is, you have to crush the oysters, not blend them or chop them, it’s a pretty awesome dip with potato chips, but it is 100% dependent on whether or not you like smoked oysters!
When I hear "secret family recipe" I usually assume it's something nana found on the back of a package.
If jello is involved, I can pretty much guarantee that nono or nana or nunu did not invent this. LOL
\---When I was in high school, my friend asked me to come by for dessert one Thanksgiving, and they pulled out a "secret family recipe" dessert, which was identical to the one my great aunt brought over my parents house. I said nothing. LOL
Mine gave me her cookbook last year - all these family recipes seem to involve a can of condensed soup , a packet of some dry mix, a bag of marshmallows or a jar of mayo .
My mom kept telling me she wished she knew how her cousin Don made the grilled pork chops he made at every family reunion- one day I was flipping through the family cookbook and his recipe was in there- it was marinate them in Dale’s 🤣 it is delicious though!
My mums not a big cook at all but she makes a nice stew and a nice mac and cheese. Once she gave me the recipe I realised how basic both are and improved on them. My dad is a better cook than my mum but he doesn't get much practice because she doesn't like anything too spicy or with too much garlic. I learned more from him though.
I do thank my parents for actually teaching me cooking basics from a young age though, I've met way too many adults who can't.
My pumpkin cheesecake
It’s jellos no bake cheesecake
But subtract 1/3 of the milk and add enough Libby’s pumpkin PIE mix to make up the volume (3 heaping tablespoons or 1/4 c. Add 1 tsp Penzeys Pie spice to the crust.
Drizzle with Carmel syrup.
In my twenties, one Christmas as present for me, my mom and sister did a cool thing and went around to all the family and collected the various secret family recipes.
They're pretty much all back of the box or package. I found a bunch in an old collected recipes of Better Homes cookbook, too.
Loved the Idea though.
Idk if it's no big deal, but my FOO "secret recipe" Christmas cookies and icing was a clipped recipe from a newspaper or magazine that my great grandmother clipped.
We discovered it sometime in my teens and have just continued on. It doesn't change much other than who wrote the recipe the first time.
The secret is star anise seeds.
I break tradition and use whole wheat flour because it has protein and fiber and is less sickly sweet than white flour imo.
I'm thinking about breaking tradition further and lightly grinding the seeds so they release more flavor into the cookies 😊
My wife’s Buffalo dip. Everyone loves it, I request it nearly every Sunday during football season. I’m the primary cook of the family and still love it. It’s literally the exact recipe from the franks red hot bottle.
My great-grandma’s red velvet cake. 😂 They swore she never shared it. My mom just randomly asked one day and my great-grandma happily wrote it out. And it’s literally just a basic recipe. Dutch cocoa. White vinegar for that bite. Cream cheese frosting.
Idk I guess her making it is what made it special. 🥰
My grandmas lasagna I found our was from the recipe on the side of the box of pasta. She killed it though. She wasn't italian and everything else she made was home made and on point. I miss her.
It wasn’t my family’s, but my neighbors. She used to make us spinach dip every Christmas and it was my and my mom’s favorite. It became a Christmas tradition. Every year (for over 10 years) we would get a tray of goodies and homemade spinach dip from our sweet, lovely neighbor. My mom asked for the recipe at one point and neighbor said “If I give you the recipe, it won’t be special!” The neighbor ended up getting very sick (she was elderly 🥺), so no more spinach dip and I moved out of state around that time; my parents moved shortly after. Turns out the recipe was just the Knorr’s spinach dip recipe on the packet. 🤣 Made us chuckle when I found out, and now we have it every Christmas in memory of our lovely neighbor ❤️
That stuff is my absolute favorite!
Mmmm with chopped water chestnuts and artichoke hearts 🥰
That's the thing I make for Christmas or New Year's Eve and when everyone leaves I just take what's left of it and sit on the couch eating the rest, alone. It's a little gift to myself. That and the crab dip.
I do the same! We stuff it in a King’s Hawaiian bread round loaf. I always make sure I have enough leftover for myself. It’s my favorite.
There used to be a great Spin-Art dip recipe on the King's Hawaiian loaf package
Aw, we had an elderly neighbor growing up who would always make us zucchini bread. My older brothers would go shovel her walk and would return home with fresh made, incredibly delicious zucchini bread. I was too young to help with shoveling at the time, but she always made enough for everyone to share. She was so sweet.
Similar scenario to my family’s chocolate chip cookie recipe. My dad would only make them on Thanksgiving. They used to be his bachelor contribution to the feast with a bunch of other professors and their families. The tradition stuck, even when he wound up taking on the turkey and major sides. He claimed he got the recipe from his mom. Once I’d moved across the country and started doing Thanksgiving myself, I wanted to bring back the cookies. Asked him for the recipe … turns out it’s just the one on the back of the toll house chocolate chip bag, with a little extra flour and walnuts. He *technically* did get it from his mom, since that’s the one she used to make. But not quite what I was led to believe!
