25 Restaurant Copycat Recipes That Are More Delicious Than the Originals (2024)

FAQs

How much do you have to change a recipe to claim it as your own? ›

The general rule [...] is that three major [emphasis added] changes are required to make a recipe "yours." However, even if you make such changes, it is a professional courtesy to acknowledge the source of or inspiration for the recipe.

A recipe can usually be considered “original” if you have changed three or more major ingredients, or three or more steps in the recipe process, and have written everything in your own words.

Name the recipe source and provide some sort of link – to the recipe if it is already on the internet; to the author / publisher if they have a website.

Whether or not you own exclusive intellectual property on the recipe depends on whether you qualify for one of the four legal areas of intellectual property protection: copyright, trademark, patent, or trade secret. While some limited protections may apply, food recipes are actually rather difficult to protect.

For example, you can copyright a collection of recipes, such as a cookbook. And you can trademark the name of a recipe, such as "Betty Crocker's Devil's Food Cake Mix." But you cannot copyright or trademark a single recipe.

It's all about balance and contrast, about how different flavors make each other taste better. Sweet, salty, tangy, sour, earthy, creamy, tart, crunchy, smooth, meaty... balanced flavors and textures make recipes work. Just look at the show Chopped and notice how the ingredients are actually pretty balanced.

Who is the first recipe? ›

The earliest known written recipes date to 1730 BC and were recorded on cuneiform tablets found in Mesopotamia. Other early written recipes date from approximately 1600 BC and come from an Akkadian tablet from southern Babylonia. There are also works in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs depicting the preparation of food.

Even if the description of the recipe is sufficiently creative and copyrightable, the copyright will not cover the recipe's ingredient list, the underlying process for making the dish, or the resulting dish itself, which are all facts. It will only protect the expression of those facts.

Find Freelance Recipe Writing Gigs

Other sites like Fiverr to find freelance recipe writing gigs: Upwork. Facebook Groups like VA for Hire and Pinterest-Friendly Content for Bloggers. Food blogs (reach out to food blogs and ask if they are hiring any recipe writers)

A general rule of thumb is: if you change three or more ingredients in the recipe, and rewrite the recipe instructions in your own voice, you can consider it your own. Even so, stating that the recipe was “adapted from” or “inspired by” the original recipe is a good idea.

A general rule of thumb is: if you change three or more ingredients in the recipe, and rewrite the recipe instructions in your own voice, you can consider it your own. Even so, stating that the recipe was “adapted from” or “inspired by” the original recipe is a good idea.

You just need to make a few changes that are of your own imagination. Love a recipe enough to expand on it? I recommend looking at tweaking one of these areas before you can call it your own. Pro tip: Always make sure you write the recipe directions in your own words along with your other changes.

No matter where you get the recipes, review each one, rewrite all the copy, test them to see that they work, adjust the language to account for regional differences (i.e. I hate it when a recipe calls for, eg, a stick of butter... I have never seen butter sold in sticks.)