Our takeout recipes to cook at home make takeaway food favourites that are far tastier when home-cooked than home-delivered. They’re also more affordable and healthier. This compilation includes recipes for everything from homemade pizza to fish and chips, and Asian takeaway favourites, from fried spring rolls to fried rice, as well as meat pies, sausage rolls, and homemade sauces to squirt on them.
Our best takeout recipes to cook at home will make you takeaway specialties that are far more delicious than home-delivery. Take-away food made at home is not only more scrumptious, it’s more affordable, as well as being much healthier. You know what goes in it for starters! And if it’s healthier takeout ideas you’re looking for, also see this compilation of healthy fast food recipes for home-cooked fast food.
Our favourite takeout recipes make nostalgic takeaway favourites such as fish and chips and fried chicken; homemade pizza, a takeaway favourite of Terence’s for many years; and the Southeast Asian takeaway specialties which sustained us for many years when we were working full-time and studying at night, and included everything from Japanese yakisoba to pad Thai.
Before I share our best takeout recipes to cook at home, I have a favour to ask. Grantourismo is reader supported. If you’ve enjoyed our recipes, please consider supporting Grantourismo by supporting our Cambodian cuisine history and cookbook on Patreon; or buying a handcrafted KROK, the best mortar and pestle ever; or buying something on Amazon, such as these cookbooks for culinary travellers or classic cookbooks for serious cooks. Now let me tell you about our best home-cooked takeout recipes.
Takeout Recipes to Cook at Home That Make Takeaway Food Tastier Than Home Delivery
I learnt from a young age that take-away food can be even more delicious when home-cooked. When I was a child growing up in Sydney, Thursday night, which was ‘late-night shopping night’, was also ‘restaurant night’. After my parents got home from work, we’d hit the supermarket, drop the groceries home, then go out to dinner.
Most Thursday nights after shopping, we’d head to our favourite Chinese restaurant, or occasionally to Pizza Hut. But if my parents were tired from work, we’d get takeaway Chinese instead. On Sunday evening, fish and chips was a favourite. Mum and dad were great cooks – they had a French seafood restaurant when I was a child, and when I was a teenager they owned a takeaway. Dad’s burgers were the absolute best.
My parents were adventurous cooks for the times, buying new cookbooks on cuisines they’d never cooked before to work their way through. So it wasn’t long before they were making Chinese food at home, starting with fried spring rolls and fried rice, which were even more delicious than those from our favourite Chinese restaurant.
Many years later when they lived in a rural New South Wales lakeside hamlet, from where the nearest Chinese restaurant was a forty-minute drive away, mum and dad made fried spring rolls and ‘dim sims’ at home, which they’d freeze for when we visited, as well as sell to their very happy neighbours.
I’m currently in Australia visiting my mum in regional Victoria, where takeaway shops in town bustle with locals picking up their dinners in the evenings. Craving fish and chips, we recently did the same, only to be disappointed by the greasy batter and floury-tasting fries. Tonight I’m making take-out dinner in. I recommend you do the same.
Our Best Home-Cooked Takeaway Recipes
These are our best takeout recipes to cook at home that are far tastier than home-delivered food, from homemade pizza and fish and chips to Asian takeaway favourites.
Homemade Pizza Recipe for Dutch Oven Pizza
Our easy Dutch oven nduja pizza recipe makes one of our best takeaway recipes to cook at home, a gently spiced pizza with the spicy Calabrian spreadable pork sausage called nduja, combined with tomatoes and tomato paste to make a delicious base. Although cooked in a Dutch oven it has the hallmarks of a pizza made in a traditional pizza oven.
We published this pizza recipe as part of a series of ’nduja recipes that included our spin on Australian chef Christine Manfield’s eggplant ‘sandwich’ with ’nduja and the Calabrian eggs in purgatory, made with ’nduja, for our Weekend Eggs series of breakfast dishes from around the world. Can’t find any ‘nduja locally? You can buy ’nduja online – thankfully!
