32 People Shared The One Food Item They Never Order In A Restaurant, Because It Tastes Way Better At Home

"No matter how hard I search for good mac and cheese, mine is still the best."

We all get lazy about cooking sometimes, which leads to one of two options: going to a restaurant or ordering takeout. But Reddit user u/possum_player pointed out something very important: Certain foods are just better when you whip them up in your own kitchen. They asked Redditors, "What dish do you just never order in a restaurant anymore, because the version you make at home is so good that you know you'll be disappointed?" Here are 32 top-rated responses:

1. "Scrambled eggs. It seems nearly every place is just serving a semi-dry, unseasoned, and empty omelette. I've had good scrambled eggs at a couple of really great restaurants, but I'd say 95% of them have been terrible."

Jörg Mikus / Getty Images/EyeEm

—raustin33

Here is Ina Garten's "perfect scrambled eggs" recipe:

youtube.com

2. "Salmon. It's a ridiculously forgiving fish, but for some reason, restaurants always under-season and/or overcook it."

Aleksandar Bojkovic / Getty Images/500px

—GTStD

Here's Giada De Laurentiis' pan-seared salmon recipe:

youtube.com

3. "Brownies. They're usually a crappy piece of cake in actuality."

Photo By Brian T. Evans / Getty Images

—Slash-ly

Here's Alton Brown's homemade brownie recipe:

youtube.com

4. "Steak. Unless I'm at a place known for their steaks and someone else is paying, the price I pay per pound of quality beef just doesn't justify steakhouse prices."

Eliton Santos / Getty Images

—Herbie555

Here's Geoffrey Zakarian's grilled rib-eye recipe:

youtube.com

5. "Cornbread. I don't know what the fuck these restaurants are doing, but I do know they ain't using enough butter."

Gmvozd / Getty Images

—cheshirecatsmiley

Here's Alex Guarnaschelli's cast iron skillet cornbread recipe:

youtube.com

6. "Salads. When I make a salad, I chop up everything into bite-size pieces and load it with a ton of ingredients. At restaurants, you get giant chunks of lettuce, whole cucumber slices, and two cherry tomatoes."

Yagi Studio / Getty Images

—TRIGMILLION

Here's Ina Garten's Cape Cod chopped salad recipe:

youtube.com

7. "Eggs Benedict. I spent a year obsessively making it and taking notes — my wife basically hates it now."

Alexander Spatari / Getty Images

—sujihiki

Here's Bobby Flay's eggs Benedict recipe:

youtube.com

8. "Carbonara. I only started making it myself after I had a poorly cooked restaurant one (even the pasta was all gluggy and stuck together)."

Shenghung Lin Photos / Getty Images

—livermuncher

Here's Geoffrey Zakarian's bucatini carbonara recipe:

youtube.com

9. "Any kind of lemony pasta. I definitely like acid more than most people, but the Pasta al Limone — or other pastas with lemon you get in any restaurant — basically taste like a lemon rolled by while they were cooking, and that's it."

Dietmar Rauscher / Getty Images/iStockphoto

—elijha

Here's Ina Garten's lemon capellini recipe:

youtube.com

10. "Any stir-fry. It's too expensive, and always really small portions that just don't fill me up (I'm in the UK). It's also quite bland compared to what I can make at home. I have to buy several sides just so I don't leave hungry. While at home, I can add more veggies, and the ingredients are a lot fresher."

Kilito Chan / Getty Images

—JakBandiFan

Here's John Zang's beef stiry-fry recipe:

youtube.com

11. "Crab cakes. I feel like all restaurants use 50/50 crab meat to filler. I prefer 90/10."

Joff Lee / Getty Images

—MmmmBeer814

Here's Kardea Brown's crab cake recipe:

youtube.com

12. "Matar paneer. It’s the Indian cheese cubes and peas in tomato gravy. I make it the way my mom does, and it’s both healthier and more flavorful than what I get in a restaurant. I can't find the recipe right now, but the key is to not use cream, and use ground cashews in the sauce. We also hugely reduce the fat and increase the spice and tomato flavor (use tomato paste!)."

Jayk7 / Getty Images

—kitty_muffins

Here's Chef Anupa's matar paneer recipe:

youtube.com

13. "Quesadillas. They never have the right soft AND crunchy balance. The outside needs to be slightly crisp, and the inside should obviously be soft."

Karl Tapales / Getty Images

—iamthejj2000

Here's Cooking con Claudia's chicken quesadilla recipe:

youtube.com

14. "Mac and cheese. No matter how hard I search for good mac and cheese, mine is still the best."

Burcu Atalay Tankut / Getty Images

—frogmicky

Here's Sunny Anderson's mac and cheese recipe:

youtube.com

15. "Grits. Almost all restaurants serve them too grainy, or they're terribly bland."

Photo By Pam Susemiehl / Getty Images

—Jack_sosa

Here's Kardea Brown's shrimp and grits recipe:

youtube.com

16. "Spaghetti. I like it the way I make it — and pretty much only the way I make it. The sauce needs to be thick, meaty, and deeply flavored, with no sweetness. And I like spaghettini pasta for it."