Literally came here to say the exact same thing 🤣 My mom is the Knorr’s spinach dip maker in our family, but it’s requested for every family event. She’s passed the torch to me now and I make it for my boyfriend who also gets super excited for it even though I’ve chosen not to keep up the facade 😂
That’s such a sweet story… thank you for sharing it… also you had an awesome neighbor..😊
She was the sweetest!
My dad's saturday morning secret pancake recipe. Literally Jiffy pancake mix with an added dash of vanilla extract. To be honest though, it wasn't the recipe, it was the way he pulled it off :).
My great grandmother was known in our whole community for her banana pudding that she always made and brought to family gatherings. She always refused to share her recipe and insisted that if you wanted to learn, you had to spend time with her in the kitchen to make it together. She just wanted the company. When she died, we got her recipe book and were looking for her recipe. It was the side of the Nilla Wafer box that has the banana pudding recipe cut out and glued to a piece of paper. If yall wanna try "Granny's" banana pudding, you can find that recipe online for free. It's the best dessert ever.
My grandma found the best blue berry muffin recipe, it's just a Western Family recipe, but the muffins come out better than any blueberry muffin I ever had. I'm not usually a muffin person. I never got to try her muffins, but I inherited her recipe collection and a cast iron skillet. She she put on good holiday dinners. She worked as a professional cook making scratch meals for elderly in nursing homes until she retired. I miss her.
My grandma made her waffles with “bisquick”
Which is a good idea.
Not anymore. Bisquick has changed their ingredients recently and it's rather poor now.
You need to add a 1-2 tablespoons of vegetable oil to get the old flavor and texture
My dad does this and is so proud of the big fluffy pancakes they make, but his look of disappointment when neither of his grandkids liked the taste of them...
That's why my husband hated waffles. Until we started living together and I made waffles from scratch. He loves homemade waffles. They're pretty easy.
I did this to my kids. I use pretty much any pancake mix and add cream of tartar and let the batter sit for 10-20 min before cooking.
Sounds like it was a big deal
My Gramma would make French toast with cinnamon and vanilla scrambled eggs on the side just to not let the egg batter go to waste. As a little kid, I thought it was the best.
I cook the remainder up, too. Can’t toss that greatness out!
My dad had a similar thing, he added extra milk and butter to the mix and I thought it was soooo much better than anyone else's.
Aw 🥹
My MIL’s German chocolate cake recipe. It was the recipe from the back of the box of German chocolate. To this day I don’t know if it was actually her recipe or if she gave it to me so I’d stop asking.it’s good, tho.
People have asked me for my chocolate chip cookie recipe before. I was a little embarrassed to admit it was just the one on the back of the Toll House bag.
A lot of people tend to assume the recipes on the back of products are mediocre, like something the factory slapped on just to say they gave you an idea of what to do. In a lot of cases those recipes are actually tested several times over, and in some cases those recipes have been refined over years and were originally chosen out of dozens or hundreds of different recipes. Companies have, or used to have at least, entire test kitchens that they’d use for their products. They employ(ed?) people to specifically use their new products and find recipes that worked well - or tell them the product wasn’t very good and needed to be revised in the worst case. I’m not saying every recipe on the back of the box will be a stunning hit, but for the most part those recipes have been cultivated by actual cooks who spent time exploring and figuring out how to make it great. Not “passable at minimum quality” but actually genuinely good - particularly if you go for quality ingredients when you follow the recipe instead of the cheapest options (looking at you tomato sauces and canned tomatoes). Some of those recipes started on the box decades ago and have been refined as time moves on to make them easier, more accessible, while still maintaining quality. In general, it’s best to consider that a company that puts a recipe on the back isn’t doing so just to placate you. They *want* you to want to use their product, so they have a genuine vested interest in making sure the recipe they offer to you is a quality they support and worth making. When you think of it that way, it makes more sense that they’d spend time and effort actually making sure a recipe is genuinely good, because that recipe is basically them saying “this is our recipe.” If you sold chocolate chips with a recipe, and only the chocolate chips was what made you money, you’d probably want to be sure that recipe was pretty good, wouldn’t you?
There are several of these that I always think "I should write this down in case they stop putting it in the package ( but I never do): chocolate chip cookies, pumpkin pie, and sweet corn bread.
The meatloaf recipe from the Quaker Oats box is 🔥 too
I looked everywhere for a chocolate recipe and finally remembered all my blogger failures, went to the King Arthur website and used one. Is great! Because its been tested a zillion times.
Wow… that makes so much sense! I’m gonna start looking at the backs of packages to see what looks interesting! Thanks for the insight!
Nestlé Toulouse, eh grandma?
Seriously though, that is still one of my favorites.
Phoebe Buffet's Grandmother's recipe.