When it comes to flour for the pizza base, Terence uses Tipo 00 flour or Double Zero flour, a soft white flour that’s also excellent for filled pastas. The most popular brand is Antimo Caputo Chef’s Flour, which is excellent. One brand that we’ve seen worldwide is Divella Pizza Flour, which is a consistently good soft Italian flour.
Beer Battered Fish and Chips Recipe
Our beer battered fish and chips recipe makes one of our best takeout recipes to cook at home. Terence’s recipe will make you the perfect fish and chips for the classic Australian takeaway favourite that’s also an iconic dish for our British and New Zealander cousins.
The use of beer instead of water for the batter mixture for this beer battered fish and chips recipe is not just to add extra flavour to the batter. The beer serves a couple of purposes.
Firstly, alcohol burns faster than water, so the crust of the batter firms faster, protecting the fish from being heavy with oil. Secondly, the foam of the beer, formed mainly from carbon dioxide, keeps the batter light as it cooks.
Best Beer Battered Fish and Chips Recipe for Perfect Fish and Chips
Hand Cut Potato Chips Recipe
Our hand cut potato chips recipe is another of our top takeout recipes to cook at home that will make you potato fries that are far tastier than any home-delivered fries. Terence’s recipes makes perfect crispy fries for your fish and chips or moules frites or whatever else you like to serve with fries.
Our mouthwatering potato chips are crunchy on the outside and soft in the middle. There are a couple of ways to achieve this, but ultimately you need to fry the chips twice. Fortunately, our method doesn’t mean hours in the kitchen and these are better and healthier than any frozen chips you’ll ever eat.
Hand Cut Potato Chips Recipe for Crispy Fries for Your Fish and Chips
Spicy Potato Wedges Recipe
This spicy potato wedges recipe makes another Australian takeaway favourite that began life as an Australian café, pub and bar snack of potato wedges with sweet chilli sauce and sour cream and gives it a spicy Asian twist. These skin-on potato wedges can be fried or baked, but we’ve gone for the oven-baked route for a healthy fast food recipe.
Don’t worry, this spicy potato wedges recipe will still make you potato wedges that are crispy on the outside and fluffy within. Served with the classic Aussie combo of sweet chilli sauce and sour cream, these spicy wedges make a filling snack or a fantastic side for burgers.
Spicy Potato Wedges Recipe With Sweet Chilli Sauce and Sour Cream
Homemade Thai Sweet Chilli Sauce Recipe
This easy Thai sweet chilli sauce recipe makes another of our best takeout recipes to cook at home. You’ll need this recipe if you’re making the potato wedges above to have with sweet chilli sauce and sour cream.
After you make this the first time, you’ll remember why that bottle of sweet chilli sauce you bought a couple of years ago is still in the fridge. To be fair, it’s probably still edible because of all the preservatives and thickeners that are added to commercial sauces. But if it tastes like most Thai sweet chilli sauce brands it’s probably sickly sweet.
This homemade Thai sweet chilli sauce is so perfectly balanced and super easy to make that you might never buy a supermarket sweet chilli sauce again. Most commercial sauces use potassium sorbate to prevent mould occurring but this homemade chilli sauce will keep very well for at least a month or two in your fridge, as long as you always dipping clean utensils into the jar, so as not to contaminate the sauce.
Homemade Thai Sweet Chilli Sauce Recipe for the Best Sweet Chilli Sauce You’ll Taste
Southern Fried Chicken Recipe
This Southern fried chicken recipe makes another one of our favourite takeout recipes to cook at home, and one of best fried chicken recipes. The recipe makes an Aussie take on the classic spicy Nashville style fried chicken.
Australian chef Morgan McGlone learnt to perfect this dish during his time in the USA’s South, home to some of the world’s best fried chicken. We make a big batch and use it in everything from chicken burgers to chicken fried rice.
The secret is boneless skin-on chicken thighs that are coated in seasoned flour that forms a ‘glue’ on the chicken and then the pieces are deep fried to get the crispiest skin you’ll ever taste.
Fried Spring Rolls Recipe for Crispy Egg Rolls
One of our best takeout recipes to cook at home are fried spring rolls. While the origin of the fried spring roll is Chinese, the provenance of this fried spring roll recipe is the Chinese-Cambodian community here in Cambodia.
