How to Make Your Own Affordable Olive Garden Dish

On Friday I wrote a guest post for PT Money about copy-cat recipe blogs. Corinne recently introduced me to these gems which post duplicate recipes for your favorite restaurant’s dishes. For example, this site hosts 75 different recipes for different Chili’s dishes. Pretty cool stuff.

Corinne’s been very creative in the kitchen as of late in order to fill our cravings for American-style food and she recently created an Olive Garden substitute dish for Chicken Scampi.

These substitute dishes are easy to make and cost a fraction of the price of the restaurant. I documented the process last week and Corinne was nice enough to add her comments to help you along with the process. I hope this will persuade you to try out your own copy-cat recipe for your favorite restaurant.

Here are the ingredients for the dish. We found all of this stuff in rural Japan so you should be able to easily locate these.

This recipe makes 2 servings.

Here’s the ingredients you’ll need:

- Flour: 2 tablespoons

- Milk: 3/4 cup

- Butter: 4 tablespoons

- White wine: 1/2 cup

- Salt, pepper, and other Italian seasonings: a dash of each

- Chicken broth: 1 cup

- Pasta of your choice: 2 heaping cups dry pasta

- Vegetable or olive oil for cooking: 1 tablespoon

- Chicken: 1 or 2 chicken breasts

- Broccoli: 1 cup

- Onion: 1/4 large onion

- Garlic: 2 cloves minced

- Other vegetables of your choice, I like bell peppers or cherry tomatoes, too

Here’s the directions for the recipe:

Begin by starting the scampi sauce. In a large pan, melt 3 tablespoons of butter and mix with wine and chicken broth. Let it cook on a low heat for about 25 minutes while you prepare the rest of the meal. Stir occasionally. After about 15 minutes, add garlic, vegetables, and seasoning.

Scampi sauce after 15 minutes

In another pan, heat cooking oil and cook chicken breasts for about 8 minutes on each side or until they are no longer pink in the middle. I like to cook the chicken then cut it up in cubes so the meal is easier to eat, but you could just as easily leave them whole. Once the chicken is done, add it to the scampi sauce so it can stay warm.

While everything is cooking, start your pasta according to the directions on the package of your particular pasta.

Lastly, you will need to prepare a white sauce to thicken the scampi sauce. In a small pan, melt 1 tablespoon of butter and add flour. When they mix together it should look like a thick, yellow paste. Add warm milk and stir continuously until it thickens into a white sauce. This should take about 5 minutes. When it’s done, add it to the scampi sauce and stir until thoroughly mixed. You can add the white sauce with vegetables and chicken still in the scampi sauce, just make sure everything mixes well.

Scampi sauce with white sauce added

Once the pasta is finished, drain and place in pasta bowls or large plates. Use a large spoon to dish out the scampi sauce onto the pasta. I like to serve it with white wine and fruit.

An average meal at Olive Garden costs about $12, but I would estimate that we spent less than $4 per person on this meal. The major cost is going to be determined by the vegetables and chicken you use. We usually use fresh peppers, onions, and chicken, but get frozen broccoli. You could cut costs but using all frozen vegetables and chicken.

Thanks to Corinne for all of the hard work and I hope you guys enjoy this dish!

Have you tried any copy-cat recipes for your favorite dishes? Let us know what you’ve tried and how it went in the comments!

Photo: Tyla

————————————————————-

Subscribe Follow us on Twitter Get email updates

Related Posts:

Why Do Savings Accounts Only Allow 6 Withdraw...

How Much Will No State Income Tax Help LeBron...

The Pros & Cons of Credit Unions

Why You Need an Emergency Fund