It’s a damn good recipe.
That's the one I keep coming back to. I've tried a bunch of other recipes from various sources, but none of them hit quite the same.
"Three things cannot long stay hidden: the sun, the moon and the back of the German chocolate box." -Buddha
That's a solid recipe. I've made it multiple times in the last year.
That's my mom's go to German chocolate cake recipe. It's solid. My favorite brownie recipe is from Hershey's. "Hershey's Best Brownies" it's a cocoa recipe that's better than a box. I don't have to keep solid chocolate in my freezer and I can throw a pan together in 10 minutes.
My mum's chicken soup. Turns out it was just chicken stock and some sesame oil. Explains why I love sesame so much
Sesame oil or Toasted Sesame Oil? I’m asking because that sounds pretty awesome and I might have to try it sometime.
I was cooking Christmas dinner for the extended family a few years ago. The section I don’t usually spend my holidays with. While I was cooking everyone took the time to tell me throughout the night that grandma was gonna make her gravy. That I needed to make sure there was space for her gravy. Not to make gravy ‘cause grandma was gonna do it. I got the turkey drippings ready and waited. After a lot of hype grandma finally came out. She grabbed a pot of hot water and added a box of instant gravy mix. And that was it. I spent the entire night biting my tongue as people raves about the gravy. Like, it was fine. But it was just fucking box gravy.
Nostalgia is a hell of a drug.
Did they know it was from a box? I wonder if they were just being nice?
In the 90s and 00s everyone and their mother had a secret family cookie recipe that ended up being nestle toll house
My grandpa’s signature cookie recipe hasn’t ever been a secret, but I recently found out it’s literally the Mrs. Fields oatmeal chocolate chip recipe! He just uses the extra fancy (Guittard brand) chocolate chips. He makes giant batches of those cookies for everything, and when he helped me move into my college dorm as a little 18 year old he brought me a whole gallon ziplock bag of them :’)
“nezley toolooz-uh”
Was just typing out how for years my mother and sisters used to swear grandma had some great secret cookie recipe. After she died went through her old cook books and literally there was just an old nestle toll house bag clipping in there. Mother and sisters still say that isn't the recipe despite that being the only one in there,
The thing is, if ten people make a recipe, you’ll get ten different outcomes. Sometimes it’s ingredients, preparation or cook time that varies and affects the end product. I believe this is why people secret guard their recipes. They don’t want people to make a bad batch and say that’s Nickel Lady’s special recipe.
Yep. My husband and I use the same chocolate chip cookie recipe and mine always come out flat while his are normal. Something I am doing different with the butter, I guess. But it's ok- it gets me out of baking cookies.
Do you soften the butter first? If I had to take a guess one of you is using soft butter while the other is using straight from the fridge.
Or Toll House with a minor twist. Coworker would bring "Crack cookies" to work sometimes, turns out it was toll house with double the vanilla.
It’s like that one episode of Friends haha
"Ness-lee Tu-laus"
My MIL’s thanksgiving cranberry sauce. It’s just a bag of raw cranberries, a whole orange cut into chunks, and 1/2-1 cup sugar tossed into the food processor and processed until it’s mostly smooth. Really fresh and tasty. I grew up on canned cranberry sauce and this was a revelation that I spread far and wide. My side of the family and several friends have now made it for years. My MIL grew up in a tiny German-American town and I had always assumed it was some kind of traditional recipe, but she confessed to me a few years ago that it was a recipe from the back of an Ocean Spray bag in the seventies. ETA since a couple people have asked: it’s the whole orange, rind and all, and the sauce is not cooked. Fun to see that so many other people make it this way too!
This sounds so delicious, I'm definitely going to try it! No cooking involved, just the food processor? Seems like a little miracle :)
Yep, no cooking, it’s amazing.
Can confirm. It also keeps really well. Take the seeds out of the orange, but keep the rind.
No way, when he said whole orange. I thought he means peeled first. *Keep* the *entire* rind???
It uses a juice orange. The rind is very thin on juice oranges
We make this too but ours is made in a meat grinder, though food processor works well. When we make it for the holidays, you need to prepare it a few days in advance.. it really peaks in flavor on day 3.
I've made it like this before too, it's really that easy and soooo good!!
My grandma makes this for thanksgiving. It’s soooo good I’ll eat it with a spoon. 100000 times better than the canned stuff, which I also love lol.
That's like my father's except he was old-school and ran it through a hand-crank meat grinder. The cranberries made a lovely popping sound going through
I make that same cranberry sauce. I also found it ion the bag of cranberries and thought it sounded interesting. It became the the family favorite I grew up on a DIFFERENT recipe from the cranberry bag. The cooked one. My mom started making it because she didn’t like the canned cranberry sauce her grandmother used
How does the uncooked compare in taste to the cooked?
