You can complain about it all you want, but it's a fact: some fast food is delicious. It gets a whole lot better with fresher, tastier ingredients. Here's our top ten favorite fast food recipes that you can make at home.


10. Taco Bell Double Decker Tacos


Decisions are hard. Taco Bell realized this when they started marketing the Double Decker Taco awhile back. Combining soft and hard shells with a layer of refried beans, you never have to choose which kind of taco you want. Even though Taco Bell's meat has that quality low-end flavor you may have come to tolerate love, try some ground sirloin and you'll be making these regularly.

Recipe at Tammy's Recipes

9. Chipotle




Well no, Chipotle is a fast food restaurant and not a food, but it's nonetheless tasty and easily replicable from your home. Since everything you get at Chipotle is basically customized to your personal tastes, we can't provide one recipe. Instead, Chipotle Fan provides recipes for all the components so you can customize your own burrito, taco, or bowl from the comfort of your kitchen.


Recipes at Chipotle Fan

8. Movie Theater Popcorn




If you've been to a movie you've overpaid for popcorn. Clearly it's worth just a fraction of what you pay, but you keep coming back because of that coconut oil flavor. Well, you can get that same flavor at home for less and it's ridiculously easy. A paper bag filled with popcorn kernels coated in oil will pop in your microwave in just a few minutes while still providing all the great flavor you find in the theater.


Recipe at Painless Frugality

7. Kentucky Fried Popcorn Chicken

Even if you've never been a huge fan of KFC, it's hard to argue against the fun of eating anything you can just pop in your mouth. In the video above, Betty shows you how to make some easy popcorn chicken in the Kentucky Fried tradition, only with a bit less grease (because that's what her particular tastes dictate). It's all the same fried fun, just with more chicken!


Recipe at YouTube

6. Stuffed Crust Pizza

Stuffed crust pizza is basically the holy grail of pizza gimmicks. While it's certainly not the best pizza in the world, there's something emotionally satisfying about jamming cheese and/or meat where it doesn't necessarily belong. If you know your way around pizza dough it's surprisingly easy to make, and making it yourself breaks the limits of what you can shove in that crust. You're no longer limited to standard pizzas, but could even make a dessert pizza with, say, chocolate tucked away around the edges. With all the different types of pizzas you can make these days, and all the possible toppings, you can get pretty creative with stuffing material. Dare to dream.


Recipe at Instructables

5. Carl's Jr. Western Bacon Cheeseburger


Not that bacon ever had any trouble making friends, but now that it's finding its way into everything from your envelope glue to your undergarments, there's no reason it shouldn't become a staple of your cheeseburger. Carl's Jr. figured this one out ahead of the trend with their Western Bacon Cheeseburger. It's a bit more creative than your average fast food burger, including not only bacon but onion rings and barbecue sauce. It's perfectly feasible from your home and is a nice departure from the regular.


Recipe at Top Secret Recipes

4. McDonald's Big Mac




"When the stars come out to play, babe. A twinkling show, ooh — dinner! — out of sight. Yeah, the night time is golden light time — big dipper! At McDonald's (showtime), it's Mac Tonight!"

Imagine sitting down at your dining table in front of a Big Mac as giant man with a crescent moon-shaped head serenades you as you take your first bite. If you convince your significant other or very best friend to wear a moon costume, you can use this Big Mac recipe to satisfy the culinary portion of that fantastic evening. That's a tough one to pass up.


(If you don't know what that was all about, you need to read up on Mac Tonight.)


Recipe at Local Lemons

3. In and out Double Double Burger


I'll let writer Tucker Max take this one:

"I have only fallen in love three times in my life, and the first bite of that Double-Double was one of those times. The crispy bun complimenting the cool lettuce, the special sauce accentuating the fresh tomato, the sweet meat mixing with the salty cheese, all of it coming together in a harmonious medley of flavor thus far unseen on the American fast food landscape—I was smitten. It was the single greatest fast food meal in the history of civilization. Even though I was full, I immediately ate another Double-Double. I was nearly in tears at this meal, it was so transcendently excellent."


Make one at home. Enjoy.


Recipe at Serious Eats

2. Wendy's Frosty

Click to view

There aren't words to describe the deliciousness of the Wendy's Frosty, but fortunately there are words to describe the recipe. Frozen treats aren't always worth the effort of making them at home, but Frosties are great, cool desserts for parties.


Recipe at eHow

1. McDonald's French Fries




It's not that other fries are bad, and even sometimes preferable, but McDonald's has laid claim to the perfect skinny fry. They're simple and delicious. Amazingly, they're pretty simple to make at home, too. It's just a recipe of russet potatoes with a little vinegar that are fried in peanut oil and seasoned with kosher salt. Knowing that takes away some of the magic, but if they taste just as good that's a price worth paying.


Recipe at SeriousEats

If you have any favorite fast food recipes not mentioned here, please share 'em in the comments. However, if anyone has the recipe for the plain chocolate Fuddrucker's brownie prior to 1999 (when they changed the recipe to taste like a marshmallow), please contact me and I will love you forever.