Sometimes you just need to whip up some Disney magic at home…
While there are some Walt Disney World experiences that can’t be replicated anywhere outside of the Most Magical Place on Earth, clever chefs have long known that many of Disney’s most popular recipes can be copycatted right in our own kitchens.
This isn’t new subject matter for Theme Park Tourist readers. We kicked off this series with 8 of our favorite Disney parks sweet treats you can shamelessly make at home—a few of the recipes included Dole Whip Floats (your favorite!), the Prime Time Café PB&J milkshake, Kringla Bakery’s school bread, and even Kona Café’s famous Tonga Toast. We then leapt over to the savory side with eight more recipes to thrill your palettes including Berbere Beef, Bobotie, Flame Tree BBQ’s famous sauce, and even Docking Bay 7’s Fried Endorian Yip-Tip.
Readers had a lot of requests for where we should go for round three, and we heard you! Ready to take your Disney-Parks-home-cooking to the next level? Here are ten more of the top recipes we found that Disney fans will love making at home.
1. Canadian Cheddar Cheese Soup (Le Cellier Steakhouse, Epcot)
Mmm, creamy cheesy goodness…
Disney has long recognized the power of a well-made cheese soup. This recipe has popped up in a few forms at Epcot’s various festivals, but it’s most well-recognized from World Showcase’s Le Cellier Steakhouse in the Canada pavilion.
Canadians definitely know their way around good cheese (we’ll need to hit poutine on another article… mmm, curds), and Le Cellier’s cheddar cheese soup is rich, flavorful comfort food at its best. Be sure and pick up some good quality bread for dipping—pretzel bread is an even better choice if you can get ahold of some. Of all the recipes we found for this batch, this is one of the easiest, and the only specialized equipment it requires beyond a Dutch oven is an immersion blender.
We didn’t have to dig too far to find a recipe—the Disney Parks Blog released an official one recently! While we’ve found some of the Disney-released recipes don’t exactly match their park counterparts, this one looks pretty on-the-spot. Don’t forget to sprinkle on a little bacon and chives for garnish.
2. Bread Pudding with Bananas Foster Sauce (Ohana, Disney’s Polynesian Resort)
This was, hands down, the most requested recipe from our readers. Ohana’s Bananas Foster Bread Pudding is so beloved, it even made it onto our recent poll!
Bread pudding is already tasty stuff, but the real magic in Ohana’s version is the bananas foster—that means it’s time to get your flambe on! From our own comical mishaps with the technique, my best recommendation is don’t overdo it on the rum, have a tight-fitting lid and fire extinguisher nearby, and do not flambe on a burner with a cabinet directly overhead. Yeah…
Our fellow Disneyphiles over at the Disney Food Blog did a great job with this recipe including some notes on how to tweak the recipe to get closest to Ohana’s unique flavor. For ideas how to modify the recipe, we also recommend this take from Chip and Co which includes additional helpful pictures.
3. Chicken Bastilla (Restaurant Marrakesh, Epcot)
A wise Moroccan man once informed us that there’s no party until the bastilla comes out…
For those unfamiliar, bastilla is admittedly a dish for adventurous souls—a delicious Moroccan meat pie that seamlessly mixes sweet and savory flavors. Powdered sugar and cinnamon add unexpected notes to the spiced chicken filling, resulting in wholly unique and delicious flavors.
While we admittedly had some problems with Epcot’s Restaurant Marrakesh over the years, we gave the restaurant another shot this past December (ironically, after we struck out trying to get onto Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance on opening day), and we are so happy that we did. The service was excellent, and the food was wonderful across the board—especially the bastilla, which we have missed like crazy.
If you want to try to replicate Marrakesh’s chicken bastilla at home, you can start with this recipe from AllEars.net which sticks to Disney’s method for making it. For those looking for a more authentic chicken bastilla, the blog My Moroccan Food offers a more traditional take. Be warned—once you try it, you may never be able to celebrate without a tasty bastilla again!
4. Rice Cream (Kringla Bakery og Café, Epcot)
I have such a soft spot for Norway’s Kringla Bakery og Café. While I definitely have fond memories from La Boulangerie Patisserie and Sommerfest, Kringla hosts some of the most wonderfully unique sweets in World Showcase. These aren’t your typical Disney sugar bombs like cinnamon rolls and cupcakes. The common thread that makes Kringla’s school breads, lefse, and other sweets so delicious is their subtlety.
While we shared a recipe for Kringla’s famous school bread in our first piece, one of the bakery’s best desserts is Rice Cream. Most rice puddings are packed with sugar, but Kringla’s rice cream is entirely different. The actual pudding has almost no sweetness at all. Instead, the dish gets its dessert qualities from macerated strawberries which you can mix with the rice pudding as much or as little as you like. The resulting dessert is captivatingly creamy and packed with comforting strawberry flavor.
Disney released an official version of the recipe for their D23 fan club (you don’t have to be a member to read it), but if you want a more detailed description, you can also check out Disney Food Blog’s experience making this delicious treat. Don’t be intimidated by the lack of sugar in the pudding—I can testify personally this treat is still a huge hit for kids!