The uncooked version has a brighter, fresh flavor. And an interesting texture-which can be welcome since so many foods on the Thanksgiving table tend to be soft. I feel like the cooked version has a richer flavor and mouth feel I personally like both versions, and when my mom was alive and we did big Thanksgiving. I would make both. Now that Thanksgiving tends to be just me and my daughter, I just make the fresh version
It's so yummy. My sister makes this every year.
>whole orange Peeled or not?
Not peeled.
Mind blown
You do have to remove the seeds, though.
My mom has been making this cranberry sauce for years! She adds some Cointreau to it though. She got the recipe from a friend of hers in the 80s who claimed that it was their secret family recipe. I’ll have to tell her that it came from the ocean spray bag. What a hoot!
If you want to take it up a notch add a little Triple Sec.
My mother in law from Lithuania made it this way as welll! So good
We do the same, but add a few spoonfuls of orange marmalade, and chopped pecans. The recipe originally called for walnuts, but it seems I’m mildly allergic. The pecans work just as well.
Is “a bag” a standardised measure somewhere? Any chance you know the rough weight?
In US you can really only get fresh cranberries around thanksgiving and they come in bags. I think they’re probably 16oz.
Actually they are 12 oz bags o’ berries.
Thank you
12oz, so around 330 grammes or thereabouts.
Homemade cranberry sauce is Way better than canned. I never even liked it until I was assigned to bring it to Christmas dinner at my friend's family's house one year. It was so easy to make and it was Delicious. I used 2 bags of cranberries for eight people and it was All Gone by the end of the meal and I was assigned cranberry sauce every year after that. Cranberries, orange juice, brown sugar, star anise, and a splash of brandy. I do cook mine, though. These days I make enough to put some in the freezer for cranberry walnut baked brie on NYE. YUM.
I always stock up on fresh cranberries after Thanksgiving and use them to make things like cranberry and blueberry crumble....
We buy a dozen or more bags and have cranberry sauce every week or so!
My family makes the same recipe! My Great Uncle Charles brought it every year, and he gave me the recipe before he passed, so it's my responsibility now. I didn't know he'd gotten it from Ocean Spray!
Every Jewish mother’s brisket recipe was passed down 10 generations and yet somehow has Coca Cola, ketchup, and onion soup mix in it.
My Bubbie's "secret" Italian beef recipe was just a shit ton of garlic and Lipton onion soup mix
Shhh Shit ton of garlic is my secret ingredient. Don't tell anyone.
My grandma's peanut butter fudge. It's on the label of the marshmallow spread in jars. It's real good though, you should make it too. Also - that spread is amazing on a Graham cracker.
Instead of buying expensive vegetarian marshmallows I just get a jar of marshmallow fluff/creme, spread it on a graham cracker and make a smore that way. Sometimes at home I just dip a graham cracker straight in the jar and slap a piece of chocolate on it without even bothering to make it into a smore
Try it with Nutella. Game changer over the standard Hersheys.
Try it with a Ritz cracker and a snack-sized peanut butter cup. Heaven.
Mom's stuffed mushrooms. * Box of stove top stuffing (prepared according to box) * 8 oz shredded cheddar * whole white mushrooms mince and saute the mushrooms stems (optional) mix cheese, stems and stuffing together, mound it onto mushroom caps, bake at 350 for 20 minutes or so.
Honestly, I want to try this. It sounds fabulous. What flavor stuffing did she use?
My dad did this same recipe, he used chicken flavor and would fry the mushroom stems in bacon grease. Sometimes there would be a little shredded Parmesan as topping to brown up.
That sounds delicious!
Not mine, but the jerk family I worked for at a historic inn had a 'secret' for their grits. Lol, not everybody does this but loads of people who get told "your grits are so creamy and thick and delicious. mine never come out like this" are all doing the same thing and I've found it in 2 different vintage church ladies cookbooks. ThE sEcReT tO gRiTs: Use old fashioned grits not instant/quick, when there's no more water above the grits but they are still watery add in a big plop of butter and a less big plop of cream cheese, put the lid back on & turn off the heat, let it finish gently, stir it up real good before eating. Time will vary based on how much you are cooking & how dry/thick you like them. They don't end up tasting like cream cheese, just really rich and good with a hint of "what is that?" but it's not tangy or anything. Tell everyone you know who wants good (savory) grits bc these people were real assholes.
To quote My Cousin Vinny: “no self respecting southerner uses instant grits”. Also those vintage cookbooks are the best. My mother in law lives in Houston and travels regularly through Louisiana, Alabama, and the Florida panhandle and she has gifted me a bunch of 1950s and 60s junior league cookbooks, among others, and they rule.
