Matt Preston: Spam canned meat has had a comeback and is the new bogan food trend

Bogan food has never been hotter – and TikTok, America and the air fryer are to blame. Matt Preston has the recipes you never thought you needed.

Matt Preston suggests following Spam aficionado Kim Gwajang, who will suggest crumbing sliced Spam in the crushed potato chips of your choosing.

We’re not spamming you – canned meat is back in a big way in the weird world of TikTok cooking trends.

Everything on TikTok seems rubbed with the US trailer-trash combo of onion powder, garlic powder, dried oregano and paprika.

And now, even some once-serious recipe writers are espousing the timesaving ease of using onion and garlic powders instead of all those tedious minutes wasted cooking real onions or garlic – even if the end result will never taste as good.

Where once this bogan brand of cookery championed two-minute noodles, rebranded as ‘instant ramen’, now we are seeing the sudden resurrection of Spam as ‘something that we cook in the air fryer’.

Previously only ever fleetingly seen in cheap suburban Chinese fried rice and achingly ironic Spam fritters, now it’s back, as a ‘thing’!

To save you the effort, and trauma, I’ve cracked the can and tested these Spam hacks for you.

Spam stands for Spiced Pork and Ham, which is a canned pre-cooked meat product. It is made by the Hormel Foods Corporation in the United States and was introduced in 1937. Picture: iStock

Hasselback teriyaki Spam

Slice the Spam almost all the way through along its length, rub with teriyaki sauce (especially into the slits) and bake in the air fryer until crispy at the edges. Top with thinly sliced long green shallots.

Chewy Spam bites

Slice Spam into thin matchsticks and toss in a mix of gochujang (Korean red pepper paste),
a splash of vinegar and white sugar. Cook in your air fryer on high until blistered and crispy-burnt at the edges.

Sugar jerky

Slice Spam thinly and toss in sugar and parsley. Grill on both sides, or bake in the air fryer at 180°C for 15 minutes, or until a little crispy and gnarly.

Burnt Spam ends

Rub 2cm Spam cubes with a barbecue spice rub (it will likely include garlic powder, onion powder, dried oregano and paprika, with a little brown sugar). Roast in a hot air fryer for 10 minutes. Toss in a smoky barbecue sauce and return to the air fryer on baking paper until the sauce dries out a little and catches in spots.

Spam chips

Using a veg peeler, cut thin sheets of Spam and fry in hot oil for 5-7 minutes, until crispy. Toss in garlic powder and shichimi togarashi (Japanese spice blend).

Spam & corn fritter

Mix cooked corn kernels and cubed Spam with a little cornflour, glutinous rice flour and milk. Pour a thin layer of batter to cover the base of a lightly oiled non-stick frypan, and cook until crispy on the bottom. Flip and repeat. Season with salt and black sesame seeds.

Spam & corn fritters.

I’d avoid any recipe that features prominent pack shots, or uses some wacky spin-off Spam flavour.

This is usually the work of a marketing team, rather than some loose-cannon flavour nut in TikTok-ville.

Far better to follow Spam aficionado Kim Gwajang, who will suggest crumbing sliced Spam in the crushed potato chips of your choosing (assuming it’s an acceptable flavour, like light & tangy or barbecue) and baking at 200°C for 10 minutes – or even frying them wrapped in rice paper until super crispy.

This last one overlaps with a slightly more worthy trend: the use of rice paper for so much more than Vietnamese rice paper rolls. But that’s a story for another day!

Originally published as Matt Preston: Spam canned meat has had a comeback and is the new bogan food trend