Food trends move faster than ever these days, and what seemed like the hottest thing just months ago can suddenly feel outdated. From the rise of $5 fast-food meals to TikTok’s viral “onion boil,” 2024 food trends were hit or miss – and many have already overstayed their welcome. As we close the chapter on a tumultuous year, here are five food trends we’re happy to leave behind in 2024. Some crazes that once dominated social media feeds and restaurant menus now feel more exhausting than exciting.
Dense Bean Salads Hit Peak Saturation
Violet Witchel is the self-proclaimed “dense bean salad girl” after videos of her meal-prepping a marinated bean salad for the week went viral on TikTok. Food creator Violet Witchel’s recipe is so widespread, with so many iterations and taste-testers, she’s now known as the “Dense Bean Salad girl.” Her original, Mediterranean-inspired white bean, chickpea and pepper version has garnered millions of views on TikTok. This trend grew in popularity throughout 2024, reaching its peak popularity over the summer. People loved the protein-packed, make-ahead, fridge-friendly salad formula created by food content creator Violet Witchel. While initially nutritious and practical, these salads became so ubiquitous that even the creator’s fans grew weary.
“The people around me are tired of me saying dense bean salad constantly,” one TikToker commented on her video. The trend’s downfall came from oversaturation rather than any inherent flaw, proving that even healthy eating can become tiresome when repeated ad nauseam.
Overcomplicated Plant-Based Meats Lost Appeal
Plant-based offerings have seen their once-promising future tarnished by a slowdown in demand and questions over the quality of their foods. The upcoming year will see many businesses “course correct” and place greater importance on what consumers want to bring growth back to the space. “Plant-based food consumers are tired of additive-filled, unhealthy offerings – just look at the ingredient list on the back of an Impossible Burger,” Dennigan said in an interview. The movement toward simpler, whole-food alternatives became clear as consumers rejected overly processed substitutes.
Whole Foods Market recently forecast a trend of more companies putting the “plant” back in plant-based products, with the use of ingredients like mushrooms, walnuts, tempeh and legumes in place of complex meat alternatives. This shift represents a backlash against the chemistry-lab approach that dominated the earlier plant-based boom. “Ultimately, people want food, they don’t want something that is staged as food,” he said. “What the last 5 years is going to teach everyone is the investigation into what the nutritional contents are will be just as important as what was driving the trend in the first place – a healthier and more sustainable way to eat.”
Functional Drinks Became Too Niche
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The problem wasn’t the concept but the execution. Too many brands made unrealistic health claims while charging premium prices for what amounted to expensive flavored water with questionable benefits. This non-alcoholic beverage trend reflects shifting social norms around alcohol consumption as more people, especially young people, seek inclusivity in social settings and prioritize wellness without sacrificing taste, but many products failed to deliver on both fronts.
Gourmet Nostalgia Foods Felt Forced
The 90s are making a gourmet comeback. But this isn’t about mere nostalgia; it’s about reimagining classics with a modern twist. Think comfort foods, but layered with new-age ingredients and techniques, offering a unique blend of familiarity and novelty. Restaurants began serving deconstructed versions of childhood favorites, often at inflated prices that didn’t match the experience.
The trend peaked with establishments charging thirty dollars for what essentially amounted to fancy versions of lunch box treats. The cupcake craze was supposedly started by a Sex and the City episode where Miranda munches on a cupcake from Magnolia’s Cupcakes in New York. Artisan cupcake shops began popping up across the country and lavishly-iced mini cakes were the most fashionable item to serve at parties. However, we’re glad this trend didn’t last. As delicious as they are, your teeth feel like they start rotting by just looking at a cupcake and it was always a disappointment to find more icing than sponge. The gourmet nostalgia movement similarly wore thin when the novelty factor disappeared and diners realized they were paying premium prices for dressed-up comfort food.
Extreme Hot Sauce Culture Burned Out
Hot sauce hype has been building for years, with retailers reporting significant increases in demand across the board. Why the sudden surge? Waitrose notes the trend of using hot sauces in home cooking for a quick flavour hit. However, the trend escalated beyond practical usage into a performative spectacle.
