As is well-known, cluster transformations in cluster structures of geometric type are often modeled on determinant identities, such as short Plucker relations, Desnanot--Jacobi identities and their generalizations. We present a construction that plays a similar role in a description of generalized cluster transformations and discuss its applications to generalized cluster structures in GL_n compatible with a certain subclass of Belavin--Drinfeld Poisson--Lie brackets, in the Drinfeld double of GL_n, and in spaces of periodic difference operators.