This classic Cambodian fried spring rolls recipe makes a crunchy deep-fried spring roll filled with minced pork, dried shrimp, carrot, garlic, and daikon radish or taro, seasoned with fish sauce, pepper, sea salt, and palm sugar.
The pork mince-based mixture is nearly always marinated and the marinade typically includes any combination of oyster sauce (we like Lee Kum Kee Premium Oyster Sauce), soy sauces (we like to use these light and dark soy sauce brands), sesame oil, and perhaps Shaoxing cooking wine.
Cambodian Fried Spring Rolls Recipe for Crispy Deep-Fried Egg Rolls Just Like in Cambodia
Chive and Pork Dumplings Recipe for Cambodian-Chinese Jiaozi
This easy chive and pork dumplings recipe makes one of the most popular dumplings here in Chinese-Cambodian restaurants in Cambodia and another of our best takeout recipes to cook at home.
They’re essentially the Cambodian-Chinese version of jiaozi, the delicious dumplings found right across China. In Cambodia, they’re often more rustic – no fancy pleating needed – and packed with chives and a little ground pork mince.
We love dipping them in Sichuan-style chilli oil or a do-it-yourself sauce of chilli, soy and vinegar, then sprinkling them with finely chopped chives.
Easy Chive and Pork Dumplings Recipe for the Cambodian-Chinese Take on Jiaozi
Homemade Pot Stickers Recipe for Crispy Fried Dumplings
Our easy pot stickers recipe makes crispy Chinese fried dumplings with homemade wrappers and a savoury ground chicken and vegetable filling, and it’s another of my picks of our best takeout recipes to cook at home.
First fried until crunchy then quickly steamed in the wok, they’re super-easy to make – can’t beat homemade – and also versatile: fill them with minced pork and vegetables or just vegetables. Fry them one side or both, even skip the steaming.
The homemade wrappers are a cinch to prepare and it’s hard to beat homemade dough when it comes to pot stickers – or any Chinese dumplings, or any dumplings, for that matter – however, you could use store-bought wrappers if you’re short on time.
We love to eat our pot stickers with our homemade Sichuan red chilli oil and homemade Sriracha sauce, but you could also buy Sichuan-style chilli oil and whatever kind of Sriracha you can get your hands on.
Homemade Pot Stickers Recipe for Crispy Chinese Fried Dumplings with Chicken and Vegetables
Chinese Special Fried Rice Recipe
Chinese special fried rice must be one of the most popular Chinese takeout dishes, but it’s another of our best takeout recipes to cook at home. It’s also known as Yangzhou fried rice because its origin is the city of Yangzhou in Jiangsu province in China, and it’s one of our best fried rice recipes.
Growing up in Australia, this special fried rice was served at every suburban Chinese restaurant in Australia, not to mention at those old-school Cantonese restaurants that were in every suburb and town, so it has a special place in the hearts of nostalgic Australians.
The traditional version of this Chinese special fried rice dish includes cooked rice, char siu pork, shrimps, scallions, ‘scrambled’ eggs, peas, and carrots. Sea cucumber and crab meat are other additions. Some recipes use lap cheong (or lap chong) instead of char siu pork.
Chinese Special Fried Rice Recipe, a Fantastic Filling One Pot Meal
Thai Rad Na Gai Recipe for Charred Rice Noodles with Chicken and Gravy
This Thai rad na gai recipe makes one of our best takeout recipes to cook at home and a takeaway favourite from when we lived in Bangkok – charred rice noodles with chicken and gravy. The Thai-Chinese noodle dish, like pad kra pao, is more popular with Thais than the more famous pad Thai, which is all the more reason to try it if you haven’t.
Make sure to use a seasoned carbon steel wok for charring the noodles. If the noodles start to stick, do splash a little cooking oil into the wok. I find that fresh rice noodles stick more to the wok than reconstituted dried noodles.
It’s often easier to just throw the separated fresh noodles into the wok and give them a quick stir-fry than charring them, but please try the method the recipe calls for first, especially if using dried noodles.