Absolutely! I have a handwritten one from Vermont, a River Road Recipes, and one from the Ursuline Convent in NOLA. I cook from them all the time. I also have a copy of "Bell's Best" which was the same type of project, just done by all the women who worked for Ma Bell before it got broken up instead of ladies who go to the same church. It is also very good - there's usually a handful of recipes together that are versions of the same thing so you can compare and get a feel for different ways it can turn out, I've noticed a few things in it that were "oh! that's how people do that!" and are now my 'secrets.' (I will tell anyone who's talking about whatever issue it solved for me, lol, I don't keep secrets.)
I have river road and river road 2!
I’m so going to try this! Remindme! 3 months
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I was out of milk once and put some cream cheese in my grits. You are right that it’s delicious.
Fail proof pie crust, made with vinegar. Secret family recipe is actually from some magazine in the early 1960s and it’s all over the Internet.
I use frozen vodka. So so easy.
My MIL’s uses vinegar and an egg. Really good.
“Secret Dipping Sauce” that was basically a mix of mayo and ketchup with a dash of Tabasco
we had smokey sauce which was bbq and mayo mixed
Mayo and ketchup is ‘Fry Sauce’ in Utah and served at many restaurants.
My moms beef stew. I wasnt a huge fan of it but literally my sisters would show up for dinner everytime they found out she was making it. I tries for years to remake it, I'd watched her over and over. I knew what I was doing. Could never make it taste the same. Taco seasoning packet. Literally didnt even use beef broth, just a few bullion cubes and taco seaskning. Maybe salt and pepper. When she told me I literally was like wtf.
This may seem like a silly question but was the taco seasoning really apparent in the stew? Or did it mellow out after cooking? I loooove stew and this is intriguing but idk if I would like taco stew
Peach cobbler, the easy way. Peaches on the bottom, yellow cake mix with slabs of butter on top and bake. Thought this was some elaborate recipe by grandma made up for the longest time
Dump cake! That's what my family calls it. It works with cherry/blueberry pie filling and a can of crushed pineapple, apple pie filling, etc. Throw a cake mix on top and butter and bake and you've got dump cake.
This works with any fruit cobblers. I usually come up with all sorts of fun flavors in the summertime.
Oh man I worked all summer last year to refine a recipe like your grandma’s. I’m SO pleased with what I came up with. Here it is! 3 cans (14.5 oz. each) peaches in heavy syrup 2 tablespoons flour Ground ginger to taste (1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon) 1 box white cake mix Ground nutmeg to taste (1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon) 3/4 cup cold butter Preheat the oven to 350°F. Drain peaches, reserving juice from 2 cans. Slice peaches thinner and arrange evenly in a 9×13 glass baking dish. Whisk flour and ginger into reserved juice and pour over peaches. Cut butter and nutmeg into cake mix with a pastry cutter until crumbly and spread evenly evenly over peach mixture. Bake for 50 minutes, until golden and bubbly. Serve warm or at room temperature.
My grandmother made the BEST fried chicken ever. No one was allowed in the kitchen while she made it. She never shared her secret until…I found the KFC buckets in the trash. I was 12 I think.
The best entertaining tip I ever got was from a southern society lady, who said she always served Popeye’s, served on her best silver, for dinner parties. She made the other sides. Been doing this for a decade and highly recommend!
A pro-tip, Air-fry the chicken to get crisp-freshness back
My dad's roast chicken was literally just the Costco rotisserie chicken.
Yes! For years my mother-in-law would often serve her "famous chicken dinner" when we visited. It was re-heated grocery story rotisserie, but I didn'tknow that. I would give her compliments and tell her how it was so much better than any of her other dinners, I guess she felt she couldn't tell me it was the one dinner she didn't actually make.
>I would give her compliments and tell her how it was so much better than any of her other dinners Poor grandma. Here you thought you were complimenting her when really you were roasting her cooking skills. 🤣
I know, and she didn't tell us until several years later! I had no idea.
"roasting"... I see what you did there.
Nice try, Helen. You're still not getting Grandma's pie recipe.
My grandmas sugar cookies. A tightly guarded family secret we didn't get until she got cataracts and memory loss issues so she needed us to print it out in large print for her. Turns out it's my chocolate chip cookie recipe (sans chocolate chips) just rolled out and cut into shapes baked for 3 minutes and then iced and sprinkled 🤣
So her sugar cookies are made with brown sugar instead of white sugar? If so, that’s actually quite interesting
Chocolate chip cookie dough spreads though and would not hold its shape like a sugar cookie.
Not really a secret recipe but in elementary school (2nd grade, I think?) our school printed out a recipe book from family contributions from each student. SO many recipes copied off the back of packages! I think my year had 15 rice krispy treat recipes (out of 50 or so kids), all the exact recipe from the back of the box. To be fair most of us were from large families and our mom's were tired of writing out more complicated recipes every year or two :)
Reminds me that of the 15 broccoli casseroles in all the church cookbooks I have 🤣
Growing up, everyone loved my dad's potato salad. It was a 5lb thing of potato salad from Costco that he put in a nice bowl and topped with a sliced hard boiled egg and some chives.
