The Cucumber Salad Obsession That Changed Everything
In August of 2024, food TikToker Logan Moffitt helped the cucumber salad skyrocket to popularity levels on par with Regina George. His quick, low-maintenance technique for cucumber salad was the perfect cooling snack for hot summer days, as proven by the millions of viewers who watched his “entire cucumber” recipes on TikTok. This trend perfectly captured the zeitgeist of simple, refreshing foods during a sweltering summer. The phrase “sometimes you need to eat an entire cucumber” became a battle cry for those seeking uncomplicated nutrition.
Food creator’s viral cucumber jars are a thing you might want to recreate. While shakeable salads are sorta his thing, he’s also whipped up cucumber kimchi, a cucumber flight, and the iconic cucumber appetizer from Din Tai Fung, among other recipes. This trend demonstrated how one simple vegetable could spawn countless variations, proving that sometimes the most mundane ingredients create the most extraordinary viral moments.
Chamoy Pickles: The Ultimate Flavor Chaos
People couldn’t quit it with the chamoy pickles (AKA chickles) this year. I never would’ve guessed that chamoy, a condiment made from dried fruits, chilies, sugar, and lime juice, would be slathered atop the sourest pickles money can buy. But the food trend didn’t stop at just chamoy – many snackers stuffed their pickles with everything from the likes of Hot Cheetos, Takis, and Fruit Roll-Ups. This bizarre combination represented the extreme end of flavor experimentation that dominated 2024.
This insanely sour, tangy treat kickstarted what the internet’s coined as the ‘Red 40 Diet’, which certainly cannot be medically advised. The trend highlighted our collective fascination with pushing taste boundaries to their absolute limits, creating combinations that seemed almost deliberately shocking.
Dubai Chocolate Bars: Luxury Meets Virality
Decadent milk chocolate encases a luxurious pistachio butter and crispy knafeh filling in the viral sensation dubbed the “Dubai chocolate bar.” In the summer of 2024, creators flooded TikTok with videos of themselves breaking the bars in half to expose the luscious pistachio-green filling, which went mega-viral. Cooks posted their own recreations of the deluxe candy bar in equally popular videos. There are now thousands of posts tagged with #dubaichocolate on TikTok, and many chocolate purveyors here in the US are beginning to sell their own versions to capitalize on the trend.
The Dubai chocolate phenomenon perfectly exemplified how social media transforms luxury items into accessible trends. The satisfying crack and colorful reveal made for perfect ASMR content, turning an expensive treat into a viral sensation that spawned countless DIY attempts.
Exploding Jelly Candies: The ASMR Nightmare
The fruit-shaped jellies are contained in a thin layer of plastic that’s meant to burst open when you sink your teeth into it, prompting you to slurp out the sweetness inside. But what irks me the most is the fact that many people trying them can’t even break the seal. I’d rather watch someone make a simple PB&J than go to town on these microplastic-infused candies. These candies represented the strange intersection of novelty, ASMR content, and questionable food safety.
The final (and especially weird) food trend I propose we leave behind in 2024 is these dang exploding jelly candies. They also made their rounds on ASMR TikTok, and I truly cannot stand to watch a single video featuring them. This trend showed how our desire for viral content sometimes overrides basic common sense about food quality and safety.
Sea Grapes: Nature’s Edible Orbeez
Sea grapes grow from aquatic plants and are filled with essentially what is a “salty liquid.” They burst in the mouth when you eat them (one TikToker called them ‘edible Orbeez’). This unusual seafood delicacy gained traction as part of the broader ASMR food trend that dominated 2024. The popping sensation and unusual texture made sea grapes a perfect candidate for viral food content.
Despite their off-putting appearance to many Western palates, sea grapes represented our growing openness to trying foods from different cultures. They embodied the strange marriage between exotic cuisine and social media entertainment that defined much of 2024’s food landscape.
Tanghulu: When Ancient Meets Algorithm
This popular Chinese street food has been circling online for years, but it really took off in 2024. These candy-crusted fruit skewers are adorable, crunchy, and basically made for ASMR content. The traditional sugar-coated fruit technique found new life through social media, proving that sometimes old traditions just need the right platform to reach global audiences.
Tanghulu is the ultimate ASMR food trend. The viral dessert is actually a traditional Chinese street food that’s captured the hearts of social media users thanks to its sweet, juicy fruit interior and candied shell, which can be accomplished by boiling water and sugar on the stove to create a sugary exterior. This trend demonstrated how cultural exchange happens through food in the digital age.
Dua Lipa’s Pickle Diet Coke Catastrophe
Diet Coke, pickle juice, and jalapeño juice = all the ingredients needed to concoct Dua Lipa’s controversial 2024 drink. She loves it, but I on the other hand, do not. Now, don’t get me wrong: I love a good unexpected flavor combo, but gulping down a simultaneous dose of both pickle juice and jalapeño juice was not tasty to me whatsoever. This trend even sparked a slew of Sonic diners to start ordering their soft drinks with pickles.
Celebrity food endorsements took a particularly bizarre turn in 2024, with this concoction representing the power of influencer culture to make even the most questionable combinations seem appealing. The drink became a litmus test for adventurous eaters and sparked heated debates across social media platforms.
Chickles: The Cheese-Wrapped Pickle Revolution
The chickle is decidedly more simple than the chamoy pickle – simply fry cheese in a skillet, then wrap it around a dill pickle spear. It’s horrifying at first glance, but it’s basically a partial cheeseburger (which makes the concept just slightly less worrisome). This trend represented a more approachable version of the extreme pickle modifications that dominated 2024.
The chickle might be the alternative you’ve been waiting for. There’s nothing to not like about the creation. It’s just a fried cheese-wrapped pickle, and it also takes just a quick minute to make. The simplicity of this trend made it accessible to home cooks while still maintaining that element of culinary rebellion that defined the year.
Tomato Ice Toast: Gen Z’s Coldest Creation
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The newly trending tomato ice toast is one of Gen Z’s most bizarre creations. It’s exactly what it sounds like: tomato-flavored shaved ice on toast. People are using frozen veggies to make the granita, which is actually a simple shaved iced made by Italians. Though, typically, it is made from frozen fruit, herbal or spice juices instead.
This trend perfectly encapsulated Gen Z’s willingness to deconstruct and reimagine traditional food concepts. While it sounds unusual, the tomato ice toast represented a creative fusion of savory and refreshing elements that challenged conventional breakfast expectations.
The Entire Onion Boil Phenomenon
Unlike some food content creators’ hyper-curated recipe videos in pristine kitchens, other TikTok users, like Mimi Baretela, shared their relatable (and sometimes unusual) recipes for homemade, whole-food snacks, including this onion boil. Millions liked (and loved) videos of this accessible snack that calls for onions, an oven or air-fryer, and then whatever seasonings you have and enjoy.
Cooking onions in a skillet is a guaranteed way to make your kitchen smell heavenly. This viral recipe doubles down on the aromatic factor by stuffing a whole onion with butter and seasonings and cooking it until it’s sweet and tender. We never knew we wanted to eat an entire onion in one sitting until now. This trend celebrated simplicity and proved that even the most humble vegetables could become viral sensations with the right presentation.
These ten trends reveal something profound about our relationship with food in 2024. They showed how social media transforms eating from a private act into public performance, how economic pressures drive creative cooking solutions, and how cultural exchange happens through viral videos rather than traditional cookbooks. Whether strange, delicious, or downright questionable, these trends captured the chaotic energy of a year where food became entertainment, comfort, and rebellion all at once.
What do you think about these wild food trends? Tell us in the comments which ones you actually tried and which ones you’re glad stayed on the other side of your screen.