Thai Rad Na Gai Recipe for Charred Rice Noodles with Chicken and Gravy
Classic Som Tam Recipe for Thai Green Papaya Salad
This classic Thai som tam recipe makes the popular Thai green papaya salad that you can buy from som tam makers on the streets of Thailand to take home. Our favourite accompaniment was spicy Thai fried chicken when we lived in Bangkok.
The spicy salad originated in Thailand’s Isaan region – Isaan and Isan mean ‘northeast’ in Thai and Khmer – a region that was historically part of the Khmer Empire. But now you’ll find this Thai street food favourite all over Thailand, and right across northern Southeast Asia.
Here in Cambodia, green papaya salad is called bok lahong, and there are all manner of pounded salads here which are very old, such as bok svay, a pounded mango salad. You will need an enormous mortar and pestle to do your pounding, smashing and beating in.
Classic Thai Som Tam Recipe for a Thai Green Papaya Salad Plus Tips for Jazzing Up Your Som Tam
Thai Miang Kham Recipe for Bite Sized Wraps
Miang kham was traditionally takeaway food in Thailand, sold by vendors at local markets. This easy Thai miang kham recipe will make you the kind of miang kham that we used to buy from a Bangkok supermarket to take home to eat with barbecue pork or fried chicken and sticky rice.
Miang kham is Thailand in a mouthful, an explosion of quintessential Southeast Asian flavours – sour lime, zingy ginger, crunchy peanuts, crispy shallots, smoky roasted coconut, savoury dried prawns, a kick of chilli, and a sweet yet funky caramelised sauce – wrapped in a wild piper or wild betel leaf.
You’ll need a granite mortar and pestle to pound some of the ingredients to form a paste (a KROK is perfect for this task), then you’ll need to add that to dissolved palm sugar in a sauce pot, then add toasted coconut, Thai fish sauce and tamarind water/juice. Yum.
Thai Miang Kham Recipe for The Bite Sized Wraps That Are Thailand in a Mouthful
Tasty Larb Gai Recipe for Spicy Thai Minced Chicken Salad
Another one of my favourite takeout recipes to cook at home is this classic Thai larb gai or ground chicken salad – gai or kai is chicken in Thai and laab, also written as laab, laap, larp, lap, and lab, the Thai, Lao and Khmer names for this type of minced meat salad found right across northern Southeast Asia.
Years ago when we used to get Thai takeaway, we’d nearly always order a chicken larb alongside a curry, a stir-fry and rice, but it’s so much more delicious cooked at home. Made with minced chicken quickly stir-fried in chicken stock, fish sauce, lime juice, salt, sugar, garlic, and shallots, it’s combined with fresh fragrant herbs and sprinkled with chilli flakes.
Served with crunchy vegetables such as cabbage, cucumbers, and snake beans, and eaten with steamed jasmine rice or sticky rice, it’s super easy to cook, comes together in minutes, is very versatile, and is incredibly delicious. Make sure to sprinkle on some toasted rice, either toasted rice powder or ground roasted rice called khao khua in Thai.
Tasty Thai Larb Gai Recipe for a Spicy Minced Chicken Salad from Thailand
Thai Mango Sticky Rice Recipe
This Thai mango sticky rice recipe, which I’ve adapted from chef David Thompson‘s cookbook Thai Street Food makes the much-loved Thai dessert kao niaw mamuang, and it’s another of the best takeout recipes to cook at home – especially if you don’t live in Thailand.
Years ago when we lived in Bangkok, we’d regularly head out for dinner to Thonglor to graze our way through the street food stalls on Soi 38, which was street food heaven. We’d tuck into chicken skewers and som tam and pad Thai ‘fire’, and when we were done, we’d buy mango sticky rice to take away.
This mango sticky rice recipe transports us back to the streets of Thailand every time. You’ll need yellow mung beans (essential to the recipe to add a little crunch) and fresh jasmine flowers to perfume the rice (desirable).