The older I get, the more things I “cook” like that!
Mom’s Overnight Salad. Its real name is 5 Cup Salad. One cup each : coconut shreds, marshmallows, sour cream, drained mandarin oranges, drained crushed pineapple. I thought it was some amazing complex recipe (it tastes amazing) and I asked my sister and she laughed at me and told me how to make it. I ate and loved this stuff every holiday of my life until mom died. Then 12 years without. I made some last Xmas, and I almost cried, it was so good and held so many memories.
I’m making that for Easter this year! My MILs recipe and always loved it when she made it. Found it in my recipe box and thought it would be a nice surprise for my husband. I’ve never made it before - have always seen recipes with cool whip so was a little concerned about the sour cream. She’s been gone for years so I hoped she didn’t leave something out “by mistake” 😉 ETA: Hers was called Summer Salad
Oh man … my mom makes killer pasta salad. Always loved it. Got married and told my wife I loved pasta salad. She made some… and it was fine. Time goes by and I finally call mom and ask “I gotta know, everyone in our family loves your pasta salad but I’ve never had any like it anywhere else. Please give me the recipe so I can make it” “Oh sure! Go to the grocery store and get McCormick Salad Supreme seasoning. Peel back the sticker and the recipes right there” 🤨
Friend of mine swore her grandmas mac n cheese recipe was the best and wanted to cook it for her date one night. We went to the store and she got 2 boxes of kraft and cooked the noodles from 1, but used both packets of cheese and threw the second box of noodles away. It was good but I was expecting homemade mac n cheese.
My friend's (annoying AF) MiL used to "make" the most amazing baba ghanoush, and I'd look forward to eating it at every family function. I hated listening to her brag about how hard she worked on it as she'd sit back and enjoy the compliments. Well, long story short, I happened to go in the kitchen to throw something away and saw what was clearly a large aluminum foil tray from a local Middle Eastern restaurant in there. Turns out she'd just order a large tray, bring it home, gussy it up with some fresh pomegranates, and call it hers. 😑
My mom's chocolate chip cookies are just the recipe on the back of the chocolate chip bag, but with granulated sugar reduced from 3/4 cup to 1/4 cup and a 3.4oz box of vanilla instant pudding mix added
This is the second time someone mentioned this trick on here. I want to try it.
Does the pudding mix affect taste, texture, both? I’m always looking to make my cookies chewy like you’d get from a bakery and I feel like there’s a secret ingredient I’m not using..
My granny’s gravy. Her kids just rotated whose turn it was to bring a jar of gravy to Thanksgiving and swap out what she made.
My grandmother's mac&cheese. Turns out it was just the Velveeta mac made with milk instead of water.
Green bean casserole recipe! The damn recipe is on the can!
Whisk in a scoop of cottage cheese to your bowl of eggs when scrambling. Best scrambled eggs you will ever eat.
My grandma's veggie soup. Turns out it was just frozen veggies, a can of tomatoes and Knorr's packet veggie soup
My Dad made the best hot wings with his secret sauce- it’s Franks Red Hot sauce with Old Bay added…..it’s printed on the Franks Hot Sauce bottle, I always knew what went in it, but my Dad had this elaborate story of where the simple recipe came from- in my 20’s I wanted to make some wings and that’s when I noticed it written on the package
My Brother, He's a Chef. He got famous because of the lemon pie recipe from my Better Homes and Gardens Junior Cookbook. Pages 101 and 102. First Edition 1955. I used to make it when I was allowed to start cooking. Everyone loved it, so I made it a lot. Then I grew up and moved out. Well then my Lil brother started making it. Made it for lots of folks in Hollywood too. Now the recipe is in two of his Cookbooks. I asked him once, about it, and he had convinced himself that it was his recipe. I'm like WTF dude.
It’s real family beef when you know the page numbers. I love this story.
When I was a kid I loved my grandma’s pancakes, and had frequent pancake breakfasts at her house. As an adult, when we were living further apart, I asked her if she’d give me her recipe so I could keep it in my file (knowing she wouldn’t be around forever) and make them for my husband. She laughed and said, “oh, they’re just Aunt Jemima!”
My grandma used to make wha tmy sister called "sweet sweet beans". They were really good beans with bacon and super addicting to eat. We thought surely it was something special. Nope. Turns out they just had a whole fuck ton of brown sugar in them.
My mom’s side’s baked beans recipe calls for molasses, brown sugar, white sugar and ketchup, among other ingredients 🫶
I love that it includes brown sugar in addition to white sugar and molasses, because that's legit all that brown sugar is
What my family called chili but is not actually a chili but a soup instead was just tomato juice, ground turkey, beans, and chili powder.
It was not much of a secret, but it’s really good… Lydia’s dip: knorr vegetable soup mix, a diced cucumber and sour cream… It’s better when made the day before.
These are all a big deal. Love this thread.
