2026 viral recipes

Whole courgettes boiled in salted water until very soft and dressed with olive oil, red wine vinegar and salt, a family dish that spread with half praise and half mockery.

Cookies topped with a marshmallow dipped in white chocolate and given a ghost face in icing, as an early Halloween bake.

Cream cheese, shredded cheddar, bacon and jalapeños chopped together on the board, piled into bread and griddled.

A no-bake pie with a sweet-salty cracker crust, mascarpone cream custard and a glossy raspberry jam top from a Queens pie shop, shared by its pastry-chef founder.

Chicken and ricotta meatballs in tomato sauce topped with cold cottage cheese and Parmesan, posted by Hailey Bieber on Instagram Stories and widely recreated as a high-protein dinner.

A grilled cheese with Brie, mozzarella and a quick blueberry jam, a sweet-savoury sandwich that spread on TikTok in late July and August.

Macaroni with celery, red pepper, onion and carrot in a mayo-Dijon 'secret sauce' with smoked paprika, Old Bay and chopped pickles, from the creator behind the viral mac and cheese.

Freeze a hollowed half-watermelon overnight, pour in milk or cream and scrape until it turns into a soft-serve-like dessert.

Pasta al limone made by freezing a whole lemon and grating it (zest, pith and flesh) into a butter and Parmesan sauce.

Romaine, chicken, croutons, Parmesan and dressing chopped together on the board and rolled into a toasted wrap.

Heat-treated funfetti cake mix stirred into melted white chocolate and coconut oil with sprinkles, poured over ice cream so it sets into a hard shell.

Pasta tossed in garlicky plain yogurt, based on the Levantine dish macarona bi laban.

A Cajun-Italian pot of spaghetti, ground beef and sausage, the holy trinity, tomato paste and a roux-thickened beef gravy, seasoned with Cajun spice and onion soup mix.

Frozen mixed berries topped with discs of store-bought sugar-cookie dough and baked until the fruit turns jammy under a golden crust.

Glutinous rice batter baked with lots of butter until crisp and caramelised outside and chewy inside, Korea's dessert craze that sold out within hours at a Dubai bakery.

Cake and buttercream in a cup under a thick crunchy shell of nonpareils from a New York bakery.

Sugar cookies cut and coloured into petal shapes and arranged like a bouquet, shared as a cheap Mother's Day gift.

Potatoes boiled in pickle brine, smashed and roasted with butter, ranch seasoning and Parmesan, then served with a pickle crème fraîche dip instead of mayo.

Potato slabs cut in a close accordion pattern so they stretch into springy, crisp-edged spirals when fried or roasted, a slicing technique traced to a Korean street-potato shop.

Cookies made with crumbled toasted, buttered sourdough (plus jam or miso) in a brown-butter dough by a London pastry chef.

Melted chocolate poured into a Pringles tube around the crisps, set in the fridge and sliced into a sweet-salty bar.

Drained tinned peaches blitzed with melted dark chocolate and chilled until it sets like mousse.

Al dente pasta tossed with Parmesan and air-fried until crunchy, then folded through a chopped salad with a creamy dressing.

Japanese-Korean butter rolls with a buttery hollow centre and flaky salt on top.

Cabbage wedges seared golden then braised in a creamy 'marry me' sauce with garlic, sun-dried tomato and Parmesan, the signature dish of what creators called 'the year of the cabbage'.

A plain bowl of seasoned ground beef and white rice, sometimes with egg, meal-prepped as a cheap high-protein staple.

Molten-centre chocolate cakes (tortino al cioccolato) from the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics dining hall, filmed by athletes cutting them open.

Pork dumpling filling layered with wonton wrappers in a dish and steamed, giving soup-dumpling flavour without folding.

Noodles stirred into a sauce of peanut butter, soy, rice vinegar, garlic, chilli flakes and sesame set off with hot oil.

Spiced chicken mince blitzed with yogurt and fried onions, spread paper-thin on oiled crumpled parchment and pan-cooked, then rolled in saj bread with garlic sauce.

A whole baked sweet potato eaten like a sandwich with slices of mild butterkäse tucked in.

Biscuits (coconut sablés, Biscoff or Oreos) pushed into a tub of Greek yogurt and chilled overnight until it sets like cheesecake.

A Korean cookie with a stretchy cocoa-marshmallow shell around a Dubai-chocolate-style pistachio and kataifi filling.

Jacket potatoes piled with cheese, beans and other toppings by social-media-savvy UK vendors such as SpudBros, with hours-long queues after their videos.

Cooked rice with hot, fragrant broth ladled around it and topped with protein and herbs, eaten with a spoon.