This Thai Mango Sticky Rice Recipe by Chef David Thompson Is Not As Intimidating As It Looks
Burmese Indian Style Chicken Curry Recipe
Since we’ve lived in Siem Reap, about the only takeaway food we ever get is Indian food from Dakshin’s and we always order the same dishes: a couple of Indian curries, aloo gobi (recipe below), raita (we’ve got a recipe for that too, below), jeera rice, and garlic naan.
As we don’t have recipes for the Indian curries we order, I thought I’d share one of one most popular curry recipes, this Burmese Indian style chicken curry recipe, which makes a rich curry fragrant with ginger, turmeric, garlic and chilli.
It’s the perfect accompaniment to Burmese coconut rice and the refreshing salads of Myanmar that provide contrasting textures and flavours, such as this Burmese raw cabbage salad, and it’s another of our best takeout recipes to cook at home.
Burmese Indian Style Chicken Curry Recipe for a Rich Curry Fragrant with Ginger, Turmeric and Garlic
Aloo Gobi Recipe for Cauliflower and Potato Like Your Favourite Indian Restaurant Makes
This easy aloo gobi recipe for a cauliflower and potato curry makes a gently spiced aloo gobi just like your favourite Indian restaurant makes. Traditionally a Punjabi specialty, aloo gobi has become a much-loved dish all over the world, thanks to Indian and Pakistani migrants and the proliferation of Indian restaurants.
‘Aloo’ means ‘cauliflower’ and ‘gobi’ is ‘potato’ and this classic Indian aloo gobi recipe will make you an incredibly delicious cauliflower and potato curry just like your favourite Indian restaurant makes.
I need to point out that while the category of dish is often translated as a ‘curry’, aloo gobi is actually a ‘sabji’ or spiced or curried vegetable dish. It’s fantastic with basmati rice and Indian flatbreads and is another of my favourite takeout recipes to cook at home.
Aloo Gobi Recipe for a Cauliflower and Potato Curry Like Your Favourite Indian Restaurant Makes
Authentic Easy Indian Raita Recipe for a Cooling Accompaniment to Any Spicy Dishes
This easy Indian raita recipe makes a deliciously refreshing yogurt based side or salad of diced cucumber, tomato and red onion with fresh fragrant mint and coriander.
It’s the perfect cooling accompaniment to any spiced dish, from curries to biryanis, but can be eaten with pickles, relishes, flat breads or papadams. Super easy to make, it’s also very versatile
We make this wonderfully easy Indian raita recipe to eat with curries, papadams, chilli and lime pickles, and spicy mango chutney. It’s also a perfect side to this Punjabi chole or chickpea curry and tamarind eggplant.
Authentic Easy Indian Raita Recipe for a Cooling Accompaniment to Any Spicy Dishes
Chicken Katsu Burger Recipe
This chicken katsu burger recipe makes another of our favourite takeout recipes to cook at home. Serve these katsu burgers with hand-cut fries and you’re in chicken katsu burger heaven. We love these so much we eat them as often as we do Japanese pork tonkatsu.
Our recipe places a crunchy tender chicken cutlet, prepared using the classic Japanese katsu method of panko-breaded and deep-fried chicken, between spicy Asian slaw, tangy Japanese-style barbecue sauce, and soft burger buns.
Chicken Katsu Burger Recipe for Crunchy Tender Chicken Cutlets with Spicy Slaw
Corn Fritter Breakfast Burger Recipe
Our corn fritter breakfast burger recipe with fried egg and Thai sweet chilli sauce makes an incredibly delicious vegetarian breakfast burger that’s packed with flavour and crunch.
With a Southeast Asian twist on the classic breakfast burger, it’s so good you won’t miss the burger patty and bacon, and the grease that comes with it.
This is another of our best takeout recipes to cook at home. If you made a batch of our homemade Thai sweet chilli sauce, then you’re all set.
Corn Fritter Breakfast Burger Recipe with Fried Egg and Thai Sweet Chilli Sauce
Spicy Fried Chicken Sandwich Recipe with Southern Fried Chicken and Mayo
I like to pile crispy shoestring fries on the side but you could also serve these spicy fried chicken burgers with crunchy hand-cut fries or spicy potato wedges. If you have leftover spicy fried chicken, make my famous chicken fried rice.