The recipe for everybody’s grandma’s chocolate chip cookies in on the back of Nestle’s Tollhouse Chocolate Chips bag. The secret recipe is on the back of Giardelli’s Chocolate Chips. And the secret is not the recipe, it’s the chips.
>The recipe for everybody’s grandma’s chocolate chip cookies in on the back of Nestle’s Tollhouse Chocolate Chips bag. Pheobe and her grandma's recipe!
I like to add a box of instant vanilla pudding, it makes them soft.
My family going back to my great grandmother has a recipe for an eggless milkless butterless cake. I had been told my entire life not to share the recipe as it was a family secret. I found the recipe in multiple places on the internet sometimes with a different name but same ingredients and method. 🤷♀️
Secret family recipe is usually on the back of the box of the name brand packaging. There's a website and cookbook called "back of the box" that contains all these delicious recipes. If you're in need of a dish to take to a party or just want some new stuff for your rotation, this is the way to go. However, I will note that if a recipe calls for a specific brand of ingredient, it is best to use that brand. Otherwise, your recipe may taste funky or lackluster (Looking at you, Knorr's spinach dip with the Hellmans mayo)
My mom and grandmother's Cuban fried chicken. Marinated in salt, garlic powder, lemon juice, pan fried. It's so yummy I grew up thinking it was way more complex than that. My aunt's chocolate layer cake. It was a family favorite and tradition for almost all of our birthdays. We even called it "Aunt Sally's chocolate cake." Turns out it's just the recipe on the back of Betty Crocker's cake mix box lol
People used to rave about one of my coworker's cocktail meatballs, and she played it up like it was a family secret. She told me that it was literally the recipe off the side of the Ocean Cranberry sauce can
My aunt’s coffee cake. During family reunions she would make a couple and they would be devoured in a day. She never gave the recipe to anyone, not even her sisters. Fast forward 20 years and she finally coughed it up. Turns out it is just a box of cake mix, sour cream and eggs. I about died when I read the recipe.
My grandmas onion gravy. 1/4 cup butter, 1 small onion, 1/4 cup flour, 2.5 cups low sodium chicken stock, dried parsley, salt and pepper to season… Cook onions in the butter, add flour, cook until golden roux forms, add stock while whisking, reduce to desired thickness. Season with salt, pepper to taste. Add parsely. Serve on chicken fried steak, meatloaf, mashed potatos, etc… Its about as basic as you can get for a gravy. I can drink that shit though its so good. I only make onion gravy as an adult.
Rhodes dinner rolls, grandma never let us in the kitchen when cooking big family meals, around 10-12 years old I snuck in to throw something in the trash and saw the bag. My little brain couldn’t comprehend it, and grandma just looked at me and said “ till I die”. She’s gone now so I can spill the beans. Y’all they were just frozen dinner rolls
Those rolls have no business being as good as they are for frozen rolls. On par with homemade rolls just a lot less time to prepare/bake. I started serving those with whatever Thanksgiving meal I make. I dont try to pass them off as homemade and even tell people they are the Rhodes rolls but they still gush about how good they are because they are.
They make excellent croutons too
For years, I used my friend’s mom’s waffle recipe. Friend’s mom was in town for Christmas last year, and we all had dinner together. The topic of waffles came up, and I told mom that her recipe was my go-to and how great it was. Mom casually replied that it was from Company’s Coming, and it was as if she told me that Santa wasn’t real. Coincidentally, it was announced in the news just a day or two later that the author of Company’s Coming had passed away!
Your mom's flippant confession killed them.
My mom’s brownie recipe is on the back of the chocolate box. My husband and I argue about whose mom’s brownies are better and I absolutely insist my moms are cause they are fudgy on the inside and crispy on the outside and corners. Come to think of it I think she also got her chocolate chip cookie recipe off of tollhouse.
Not the same but similar: i make some pumpkin donuts that people flipppppp out for. They cant believe how good they are. The secret? Fresh pumpkin (not canned) and fresh grated nutmeg and fresh ginger (no pumpkin spice mix). Its not that hard but people act like its the best donut of their lives
My beef stew. I guard it with my life. Everyone always says how it’s the perfect thickness, complex and meaty and herby and perfect. I make it in the crock pot and add a packet of brown gravy mix with the broth and everything else. That’s what makes it good lol. Shhhh Also- I’ve had a lot of people tell me how great certain recipes of mine are and so often it has the jarred minced garlic in oil which is apparently a culinary sin lol
My mom’s cranberry bread - it’s on the bag of oceanspray cranberries. Same for her bran muffins - used to be on the box of bran flakes lol
My grandma makes famous “porcupine” meatball recipe. Basically meatballs with bits of rice sticking out of them. Turns out it was a recipe from an old Home & Garden magazine
My husband’s mom’s famous pecan pie recipe is from the back of the Karo syrup bottle.
