TikTok star ‘Jordan The Stallion’ dishes on fast-food secrets club
Fast-food aficionados who want to re-create their favorite drive-through delicacies at home have a hero in Jordan Howlett, a.k.a. social media sensation “Jordan The Stallion.”
The 26-year-old former Division I athlete has amassed more than 12 million followers and 2.6 billion views on TikTok thanks to his candid videos breaking down life hacks and viral topics like why Gen Z looks older for their age or how come people over 35 hate going out. The rising social media star has also earned legions of fans for his posts revealing the recipes behind popular fast-food items.
From Olive Garden’s famed Alfredo sauce to Kentucky Fried Chicken’s iconic 11 herbs and spices, Howlett and his little book of secrets have intel on more than 100 recipes, which he happily dishes out to his hungry viewers. In a phone interview with the Globe last month, Howlett explained that the “Fast Food Secrets Club” originated in college with his buddies, who would exchange recipes as they worked fast-food jobs to get by.
“Obviously when you work there, you know the ins and outs,” Howlett said. “Originally, we put ourselves in a group chat and were kind of sharing little tips and tricks and stuff like that.”
After graduating University of California, Riverside, in 2020, Howlett continued to stay in touch with his friends but decided to dive deeper into the world of fast-food recipes, eventually sharing his findings in his now-famous social media videos.
“I kind of brought it to the internet and let them know what we were doing,” Howlett said. “People really appreciated it, which was awesome. It was very heartwarming for me.”
While Howlett has collaborated with stars like Kevin Hart and has caught the attention of celebrities such as Ryan Reynolds and Method Man, becoming a content creator wasn’t in his initial life plan. Instead, the California native wanted to be a professional baseball player and began devoting his life to the sport at the age of 16.
“I was strictly about sports, and everything I did was about sports,” said Howlett, who fell in love with baseball after going to his first Dodgers game as a kid with his grandfather. “When I got to high school, I knew that I wanted to give my parents a life that we can enjoy together and not have to struggle as much.”
Once he started his baseball journey, Howlett devoted every moment and dollar he had to the sport, even living out of his car and experiencing homelessness while trying to make the team at UC Riverside. Howlett recalls working three jobs a day across construction, a movie theater, and tutoring in order to make ends meet.
“That lifestyle was a lot of, I would say, sleepless nights and a lot of struggle, a lot of panic,” Howlett said. “Even though I was in my car and I’m having two, three meals that I can salvage a day and I got to work out two, three times a day... this is for this future goal when I close my eyes at night, my parents can be proud of what I’m going to accomplish.”
Although Howlett got to play D1 baseball for the university, his dreams of being drafted and becoming a profes with sional athlete were sidelined by the pandemic in 2020. Rather than take his ball and go home, Howlett teamed up with his brother and a friend to film the documentary short “Dear Baseball” about his journey in the sport.
The film caught the attention of Uninterrupted, an athlete empowerment brand founded by LeBron James, which featured Howlett in an inspirational video for the brand’s social media channel.
“It was my first sense of accomplishment of doing social media stuff, and it was my first sense of, OK, I can take my obsessive nature that I have with baseball and accomplishments with that and point it to something like social media,” Howlett said.
Howlett started posting on TikTok and has since become one of the platform’s hottest stars. While fans can’t get enough of his fast-food recipe breakdowns, the restaurants aren’t always happy with him.
“There’s people who work for these companies, they’ll contact me, they’ll give me their piece of mind,” Howlett said. “I’m like, ‘Hey, you know what? I hear you, I understand it.’ But at the same time, if people want a recipe, I’m going to do my best to try and give it to them.”
One frequent request he gets from viewers is to divulge the secret behind the delicious spread at In-N-Out Burger.
“A lot of people assume it’s thousand island dressing, but it is not,” Howlett said, noting the many copycat recipe attempts available online. “The recipe itself is very locked tight. It’s a tough one to even kind of get.”
“I have yet to find the real recipe for it and everyone demands it on a daily basis,” he added. “So I’m working on that one.”
And don’t worry, Bostonians, he hasn’t forgotten about Dunkin’ and figuring out the recipes for its collection of treats.
“I just finished figuring out Krispy Kreme, and I’m very happy about it,” Howlett said. “Dunkin’ is next on my list, absolutely. Hopefully they’re nice to me when I’m trying to dig up these secret recipes.”
‘If people want a recipe, I’m going to do my best to try and give it to them.’ JORDAN HOWLETT, a.k.a. social media sensation “Jordan The Stallion.