Spicy Fried Chicken Sandwich Recipe with Southern Fried Chicken and Tangy Mayonnaise
Classic Aussie Sausage Roll Recipe
Pies and sausage rolls are takeaway favourites in Australia and this classic Aussie sausage roll recipe makes another one of our best takeaway recipes to cook at home. In Australia, sausage rolls are warming snacks when you’re at a chilly sports stadium watching footie in winter.
Sausage rolls are morning tea for ‘smoko’ (a break) for a hungry tradie working on a construction site, and they’re a party food staple for Aussie kids when you can serve mini-sausage rolls.
These sausage rolls are a breeze to make – and making them at home means you know what’s going in them. While this particular sausage roll recipe makes classic homemade sausage rolls, you can easily tweak the recipe to your taste.
Sausage Roll Recipe – How to Make Delicious Homemade Sausage Rolls
Cambodian Curried Beef Sausage Rolls
These homemade curried beef sausage rolls are filled with rich Cambodian Saraman curry, which is a cousin to the Thai Massaman curry and Malaysia’s Beef Rendang – all complex and slow-cooked curries.
The Saraman curry is a time-consuming curry to make, which is why it’s often considered to be a special occasion dish for Cambodians. It’s extra special when made into sausage rolls, making this another of our best takeout recipes to cook at home.
Homemade Curried Beef Sausage Rolls Recipe Made With Cambodian Saraman Curry
Pepper Steak Pie Recipe
This pepper steak pie recipe makes another of our favourite takeout recipes to cook at home. Terence’s pepper steak pie recipe makes a Cambodian beef lok lak meat pie that is inspired by one of Cambodia’s most popular fast food dishes.
Typically eaten for lunch, but also acceptable for dinner or breakfast, when a fried egg on top of the stir-fried beef is compulsory, lok lak is one of those dishes that is as popular with foreigners as locals.
A dish of Cambodian-Chinese origin, it’s a cousin to Vietnam’s loc lac or ‘shaking beef’, whose history is much-debated – but there’s no debate about how good these pies are and they’re also healthy.
Pepper Steak Pie Recipe for a Cambodian Beef Lok Lak Meat Pie
Cambodian Chicken Curry Pie Recipe
Our chicken curry pie recipe makes one of our best takeout recipes to cook at home. Terence’s recipe takes the much-loved classic Cambodian chicken curry to make a flavourful spicy chicken pie like no other.
Unlike the classic Australian curried chicken pie which uses curry powder to flavour the chicken filling, this recipe uses a Cambodian red curry paste.
The classic Cambodian chicken curry has potatoes, long beans and Asian eggplants, which we’ve included to create a really hearty chicken pie.
Homemade Chicken Curry Pie Recipe Made with Cambodian Chicken Curry
Spicy Pork Mince Pie Recipe
This spicy pork mince pie recipe will make you another of our top takeout recipes to cook at home. The pie is made with Cambodian prahok ktis – Cambodia’s deliciously spicy dip of minced pork, coconut cream, pea eggplants, and prahok, the famous Khmer fermented fish paste.
Anything fermented is good for your gut health and your immunity, making this a healthy takeout recipe. Stuff this into an an iconic Australian meat pie casing and you have a curried meat pie that’s unlike any you’ve ever tasted.
Homemade Sriracha Sauce Recipe
This authentic homemade Sriracha sauce recipe makes the real thing – the Thai hot sauce that tastes just like it does in its place of origin, the coastal city of Sri Racha, Thailand. This spicy sauce is far simpler to make than you might imagine and you can tailor it to suit your own taste!
With so few ingredients, it’s the quality of the chillies that make this authentic homemade Sriracha sauce recipe so special. Using Thai chillies from Thailand or a similar variety – but not the chillies in the world-famous American ‘rooster’ hot sauce – is your key to an authentic Thai Sriracha sauce. This is another of our favourite healthy fast food recipes.
This Sriracha Sauce Recipe Makes the Best Homemade Thai Sriracha Sauce You’ll Taste
If you make any of our takeout recipes to cook at home we would love to know how they turned out for you in the comments below.
