Are Olive Garden's Famous Breadsticks Frozen?

Sit down to a meal at Olive Garden and you'll be blessed with a basket of the restaurant's famous unlimited garlicky breadsticks while your entree is being prepared in the kitchen. These carby comestibles are super-addictive, filling, and free, but are they made from frozen dough or freshly prepared in-house?

While described as breadsticks, Olive Garden's version of these classic Italian appetizers are more like elongated fluffy dinner rolls than crisp, snapable grissini. These guys are "not frozen, but they are pre-baked from a contracted bakery, in the same fashion as the 'take n' bake' bread rolls you can buy from the grocery store," according to a commenter on Reddit with insider info. "They're finished off baking for a few minutes and given a coat of 'butter-like substance' and garlic salt."

Over a dozen of these par-baked breadsticks are laid on a lined baking sheet before they're popped in the oven until golden brown. While still hot, a liberal coating of butter is applied to their surface before they're topped with a generous sprinkling of garlic salt, exemplified in this behind-the-scenes TikTok video. The seasoning clings to the butter, creating that rich, garlicky coating that's characteristic of this classic Olive Garden pre-meal snack. Using par-baked bread allows chain restaurants like Olive Garden to save money and time. Plus, it guarantees that every product is uniform and consistent across all locations.

Once prepared, Olive Garden breadsticks are put in a warmer before they're served to customers. If any are left after an hour they're pulled and fresh ones are made. However, these fluffy fellas are so popular that one of the staff members at Olive Garden posted on Reddit that "we've gotten to the point that we run out of our bread & butter so we've had to pull from other restaurants or Sam's club. When we completely run out of butter I'll grab a few sticks of real butter, throw it in the oven to melt and use it. There's a massive difference in the taste."

A couple of simple Olive Garden breadstick hacks are to stuff your carby appetizers with Alfredo sauce or top them with grated cheese. There are heaps of copycat Olive Garden breadsticks recipes online if you want to make a batch from scratch, too. However, you can also order them par-baked from the restaurant to bake at home later if you're after a low-effort shortcut. Simply preheat your oven to 450 degrees and bake your breadsticks for 6-8 minutes, rotating them halfway through the cook time. For every dozen baked, you'll need to apply 1 and a half tablespoons of melted butter and 1 tablespoon of garlic salt to the surface while still hot.