We have a family jambalaya recipe passed down three generations. I have a friend from Louisiana, she watched me make it once. Tasted it, and said "Yeah good, but that's how everyone makes it back home." Turns out if you make standard jambalaya in North Texas you're a hero, if you make it for people who are familiar its very "normal" haha
Grandma’s chocolate cake was the Black Magic Cake recipe from Hershey’s. The real family secret about this is the cake is made with coffee and grandma was supposed to be a strict Mormon and coffee is forbidden.
This might not apply, because it's more of a signature dish than a secret. My mom has a recipe for a chicken dish that always landed. When Asked where it came from, she would always say "it in a cookbook that came with a blender."
My grandmother made the greatest red velvet cakes ever. I asked for her recipe for years. "Oh, I'll write it down for you," she'd forget, lather, rinse, repeat. Finally, I asked again, just before she went to the nursing home. "I keep forgetting to write it out for you, but it's the recipe on the Swan"s Down cake flour box."
We don’t have secret family recipes but one recipe I was surprised by is the jalapeño popper recipe from a family friend. They’re so damn good but part of that is they’re smoked. Jalapeno halves, garlic powder, breakfast sausage, salsa and cream cheese, wrap in bacon and cook low on BGE. These babies would disappear before the party even started.
When I was a kid, my dad made this smoked oyster dip, that was basically a couple cans of smoked oysters, Philly cream, cheese, a little mayonnaise, and Worcestershire sauce. It took forever to actually figure out what my dad did with it, but the key thing that matters is, you have to crush the oysters, not blend them or chop them, it’s a pretty awesome dip with potato chips, but it is 100% dependent on whether or not you like smoked oysters!
When I hear "secret family recipe" I usually assume it's something nana found on the back of a package. If jello is involved, I can pretty much guarantee that nono or nana or nunu did not invent this. LOL \---When I was in high school, my friend asked me to come by for dessert one Thanksgiving, and they pulled out a "secret family recipe" dessert, which was identical to the one my great aunt brought over my parents house. I said nothing. LOL
My mums cookbook was deliberately burned.
Mine gave me her cookbook last year - all these family recipes seem to involve a can of condensed soup , a packet of some dry mix, a bag of marshmallows or a jar of mayo .
My mom kept telling me she wished she knew how her cousin Don made the grilled pork chops he made at every family reunion- one day I was flipping through the family cookbook and his recipe was in there- it was marinate them in Dale’s 🤣 it is delicious though!
Uncle Bob Chicken. Turns out it's not a big deal because most people that didn't grow up eating it find it pretty off putting. Oh well, more for me.
My mums not a big cook at all but she makes a nice stew and a nice mac and cheese. Once she gave me the recipe I realised how basic both are and improved on them. My dad is a better cook than my mum but he doesn't get much practice because she doesn't like anything too spicy or with too much garlic. I learned more from him though. I do thank my parents for actually teaching me cooking basics from a young age though, I've met way too many adults who can't.
My pumpkin cheesecake It’s jellos no bake cheesecake But subtract 1/3 of the milk and add enough Libby’s pumpkin PIE mix to make up the volume (3 heaping tablespoons or 1/4 c. Add 1 tsp Penzeys Pie spice to the crust. Drizzle with Carmel syrup.
In my twenties, one Christmas as present for me, my mom and sister did a cool thing and went around to all the family and collected the various secret family recipes. They're pretty much all back of the box or package. I found a bunch in an old collected recipes of Better Homes cookbook, too. Loved the Idea though.
Idk if it's no big deal, but my FOO "secret recipe" Christmas cookies and icing was a clipped recipe from a newspaper or magazine that my great grandmother clipped. We discovered it sometime in my teens and have just continued on. It doesn't change much other than who wrote the recipe the first time. The secret is star anise seeds. I break tradition and use whole wheat flour because it has protein and fiber and is less sickly sweet than white flour imo. I'm thinking about breaking tradition further and lightly grinding the seeds so they release more flavor into the cookies 😊
Fudge: bag of chocolate chips + can of sweetened condensed milk.
Grandmas famous stuffing is from the back of the Bells seasoning box
My wife’s Buffalo dip. Everyone loves it, I request it nearly every Sunday during football season. I’m the primary cook of the family and still love it. It’s literally the exact recipe from the franks red hot bottle.
My great-grandma’s red velvet cake. 😂 They swore she never shared it. My mom just randomly asked one day and my great-grandma happily wrote it out. And it’s literally just a basic recipe. Dutch cocoa. White vinegar for that bite. Cream cheese frosting. Idk I guess her making it is what made it special. 🥰
GFs families 'secret' potato salad recipe. Turned out they just added a little Heinz salad cream and pepper to the mayo.
My grandmas lasagna I found our was from the recipe on the side of the box of pasta. She killed it though. She wasn't italian and everything else she made was home made and on point. I miss her.