Biggest food trends for the first half of 2023 revealed
From take-out hacks to old-school favourites making a comeback, here are the food trends which had everyone talking — and trying out — for the first half of the year.
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From the revival of old-school favourites like scones and cottage pie to an increased obsession with giving ramen noodles a makeover and hacking your Maccas, here are the food trends that have got everyone talking in the first half of this year.
Taste.com.au has looked at the trends and what readers are searching for more — and you’ll be surprised by the results.
Last year, our most popular social videos were those featuring 2-minute noodles. Then we started seeing people hacking store-bought spicy ramen noodles on TikTok and Instagram (they even added cheese). Now, searches for ramen recipes on taste have increased 307% since last year.
Some people on the taste.com.au team hadn’t even heard of a charlotte this time last year – and now we’ve got multiple recipes that just keep trending on Facebook. A charlotte is a showstopping dessert that you can make with few ingredients, little effort and little skill. And it tastes amazing. We’re loving our latest one: this chocolate charlotte.
You name it, we’ve tossed our potatoes in it this year. It all started with kewpie, when we realised that mayo can make the outside of a cheese toastie golden – so why not potatoes? We’ve now tried it with burger sauce and have taken them to another level.
Taste’s editorial director Brodee loves this trending hashtag. She describes it as “a kind of glorified cross between fridge grazing and a ploughman’s lunch, where people are giving themselves license to have those nights when they make do, use it up, go into the jungle that is the fridge and fend for themselves”.
First feta, then ricotta, then butter, now brie. Taste’s incredible whipped brie got a massive 326k views on TikTok. The magic of this hack is that you not only make the cheese creamy and dippable, but it doubles in volume.
We love cottage cheese – it’s versatile, tastes creamy and indulgent yet is full of nutritional benefits. Here, we share some of our favourite cottage cheese recipes and reveal why it’s great to incorporate into a healthy diet too.
Toto, I don’t think we’re just in the tuna aisle anymore. People are buying, eating (and filming themselves eating) canned mussels, oysters, sardines, octopus and mackerel. We were dubious about this trend but actually, quality canned mussels in tangy escabeche sauce now make it onto all our platters.
It’s the cakes, slices and quiches that seem miraculous but are every lazy baker’s dream. Think impossible quiches, 3-ingredient desserts and this incredible magic cake that separates into 3 layers and textures as it cooks.
Did cottage pie ever stop trending? Well no, not really. But it’s definitely had a comeback this year, with searches up 63% year on year. Most popular right now are cottage pies with flavour profile twists (like this French onion one) or ones where you use potato goods from the freezer aisle instead of mash.
Take a tortilla, smear it with beef mince and sear it in a hot pan. The mince sizzles and goes deliciously brown AND gets completely stuck to the tortilla. People are mostly filling these with lettuce, burger sauce and cheese and calling them Big Mac tacos. Our smashed beef ones got 150k+ views on TikTok recently.
Digital food director Amira is seeing rice paper sheets everywhere at the moment … but not being used to just make generic rice paper rolls. Nope – in crispy dumplings, cooked and cut into noodles, fried to make crackers, as the base for an omelette and more. She actually used them to make these dumplings … in an air fryer.
Pink food is BACK baby. That’s right, Margot Robbie has kicked off a wave of Barbie parties that of course require pink food. We love our old-school Barbie birthday cake … but we have some more exciting recipes coming that suit Barbie circa 2023.
Pour melted butter into an ovenproof dish and then “bathe” your scone dough in it. Add to that cheese and bacon and you got yourself the most amazing, soft, buttery scones, perfect as a snack or a party food.
We first saw them used instead of pasta sheets in a ‘lasagne’. Then we made a toastie in a sandwich press using them. The highlight for us was our hash brown air fryer garlic ‘bread’.
“Can I have 6 nuggets with a side of pickles and 3 cheese slices please?” Find someone who works at McDonald’s this year who hasn’t heard this request (or one of the other equally niche menu hacks).
Tabouli is having a moment … and we’re pretty happy about it. We’re seeing searches on taste up 1925% year-on-year and our Instagram feed is full of vibrant shots of this herby Levantine salad. We love this super easy version.
Searches for all the original classics are up: red velvet, butter cake, sponge cake and more. Nanna would be proud!
Vegetarian, flexitarian, now reducetarian. A Cambridge University study looked at how many people are becoming reducetarian, which is intentionally reducing the amount of meat you consume with the goal of helping lower carbon emissions. This is one of Taste’s most popular meat-free recipes.
Take a fruit roll up, stretch it out, stuff ice-cream inside, enclose then devour. We can confirm, the crunch was ASMR-worthy.
In the 2023 Special Edition Food Trend Forecast found that people are time poor and can’t find enough time in the day to cook from scratch. There’s been a huge retail growth of cake mixes, with almost 1.7 million consumers purchasing a cake mix in one month alone. Taste is ahead of the game and has brought out a range of meal kits, sauce bases and baking boxes to lend a helping hand.
The combination of milk and Milo (yep, just two ingredients) can result in way more than a nostalgic and insanely delicious drink; it can actually make a cake.
Blenders no longer belong in the kitchen – on TikTok, people are using them in their cars. Our experts tried out one of the portable ones with a cult following and here’s what they thought …
Baking your own bread is back as everyone tries to DIY that little bit more. We’re seeing increased searches for naan bread, focaccia, sourdough and damper.
As well as the humble rissole always trending on socials, we’ve also seen searches rise year-on-year for fish cakes and tuna patties.
For more recipe ideas, go to taste.com.au or check out the Taste Test Kitchen now.
Originally published as Biggest food trends for the first half of 2023 revealed
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