Food trends that sustained us through a rollercoaster year

With WFH leaving more time for leisure, it’s no wonder this year’s most popular recipe was for breakfast. See what other recipes were a hit in 2021.

2021 is a year that saw many of us turn to TikTok and Squid Game for cooking inspiration, experiment with everything from Caramilk to pickles in our air fryers, and delve into healthy snacks in a bid to kick our 2020 Covid calories.

While many Australians discovered and fell in love with the pleasures of home cooking through the early months of the pandemic, 2021 saw that love mature and become more practical, as home cooks shifted from sourdough and sauerkraut towards easy baking, shortcut recipes and one-pot meals.

Australia’s top food site, Taste.com.au was there to feed the passion, publishing more recipes this year than ever before – averaging more than three new recipes per day.

With work from home arrangements leaving more time for leisurely breakfasts, easy pancakes was the year’s most popular recipe, amassing 1.8 million views.

A recipe for easy pancakes at taste.com.au proved to be the site’s most popular, amassing over 1.8 million views throughout 2021.

“This year, baking has still been a massive trend, but the focus has shifted towards easy recipes – particularly things people can make with kids during homeschooling,” says Taste.com.au food director, Michelle Southan.

“The relentlessness of lockdowns forced people to cook more than ever before, so we also saw a big increase in demand for easy, low-touch dinners like pasta bakes, one-pot meals and anything that could be cooked in a slow-cooker or air fryer.”

taste.com.au food director Michelle Southan.

The same craving for simplicity has carried through to Christmas prep, with searches surging for easy festive meals, four-ingredient fruit cakes and no-bake treats.

“All the signs point to this one being a lazy, laid-back Christmas of barbecues and backyard cocktails,” says Southan.

“This Christmas is more about enjoying each other’s company again rather than putting on a fancy spread that takes hours to perfect.”

So, if you’ve already popped your turkey in the air fryer and used a TikTok hack to whip up a quick festive dessert, put your feet up and digest these other 2021 cooking trends.

The great winter of hibernation

As Australians bunkered down due to Covid restrictions, dinnertime became a vital anchor-point in the day as the lines between school, work and household became blurred.

Winter dinner searches surged by almost 2000 per cent this year, according to Taste.com.au figures, and slow cookers claimed real estate on kitchen benches, with slow cooking rising up the search criteria.

A craving for comfort food through tough times saw traditional winter recipes such as apple crumble, beef stroganoff and soup climb into the list of top 20 recipes.

Australia’s air fryer obsession intensified this year.

The appliance boom

When the going got tough, the tough got air frying. The appliance of the moment came into its own in 2021 as air fryer fans got experimental with their recipes, making everything from roast pork belly to scones, cakes and air-fried ice cream.

When life gave us lemons, we ate lemons

2021 may have been another lemon of a year, but one of the things Australians know best is how to cook their way out of a crisis.

Australia sought out more lemon recipes than ever before through 2021, with Taste.com.au searches for lemon recipes rising by over 60 per cent.

Two of the top three new recipes of 2021 were lemon recipes – lemon custard tea cakes recipe, followed by lemon Weet-Bix slice.

The humble lemon ranked as one of the most popular ingredients for 2021.

The four-month Christmas

Christmas searches began to rise earlier in 2021 than in 2020, and were already up by 20 per cent in September.

“After the events of 2021, I really think people wanted an event on the horizon to look forward to – something to symbolise a reconnection with family and friends,” says Southan.

A surge of Christmas nostalgia saw big rises in searches for festive classics like gingerbread men, rocky road and cob loaf.

The year of the pancake

If 2020 was the year of banana bread, 2021 was the year of the pancake.

Banana bread was ousted from its position as Australia’s most-viewed recipe by easy pancakes in 2021.

Banana bread also fell in the search rankings, while searches for pancake recipes grew a massive 200 per cent as cooks sought out new variations for all those breakfasts at home.

Health-conscious eating

Unlike the lockdowns of 2020, Australians were more health-conscious in 2021.

Searches for low calorie recipes surged by over 1700 per cent this year, with healthy work-from-home snack searches like kale chips and guacamole seeing a huge spike.

Dalgona candy, popularised in Netflix series Squid Game, was one of the more unusual food trends to surface this year.

Screen inspiration

Squid Game fans will remember the stressful scene when competitors had to scrape perfect star shapes out of brittle dalgona candy.

Some Australians brought the challenge into their homes – minus the life or death stakes – creating their own versions of the etched honeycomb sweet.

The dalgona candy trend was one of many screen-inspired cooking experiments.

TikTok also provided a hearty serving, high among them the viral feta pasta hack – a creamy sauce created by simply baking a block of feta with cherry tomatoes.

Next course

As many of us hope for a very different 2022, Taste.com.au expects to see a heightened demand for easy dinners, particularly as more people return to the office.

Appliance cooking – whether with slow-cookers or air fryers – is also predicted to go from strength to strength, while the lockdown appetite for comfort food may just be replaced by a craving for lighter alternatives as tights and trackies are replaced by trousers and blouses.

EASY PANCAKE RECIPE

7 Ingredients

2 eggs

1 3/4 cup milk

1 tsp vanilla essence

2 cups self-raising flour

1/3 cup caster sugar

Butter, for frying, plus extra, to serve

Maple syrup, to serve

3 Method Steps

Step 1

Whisk eggs, milk and vanilla together in a jug. Sift flour into a large bowl. Stir in sugar. Make a well in the centre. Add milk mixture. Whisk until just combined.

Step 2

Heat a large non-stick frying pan over medium heat. Grease pan with butter or spray with cooking oil. Using 1/4 cup mixture per pancake, cook 2 pancakes for 2 minutes or until bubbles appear on surface. Turn and cook for a further 1-2 minutes or until cooked through. Transfer to a plate. Cover loosely with foil to keep warm. Repeat with remaining mixture, greasing pan with butter or cooking oil between batches.

Step 3

Serve with maple syrup and extra butter.