These In-N-Out Animal Fries taste just like the secret menu version topped with cheddar cheese, caramelized onions and special sauce!
Ingredients and substitutions
- Frozen fries – for an exact restaurant replica, use extra-crispy straight-cut fries. You can also try using crinkle-cut, curly or waffle fries or try using sweet potatoes fries for a healthier version.
- Olive oil – feel free to use any neutral flavor oil that you like. Sunflower oil, vegetable, canola, or avocado oil are all great substitutes.
- Onions – white onions caramelize beautifully, as do yellow onion and red onion.
- Cheese – for a different flavour, swap out the cheddar cheese and use any other type of meltable cheese. Pepper jack would be a fantastic substitute!
Special Sauce
- Mayo – to cut down on the fat a little bit, you can use light mayo or Miracle Whip. You could even swap out the mayo completely and use Greek yogurt or sour cream instead.
- Ketchup – make your own ketchup if you don’t have any on hand using tomato paste, vinegar, brown sugar, salt, molasses, corn syrup and water.
- Relish – chopped dill pickles would also be good here, but sweet pickle relish will give you the best flavor.
- Dried minced onion – you can use onion powder in a pinch.
- Vinegar – white vinegar is best or you can leave this out altogether.
- Cayenne pepper – this gives the sauce that amazing kick but you can try using paprika instead.
How to make animal style fries
Step 1: Fry the onions.
Dice the onions and add them to a pan with olive oil over medium high heat.
Step 2: Caramelize the onions.
Pan fry the onions for about 20 minutes until they start the caramelize.
Step 3: Cook the frozen fries.
Add the frozen french fries to a parchment-lined sheet pan and bake until golden brown according to the package instructions.
Step 4: Add the cheese and make the sauce
Grate the cheese and mix together the sauce ingredients in a small bowl. Remove the fries 5 minutes before the end of cooking time, and add on the cheese.
Step 5: Melt the cheese.
Bake for another 5 minutes for melted cheese.
Step 6: Top with onions and sauce.
Remove the fries from the oven and top them with caramelized onions and special sauce. Serve and enjoy!
Tips & Tricks for these animal fries
Here are some of my top tricks for the best animal fries from the In-N-Out secret menu:
- Use the right cheese: I'd recommend cheddar cheese, but you could also use American cheese which is what In-N-Out uses for their animal fries.
- Use frozen fries: You could use homemade fries, but frozen fries cut down on prep time and taste just as good.
- Re-use the secret sauce: Store the special sauce in a mason jar in the fridge for up to a week. It's delicious as a dipping sauce for more fries, with tater tots or on burgers!
- Slowly caramelize the onions: Take your time caramelizing the onions. The slower, the better! You don't want to rush it or they'll burn.
Frequently Asked Questions
I'd recommend using frozen fries for this recipe to cut down on prep time. If you want a perfect copycat recipe, I'd recommend thinner French fries like the ones In-N-Out uses. If you want to get creative, you can use curly fries, waffle fries or sweet potato fries to switch things up!
Yes! You can make the In-N-Out special sauce and store it in a mason jar in the fridge for up to a week. It's delicious with other recipes like fries and burgers.
The In-N-Out special sauce is what really makes these animal styles fries shine, but if you want, you could also top your fries with Chik Fil A sauce, Big Mac sauce or Shake Shack sauce.
This animal style fries recipe is vegetarian, but if you want to add some protein, top the fries with bacon, leftover chicken or ground beef.
Storing and reheating
These animal style fries are really delicious and super addictive, but if you have any leftovers, you can cover them with aluminum foil and store them in the fridge or store individual portions in glass meal prep bowls for up to 3 days.
You can reheat them in the oven at 350° Fahrenheit for 10-15 minutes, but keep in mind that if you have any In-N-Out sauce on them, it probably won't be as tasty when hot and fresh out of the oven. I recommend adding the sauce to individual servings in case you want to save the rest for later.
Freezing this recipe
Unfortunately, you can't freeze animal style fries, but since the main component is the frozen fries, they're super easy to make!
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More loaded fries recipes
Meal Prep Tools
- Store leftover fries in glass meal prep bowls.
- Save time and use this pre-made special sauce – it's very similar to the real thing!
- **Get my full list of tools here**
Copycat In-N-Out Animal Style Fries
Ingredients
- 1 bag frozen fries
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 2 onions, diced
- 3/4 cup shredded cheddar cheese
Special sauce
- 1/2 cup mayo
- 2 tbsp ketchup
- 2 tbsp relish
- 1 tbsp dried minced onion
- 1 tsp vinegar
- 1 dash cayenne pepper
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 450 F. Add frozen fries to a parchment-lined sheet pan and bake according to package instructions (usually 10-12 minutes per side).
- Meanwhile, dice onions and fry in a pan with olive oil for 20 minutes until onions slightly caramelize. Then, grate cheese and mix sauce ingredients together.
- Remove fries from the oven about 5 minutes before the end of cook time, and add cheese. Bake remaining 5 minutes until fully melted.
- Remove from oven and top with caramelized onions and special sauce. Serve and enjoy!
Comments & Reviews
RedWouldForrest says
Hi Taylor! Love your recipes, and you are fantastic! Keep up the exceptional work.
Question: Which type of vinegar would most closely replicate In-N-Out’s special sauce?
(And as a side note: In-N-Out does exactly ONE thing wrong – they single-cook their fries. Due to this fact, I believe yours are even better than theirs, since your recipe calls for premade, frozen fries which inevitably turn out with a better texture & density than In-N-Out’s… And a tip for you: when using any oil to cook potatoes, try Peanut or a Peanut/Canola combo – the flavor is unbelievable!)
Taylor Stinson says
Hi there, thank you for the kind words 🙂 I just use regular white vinegar, any brand like Heinz would work. Hope that helps!