I Made Waffle House’s 3 Most Popular Dishes at Home | Allrecipes

Nothing says comfort food more than diner food and nothing screams diner more than Waffle House. I'm cooking up Waffle House's three most popular menu items. I'm gonna start with the patty melt. I think that is just like the quintessential diner option. From there, I'm going with the hash browns. Scattered, covered, smothered, and chunked. And then finally, ending it off with, you're at the Waffle House, you're gonna have a waffle. And down here, the most popular waffle to order is the pecan waffle. Waffle House, in particular, sells a ton of the Texas patty melt, which adds bacon to it, and what's wrong with that? Nothing. What's great about diner food is that everything is usually made very quickly. Great recipes to do for dinner on your busy nights. I'm gonna take my bacon and get it going. This is gonna create a little flavor base at the bottom of our pan, too. I'm cutting it in half so that it better fits on the bread. I forgot to mention about how I am an expert at this because I did work at the Waffle House. Is it two or three eggs? Two, unless you say triple. Order up! I like my bacon well done and crispy. I'm gonna take out some of the fat, but I can leave all that brown stuff because that is flavor. Every patty melt needs some onion. Waffle House has theirs diced up. Typically, I would do thin slices. We're also gonna need this diced onion for our hash browns, so I'm gonna go ahead and just dice it for both. When it comes time to cook, you've gotta have everything prepped because at Waffle House, you are a short order cook. So I'm just gonna use the same skillet and get my meat in there. It is a four ounce beef patty. I like to start it in kind of a ball shape. That way, I can flatten it down in the skillet. You want it to get caramelized and crusty on that first side before we flip, but I'm gonna go ahead and season it with the salt and pepper now. Flip the burger and then add in the onions to the other side. Okay, while that goes, we've gotta toast the bread and melt the cheese. Bread goes down and the cheese goes on top. It's two slices of American cheese. So when your burger is pretty much done, you're gonna place it on top of the onions and then we're gonna put the bacon on top of that. Bread is toasted. Now it all comes together. Come on now. That is gorgeous. It's not a good burger if it's not dripping grease from the bottom. 10 out of 10, perfect patty melt. We might be having a Waffle House dinner tonight, I guess. Mm, that is so good. 100% of the time, if I've been to Waffle House, then 100% of the time, I have gotten hash browns. The most popular hash brown order is scattered, smothered, covered, and chunked, which means these get scattered on the grill. Scattered, smothered, covered, and then chunked ham. So for the ham, I'm using a very inexpensive ham steak. This is really easy to dice and then you can get it kind of looking like your onions. When I worked there, everything cooks in this melted, buttery mixture. That was used in copious amounts, especially in the hash browns. So I'm going to make a liquefied, buttery situation, but I want to use butter. So I'm gonna melt this and add oil to it. If you do that, the oil's gonna increase the smoke point for the butter and help it not to burn as we cook in the hot skillets. Butter melted and I'm going in with vegetable oil. Just kind of like give that a little whisk. All right, back to our cooking station. Heat up a skillet. I like to use a nonstick skillet for this and then you want to get it pretty hot. So you're trying to mimic that of a griddle. And you're gonna take your shredded hash browns that are partially thawed and scatter them. So once you scatter them, you leave them alone. These actually take the longest. Because you want them to get obviously cooked through, but brown and crispy on the other side. I'm starting to get some browning around the edges. I'm gonna add in a little more of our buttery goodness. It really helps it to get browned and flavorful. And I'm also gonna put some on the other side of the skillet and get my onions and ham going. Smothered and chopped. So now I'm gonna flip these. Probably have to do it in two pieces. Oh yeah. Cheese goes on top. And we scoop it onto the plate and then there's usually some little remnants that they put on top. Quarter up. Scattered, covered, smothered, and chunked. Tell you what, it looks just like the picture. Oh yeah. Perfect bites. Simplest things are the best things. Can't do a Waffle House episode without making a waffle. The recipe I'm using is an existing recipe. We have it all recipes for a copycat Waffle House waffle. I will be adding in some chopped pecans because what we're making down here is a pecan waffle. So I'm gonna get my dry ingredients going first. Starting with a cup and a half of flour. And then two tablespoons of cornstarch. I think the cornstarch is what's gonna help it get a little crispy around the edges, which is what you want. Teaspoon of salt. And then a half a teaspoon each of baking soda and baking powder. That's your dry ingredients, so I'm gonna give those a whisk. Okay, and then for the wet. Just a quarter cup of sugar. And then one egg. And then a quarter cup of softened butter. Teaspoon of vanilla extract. So I'm gonna stir that together first and then add in the liquid. Butter should probably have been a little softer, but it'll work. I'm gonna whisk this together until this is all incorporated and smooth. That's good enough there. And now you add in the liquid. Liquid here is a mixture of half and half and buttermilk. Okay, so now our wet goes into our dry. Lumps are normal. So you don't wanna overmix here. Right when it comes together, tis mostly done. The catch is you gotta refrigerate it. This is a great recipe to do the night before and then it's ready for you in the morning. So you can do it overnight, but you wanna let it refrigerate for at least an hour. Rested and ready to become a waffle. Okay, so I'm going to stir the pecans right in. At this point, again, if you don't wanna do this part, just make the regular waffles. They're gonna be so delicious. And then as they cook, they're going to infuse the waffle with that pecan flavor. Spray it up. Extra insurance. In we go. If you are gonna take the time to make the waffles, then make a huge batch, whether it's too many or not, because you can freeze them and then you can just pop them in the toaster. She's a beaut. Butter for sure. Let that get going into the nooks and crannies. Love the little flecks of pecan throughout. It's gonna give you good texture. It's gonna be buttery, salty, sweet, all the things. Mm. It is just the right amount of sweet. Not too sweet because the waffle's not that sweet. The only sweetness you get really is from the syrup. That little crunch of the pecan just makes these taste elevated. We went three for three, y'all. You've gotta try one of these recipes, whether you do it on your outdoor griddle as a fun family night or on a Saturday morning for breakfast. You can make the Waffle House your house.