Burcu Atalay Tankut / Getty Images

—BitOCrumpet

Here's Alton Brown's spaghetti and meat sauce recipe:

youtube.com

17. "Nachos. My wife used to like ordering them as her meal every once in a while. But they seem to be very hit or miss in restaurants — you never know what will come out on the plate. So one night, I decided to make my own at home. I cooked up some ground beef, sliced up some green pepper and red onion, and threw on jalapeños with a bunch of cheese. I put 'em in the oven for 10 minutes or so at a medium temperature, and they were amazing. It's very simple to do, and you can put whatever you want on them."

Little Hand Images / Getty Images

—FergusKahn

Here's Molly Yeh's pulled pork nachos recipe:

youtube.com

18. "Burgers. They're either under-seasoned, have cheap cheese, are cooked wrong, or they have really crappy condiments that go with it."

Zak Nuttall / Getty Images/500px Prime

—GeraldoLucia

Here's Bobby Flay's Louisiana burger recipe:

youtube.com

19. "Egg McMuffins. The recipe is pretty straightforward. Sear your ham and English muffins, throw on a fried egg, and a slice of cheese. You can usually make it in about the time it takes to get through the drive thru, without the gas money."

Amberleeknight / Getty Images/iStockphoto

—pladhoc

Here's Jeff Mauro's sausage egg McMuffin recipe:

youtube.com

20. "Fried catfish. I've inherited a long history of perfected methods in my family for frying the best catfish, and no restaurant can serve it up the way my family and I do. It's more than a dish, it's a memory, and a family treasure. Restaurant catfish doesn't have the same nostalgia with it."

Peredniankina / Getty Images/iStockphoto

—Lemmegeta20piece

Here's Soul Food Cooking's southern fried catfish recipe:

youtube.com

21. "Lamb chops. Every time I've ordered them out, they're way too gamey and chewy."

Rudisill / Getty Images

—giltotherescue

Here's Katie Lee's grilled lamb chop recipe:

youtube.com

22. "Home fries, hash browns, and hash. I haven't quite managed to nail the home fries every time, but once you get that right combination of a crispy outside and pillowy fluffy inside, then it's just not the same as when you go to a diner and get some greasy mushy fried potato chunks."

Hiramtom / Getty Images

—Finagles_Law

Here's Chef John's home fries recipe:

youtube.com

23. "Where I live there is a restaurant that is 'famous' for their flautas that are in a very soupy sauce. Mine are WAY better, and now I refuse to eat there."

Sonia Martinez / Getty Images/EyeEm

—2ndlawofthermo

Here's Sunny Anderson's chicken flautas with avocado cream recipe:

youtube.com

24. "Lasagna. If I wanted something extremely salty and microwaved, I would just microwave a bowl of salt at home, thank you very much."

Creativ Studio Heinemann / Getty Images/Westend61

—soap__bar

Here's Giada De Laurentiis' classic Italian lasagna recipe:

youtube.com

25. "Bruschetta. Every goddam restaurant has their own 'twist' on it now, when the original is perfection."

Fcafotodigital / Getty Images

—Tea_Is_My_God

Here's Chef Vincenzo's bruschetta recipe:

youtube.com

26. "Bibimbap. My first kitchen job was working for a Korean family in their restaurant. The owner taught me how to make so many delicious and authentic Korean foods, and now I know any restaurant I go to will do things differently, and perhaps not as well as me."

Kokkai Ng / Getty Images

—sveinsh

Here's Daniel from Future Neighbor's bibimbap recipe:

youtube.com

27. "Cake. Cake made with actual butter, eggs, etc. (and no chemical preservatives) is lightyears ahead of most cakes I've tried in restaurants."

Sean Justice / Getty Images

—knitreadrepeat

Here's Alex Guarnaschelli's simple birthday cake recipe:

youtube.com

28. "Blackened chicken. I live in the Midwest, and blackened anything is just grilled with some Cajun seasoning up here. It’s flavorless and unappetizing. If you’ve ever had real blackened chicken, you probably know this pain."

Debbismirnoff / Getty Images/iStockphoto

—lithium142

Here's Allrecipes' blackened chicken recipe:

youtube.com

29. "Risotto. Most restaurants I’ve had it make it crunchy instead of al dente, and are always lacking the real flavor of a good rich stock."

Andrewfurlongphotography / Getty Images

—BJTrumpet

Here's Ina Garten's easy parmesan risotto:

youtube.com

30. "Pulled pork. You can't beat handmade bbq sauce."

Matthew Margolis / Getty Images

—Pacattack57

Here's Alton Brown's 5-star pulled pork recipe:

youtube.com

31. "Beef and broccoli! I hate ordering it from restaurants because it's usually 80% broccoli to beef."

Lauripatterson / Getty Images

Here's Jet Tila's famous 5-star beef and broccoli recipe:

youtube.com

32. And finally, "Alfredo pasta. A lot of restaurants add, like, two sticks of butter to their Alfredos, and just eating it makes my organs feel greasy. I love a good cream sauce, but the texture is often so bad and oily!"

Simon Mcgill / Getty Images

—yarngarden

Here's Giada De Laurentiis' fettuccine Alfredo recipe:

youtube.com

Is there a dish that you think tastes 1,000 times better when you make it at home? Let us know in the comments for a chance to be featured in a BuzzFeed Community post!

Some submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.