Top food trends of 2024: Value meals, dying chains and recalls galore
2024 was a big year, news-wise: AI stopped feeling like the future and more like the present, wars raged, the Paris Olympics made the world feel hopeful for a minute – oh, and then there was that little election.
Whether you’ve been paying attention to food trends or you just fell out of a coconut tree, you might have seen that there were developments in what and how we ate this year, too.
Here’s a look back on some of the big stories we followed:
TikTok influence
The platform continued to make its mark on home cooks, who shared hacks and wacky recipes that quickly spread. This year, the viral crop included some actually good IRL dishes, such as onion boils (a misnomer for a butter-drenched, seasoned and baked allium) and cucumber salads (just don’t slice off a finger!), as well as plenty of don’t-bother-trying-this ones, including a cloying “fluffy Coke” and the idea of washing your shredded cheese (seriously, don’t).
Beyond recipes, TikTok gave hungry viewers the fix they craved when it came to private chefs of the Hamptons, whose backdrops of acres of marble countertops and hydrangea-ringed pools are the stuff of our Nancy Meyers dreams (not to mention all that farm-stand produce and casual-cool buffets for 50). And TikTok creators such as Keith Lee, the restaurant reviewer whose face is so famous he sends family in to pick up food that he consumes in his car, continued to flex their power. Lee’s visit this year to the Washington area ruffled feathers when he (politely) dissed the dining scene, although the few places he did give a thumbs-up were rewarded with the famed “Keith Lee effect” of booming business.
Value meals
This year, penny-minding consumers looked for dining deals – and they didn’t have to search too hard. After posts of eye-popping prices for Big Mac meals went viral in 2023, and a collective sense seemed to develop that fast-food prices were too dang high, chains started hyping new value meals meant to keep customers lining up at the drive-thru. A $5 meal became an industry standard, though some “deals” were better than others. And Chipotle rushed to assuage customers who thought the folks making their bowls and burritos were skimping on portions.
With prices at many restaurants feeling exorbitant, people also ate at home more. Grocery prices were still high, though, and private-label, or store, brands benefited from value-conscious shoppers, with retail giant Walmart rolling out a high-end line of its own.
Style over substance
For years, aesthetic trends have come and gone ( RIP to my coastal grandmother and Tomato Girl eras), but this year, the urge to curate one’s surroundings reached new levels of impractical. 2024 brought us “fridgescaping,” which involves not just keeping the interior of your appliance tidy and organized, but actually adding decor items or color-coordinating (or even hewing to a seasonal theme, because nothing says Halloween like a Jack-o’-lantern next to your mayo).
Another form-over-function development in the kitchen? How about a $700 KitchenAid mixer in a deep green shade and a matte finish with a bowl fashioned from walnut – never mind that wood “is notorious for absorbing odors,” needs regular maintenance, and can’t be as effectively chilled for making whipped cream and other dishes like a normal, nonstatusy metal version.
Rolling recalls
It was a scary year for food recalls. There were several high-profile – and deadly – instances, including listeria-contaminated deli meats from Boar’s Head that sickened dozens and killed 10 people. E. coli-tainted onions in McDonald’s Quarter Pounders sickened at least 75 people in 13 states. And although the overall number of recalls is on track to dip slightly from last year, according to government data, it sure feels like we’re living in an era of permanent grocery paranoia, a condition experts say can be explained by a number of factors, including the sheer number of ways we find out about them (from social media to our grocery apps) to the human brain’s tendency to overestimate threats.
Dying iconic chains
Nostalgia for the 1990s might still be going strong when it comes to fashion (we see you, grunge), but when it came to restaurants, customers weren’t feeling the warm fuzzies for iconic legacy chains. Boston Market, Red Lobster and TGI Fridays – all staples of the pre-Y2K suburban landscape – declared bankruptcy. Some of their contemporaries, such as Chili’s, have weathered the vagaries of time better. But these three faltered for a number of reasons, among them the changing tastes of younger diners, who might prefer fast-casual chains with more sophisticated, global flavors – or simply staying home and having dinner delivered.
But 2025 might see a reversal, at least in one instance: The son of one of the founders of Mexican chain Chi-Chi’s has said he is bringing the business back, and we’re here for the return of the decadent fried ice cream and chimichangas of our youth.
Extreme spice
Hot peppers remained … well, hot in 2024. Diners reveled in all things eye-wateringly, lip-numbingly spicy. Foods that married heat and sweet, often slapped with the label “swicy,” were everywhere (pairings such as honey and gojuchang, or both sweet and spicy peppers felt of-the-moment). And to the joy of heat-seekers across the land, the shortage of Huy Fong Sriracha sauce – the iconic rooster-labeled brand – that plagued supermarket shelves starting in 2022 finally came to an end, as its manufacturer found a new pepper supplier. The trend, which often plays out with kids daring one another online to eat crazy-hot snacks, has a dangerous side: Several kids were sickened and a Massachusetts teenager died after participating in the viral “One Chip Challenge.” Danish officials issued a recall of three varieties of Korean instant noodles for containing too-high levels of capsaicin.