8 Dishes Not Worth Your Money at Restaurants

"Slice up a few apples, slice up a little bread, throw some nuts or dried fruits on it," he says. You can choose the cheeses you like, you'll get more for your money, adding that you'll have cheese for three to four sittings for a similar price.

Quesadilla

Quesadillas are common breakfast food in Mexico, but in the States they are often served as an entree for lunch or dinner. The ingredients are simple — a tortilla with melted cheese. Raul Luis, chef and owner of Birrieria Chalio in California and Texas compares them to grilled cheese.

Save yourself some money and make them at home, says Luis, because they're easy to make and economical. Plus, many restaurants use more commercial style cheeses rather than specialty cheese, such as queso fresco, he says, adding that you can buy cheese for $3-12 a pound and a pack of 8- 12 count tortillas can cost $2-6. While the cost of a quesadilla at a restaurant can range from $10-16. The only caveat is most Mexican restaurants make their own tortillas, which add a lot of texture to the quesadilla, he adds.

Steak

A steak dinner has a nice ring to it and it's a popular go-to for a nice dinner out. But not for chefs, who often avoid ordering a steak because it's frequently not cooked to their liking and can be expensive. Collins prefers preparing steak at home where he can guarantee it will be cooked medium-rare.

When you order at restaurants, he says how it's cooked depends on the expertise of the line cook or chef that is preparing your steak. If it’s not cooked how you like it, you’ve just spent a lot of money on a simple meal that you could make at home.

"If you go to a steakhouse, a lot of times, they're charbroiling it, they're grilling it, they're pan seering it," says Marcus Mooney, executive chef of Seattle Sutton's Healthy Eating. Those are easy techniques you can do at home. He adds that restaurants typically have a 60-70 percent markup on the steak price. That means, for the same price or less you'd spend at a restaurant, you can buy a quality cut and make it at home.

Entree salads

Mooney is always shocked at the salad prices when he looks at a menu, which can run $15 to $20 and up.

"A lot of these places, all they are doing is taking some lettuce and already prepared items and throwing them in the bowl and mixing them up with the dressing," he says. And most dressings aren't housemade, either.

Mooney prefers to make salads at home with either a store-bought dressing or make his own. LaMarita agrees and says salads are cheap to make and says many restaurants don't put much thought into how they prepare their salads.

Salmon

Ordering salmon may be a special dish if you don't typically eat fish at home, but Collins says like scallops, salmon is often overcooked at restaurants. Plus it’s easy to make at home, says Mooney.

If you want to always cook your fish properly, Collins offers a tip: "The rule of thumb for cooking any kind of fish is 10 minutes for every inch of thickness of the fish, [whether] you poach it, you pan sear, roast it."

He shares one of his favorite ways to prepare salmon at home. "Salmon, oil, salt and pepper, roasted in the oven at 450 [degrees Fahrenheit] for about 12-14 minutes, depending on how thick the fish is with a little parchment paper on top," he says.

Cakes and pies

Most chefs say they wouldn't order pies or cakes at a restaurant, unless they know they're made in-house. Chefs recommend going to a bakery for quality instead since they take time and skill to make it from scratch.

"I would go to a dedicated bakery or a farmers market [where they] are freshly made," says LaMarita, adding that it's likely less expensive or around the same price at a bakery compared to a restaurant.

An added tip: Skip cakes and pies in the supermarket too, he says.