5. Walt’s Chili
This is a recipe that has shown up quite a few places throughout Walt Disney World–it’s most famously found at Disneyland’s Carnation Café. Walt Disney apparently loved his chili, and his personal recipe has become a favorite comfort food for Disney fans to enjoy both in the parks and at home.
Walt liked his chili on the simple side—if you prefer your chili Texas-style or more complex, you may want to stick with other recipes (I’m a fan of Alton Brown’s from Good Eats). Walt’s Own Chili is the perfect recipe to toss in a slow cooker and enjoy after a long day. The part that takes the longest is soaking the beans. D23 released an official version of the recipe that’s available to the public, and Travel and Leisure even did a piece on it as well.
6. Zebra Domes (Boma, Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge)
Zebra Domes are frequently cited as one of guests’ favorite desserts in all of Walt Disney World. Along with Ohana’s Bread Pudding, they were also one of the recipes home chefs mentioned they would love to be able to make at home.
For those unfamiliar, Zebra Domes are a popular dessert that pops up at both Boma and Tusker House (which share several menu items). These unique little dessert cakes pack a punch for layered flavor and include notes of chocolate, espresso, and Amarula cream liqueur.
Recipes of Disney managed to get a recipe directly from a Disney chef, which they detailed and modified for home cooks to try. Some specialized equipment and baking finesse is definitely required, so take it slow if you aren’t familiar with advanced baking and pastry decoration. While it may take a few tries (send us your #nailedit pictures!), in the end you’ll be able to enjoy as many perfect little Zebra Domes as you like!
7. Spicy Ethiopian Lentil Stew (Africa, Epcot Food and Wine Festival)
If there’s any element from Epcot’s International Food and Wine Festival I’ve been missing, it’s the Africa booth. Disney has developed an admirable panache for sharing African recipes with guests, and this booth consistently ranks as one of the best in the festival every year.
While the Berbere Beef usually gets all the attention, another hit is their Spicy Ethiopian Lentil Stew with quinoa. The dish proved so popular that it made it into the official Food and Wine Festival cookbook—a good thing since it didn’t return on the 2019 menu. Fortunately, the Disney Parks Blog made the recipe available online! This dish packs wallop of zesty flavors and isn’t too difficult to make either. If you enjoy Disney’s other African offers, you’ll definitely want to try this one!
8. Grapefruit Cake (Hollywood Brown Derby, Disney’s Hollywood Studios)
Sweets get all the love. To round out the most popular suggestions Disneyphile home cooks asked for, we need look no further than the Hollywood Brown Derby.
The Hollywood Brown Derby at Disney’s Hollywood Studios is an interesting restaurant in that many of it’s most popular recipes were directly carried over from the actual Brown Derby restaurant in California. The restaurant’s famous grapefruit cake is the perfect dessert both for California and Florida, a light, refreshing sponge cake full of citrus flavor.
The Disney Food Blog shared an official recipe directly from the original restaurant. For an extended version, check out this recipe from the Disney Weddings website. As with the Zebra Domes, expect to take some extra time on this one.
Speaking of the Hollywood Brown Derby, there’s another dish that restaurant is kind of famous for…
9. Cobb Salad (Hollywood Brown Derby, Disney’s Hollywood Studios)
The Hollywood Brown Derby invented the Cobb Salad—the original one, that is.
Disney has been sharing the Brown Derby’s Cobb Salad with guests for so long that when I was a kid, I was convinced the Cobb Salad was actually invented at Walt Disney World. The Brown Derby’s Cobb Salad is the ultimate full-meal salad. There definitely is some careful prep involved to replicate that rainbow of flavors, but the results are well worth it if you’re a fan. The Disney Food Blog did a great job breaking down the recipe step by step, including offering pictures to help you arrange it just right.
10. Ronto Wraps (Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, Disney’s Hollywood Studios)
Missing Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge? This writer sure is.
The 2020 Disney shutdown came at a pretty painful time for Star Wars fans—Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance had barely been open three months as one of Disney’s most insane attraction launches ever. Many fans were waiting for crowds to die down to finally visit Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge at either Disneyland or Walt Disney World, and the extended lockdown has definitely left some fans of that galaxy far, far away pining for the next opportunity to head to the Black Spire Outpost for some blue milk, smuggling runs, and a mysterious drink at Oga’s.
One of the best surprises about Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge actually proved to be the food. Especially at Disney’s Hollywood Studios (which has always seemed a little weak compared to the other parks in the dining department), Docking Bay 7 and Ronto Roasters injected some much-needed pizazz into the park’s food options with a wide range of unusual, richly flavored dishes themed to feel like they came right out of Star Wars.
One of the most popular quick bites in the land is Ronto Wraps, a flavor-packed flatbread dish wrapped around pork (er, Ronto) sausage. While you can find an official version of the recipe in the Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge cookbook, we appreciate this ultra-detailed recipe from the ever-reliable Disney Food Blog to walk you through each stage of replicating the perfect Ronto Wrap.
Just remember to always procure your Ronto meat from a reliable source. You don’t want to end up with a Kowakian Monkey Lizard wrap…
Enjoy this article? Let us know what recipes you would like to see next! Keep reading to learn why Disney’s COVID-19 changes might not be all bad…
