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4 of the fast-food chains that make their food from scratch

These chains do more of their cooking and prep in-house, from hand-cut fries and fresh beef to daily-baked bread and more

Mafe Estudio / Unsplash

Fast food is supposed to be fast. That is the whole bargain. You pull into a drive-thru, place an order and expect a bag of food to appear before you have time to wonder how it got there.

That speed can make it easy to assume that everything behind the counter arrives frozen, pre-cooked or ready to assemble. But some chains take a more hands-on approach. Their employees chop vegetables, cut potatoes, prepare ingredients and cook food after customers order it. In some kitchens, there are even surprisingly few shortcuts.

Reader’s Digest looked at several fast-food and fast-casual chains that put more preparation into their food than you might expect. The difference can show up in small details, such as potatoes being cut in the restaurant instead of arriving as frozen fries, or burgers being cooked only after an order is placed.

That does not mean every ingredient at these restaurants is made completely from scratch. Fast-food kitchens still have to operate at a huge scale, and the chains on this list have thousands of locations between them. Their approach is more about where and when certain ingredients are prepared.

So if you are curious about which familiar fast-food names put a little more old-fashioned kitchen work into your meal, these are a few of the chains worth visiting.

In-N-Out keeps its menu small to focus on fresh preparation

In-N-Out has one of the shortest menus in the fast-food business, and according to Reader’s Digest, that simplicity helps the chain concentrate on fresh preparation.

The restaurant focuses heavily on burgers, fries and shakes rather than trying to maintain a sprawling menu filled with dozens of different ingredients. Its restaurants........

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