There's nothing quite as comforting as takeout. Being able to sit on your couch and open styrofoam boxes overflowing with brightly colored, greasy food is probably the best achievement reached by modern society to date. However, with big flavor comes big responsibility - takeout food is, more often than not, the nutritional equivalent of eating lard with a spoon.
The solution to this problem is learning to make your favorite restaurant dishes at home. You'll be able to satisfy the craving for these foods without ingesting absurd amounts of food coloring, bad fats and unpronounceable ingredients and scary preservatives. Yes, it's more effort to make them at home than picking up that faded, folded menu and making a phone call, but it's 100 percent worth it.
Here are five of the country's most-loved restaurant foods, with recipes on how to make them just as well, and much more healthily, at home.
Chinese Takeout-Style Orange Chicken from Cooking Classy. Sweet, savory and sprinkled with sesame seeds, this dish is takeout perfection.
Pizza Hut Pan Pizza from Your Homebased Mom. Pizza Hut taste without the Pizza Hut-level damage to the waistline? It's the dream. It's still no health food, but homemade is always miles better than the original. Plus, you can customize your pizza to your own tastes!
Ikea Swedish Meatballs from One She Two She. Not technically takeout, but people go to Ikea just for these meatballs, so they deserve a place on this copycat list. The gravy is the best part, and you can serve it with crispy fries just like at Ikea.
PF Chang's Mongolian Beef from Spicy Southern Kitchen. Saucy and crispy, this beef is the best. Include some broccoli to add volume and cut the calorie count, and serve over brown rice.
Red Lobster's Cheddar Biscuits from Damn Delicious. This recipe makes addictive, soft, salty, wonderful, buttery biscuits. Make them at home and serve them alongside an otherwise healthy meal and be a beacon of indulgence in moderation.