Both retailers, however, attribute a large part of the craze to the success of YouTube show Hot Ones, where celebrities are interviewed while they eat chicken wings doused in a succession of sauces that get progressively hotter – customers are even buying the specific Hot Ones sauces to recreate the show experience. The problem emerged when heat levels became more important than actual flavor, leading to sauces that were painful rather than pleasant. Expect to see specialty peppers like Scorpion Peppers, Guajillo, and Hungarian Goathorn Peppers in various forms: fresh, ground, pickled, incorporated into oils and sauces, and in cocktails and canned ready-to-drink beverages. Another pepper, Calabrian chili peppers, is used in products such as “pasta sauce, hot sauce, cured meats, snacks, relish, hot honey.”
Social Media Dangerous Food Trends Crossed Lines
The unregulated structure of TikTok, Instagram, Xiaohongshu, and other social media platforms has catalysed many a trend to sprout online, marketing dangerous and unhealthy-to-consume foodstuffs, such as pink sauce, butter boards, and dubious health supplements. These products and trends have found themselves being used and replicated at restaurants too. The year saw multiple viral food trends that prioritized visual appeal over safety or nutritional value.
From raw flour cookie dough to questionable fermentation experiments, social media platforms amplified trends without proper vetting. ChatGPT can do a lot of things, but it can’t cook, yet AI-generated recipe suggestions added another layer of unreliability. The backlash was swift as food safety experts and health professionals began speaking out against these potentially harmful viral challenges. If there’s one trend that best capped off food media’s great transformation into a video-first medium, it was cottage cheese cookie dough. The idea of making treats with lower-calorie and higher-protein ingredients is nothing new, but for years, these types of recipes have been designed to mimic taste above all else, and can sometimes come out looking less than appealing. With cottage cheese, TikTok creators flipped the script. The desserts it starred in – like cheesecake, ice cream, cake, pudding, and the famous edible cookie dough – looked really good. “It was so exciting, because the mixture itself looked so convincing,” says Donofrio. “It was so smooth and creamy. And then I dipped my spoon in, and it was so disappointing.”
Overly Complex Fusion Concepts Confused Diners
Fusion-cuisine options are only limited by the creator’s imagination. Industry reports suggest that a significant portion of Gen Zers like to mix different flavors to create new taste combinations. While creative combinations initially excited food lovers, many restaurants took the concept too far. Dishes began incorporating so many cultural influences that they lost coherent identity and flavor profiles.
Most of our experts (62%) selected creative mash-ups of popular foods and flavors as an emerging trend that will continue to grow this year. Our experts also view this as a broader trend building on cuisine fusions. “People are being inspired by restaurant chefs who are pushing the boundaries with food fusions and global flavors,” says food writer Lizzy Briskin. However, the trend reached a breaking point when dishes became more about novelty than taste. The ramen burger craze was a whirlwind. In 2013, ramen expert Keizo Shimamoto debuted the creation at the Smorgasburg outdoor food market in Brooklyn, New York. It’s a beef patty sandwiched between two boiled and seared noodle buns. You can still head to the market to try one but the hype has mostly died down. Many fusion attempts in 2024 felt more gimmicky than genuinely innovative.
Massive Menu Syndrome Overwhelmed Customers
À la restaurant chains and American-style diners, a menu the size of a short novel once was considered the gold standard in the restaurant industry. Today, diners need and prefer menus that are consolidated and precise, ensuring that ingredients are not left to waste or age when certain dishes are not being served that often. People like guidance on what they can and cannot eat at a restaurant. The trend toward endless options backfired as decision paralysis set in for customers facing twenty-page menus.
Quality suffered as restaurants tried to master too many different cuisines and techniques simultaneously. After two years of price hikes to offset surging costs, food manufacturers had less room to raise prices again in 2024 – and in some cases, were even forced to implement cuts. As food makers grappled with inflation, sporadic supply chain issues, and higher labor costs, consumers and retailers initially accepted the increases. However, with commodity prices easing and shoppers scaling back to save money, the ability to push prices higher largely vanished. The combination of overwhelming choice and rising prices ultimately created a perfect storm of customer frustration.
Restaurants realized that doing fewer things exceptionally well attracted more loyal customers than attempting to be everything to everyone. The current trend is shifting toward more traditional establishments such as bakeries, classic bistros, “bouillons,” and artisanal techniques. One word: authenticity. Consumers prefer simple cuisine in a friendly atmosphere, marking a clear departure from the maximalist menu approach.
The lesson from 2024’s food trends is clear: sustainability matters more than virality. While social media will continue driving food culture, the most successful trends moving forward will likely be those that prioritize genuine quality, simplicity, and lasting value over fleeting internet fame. What seemed revolutionary in January often felt exhausting by December.
