The 2023 Viral Food Trends We Want to Forget

Dalgona coffee, feta pasta, the salmon rice bowl… Every year, we’re bombarded with viral food trends, some of which last only about a week, others of which become long-term staples in our diets. Most of these trends are fairly innocuous, but some are more sinister, either because they’re a reflection of some facet or our broken society or because they’re just really, really not good—often both.

2023 brought us several new food trends we want to forget about as we enter the new year, from nightmarish diet culture-inspired drinks to a reframing of the casserole. But what do these trends say about how our food—and our culture as a whole—is changing?

Cottage Cheese Ice Cream

The year of our lord 2023 was the year of cottage cheese. It popped up seemingly everywhere, and often, it was harnessed to delicious ends. But please, dear god, don’t let me ever see a recipe for cottage cheese ice cream again. It feels like a symptom of our culture’s obsession with “hacking,” with optimizing, with turning everything that’s supposed to be joyful into something you can put on your resume or log in your dieting app. Do we really need to get an extra 20 grams of protein into our diets at the end of a long day? Can’t I just enjoy a few moments of pleasure eating my dessert, untainted by a nagging obsession with constant self improvement? Please??

Overly Flavored Water

Look, I understand that some people have trouble drinking enough water and that adding different types of flavorings can help them get the liquids they need. But at some point, maybe you should just drink some tea, because it seems like the slew of chemicals you’ll find in sugar-free syrups and flavorings are probably worse for you than simple dehydration. Tricking yourself into consuming something healthy by smothering it with unnatural flavors is a long-standing diet culture tradition, but it was especially strange to see in the context of… water. But maybe I just hated this trend so much because I truly don’t understand the Stanley Cup hype.

Tinned Fish… So Much Tinned Fish

Tinned fish has been rising in popularity for years now, but somehow, every year since the pandemic began, some outlet declares tinned fish a “new trend.” Tinned fish has been here, babe. Fishwife, the viral tinned fish brand known for its appealing packaging, launched back in 2020 and has been clogging our Instagram feeds with glamorized shots of chili crisp salmon ever since. And some of us have been canned tuna evangelists since the days of bringing Starkist snack packs to school for lunch. I’m not saying we should stop eating tinned fish—I love it too. I think it’s just time to stop deeming it a trend and treat it like the inflation-riddled economy staple it now is.

Mustard and Cottage Cheese Diet

TikToker Tiffany Magee really had people out here eating cottage cheese, mustard, raw vegetables, and chicken sausage several times a day. She credited her weight loss to the strange and specific diet, so of course, the internet had to follow suit. I’ll be honest: I tried her suggested breakfast of eggs, cottage cheese, and mustard, and despite it sounding absolutely vile, it was actually very good. And there’s nothing really wrong about this flavor combo if you like raw vegetables and sausage from time to time. But to eat basically only that for days, if not weeks, on end is a depressing prospect. 

Sushi Bakes

I never thought I’d see the day when casseroles would reach trendy status, but here we are, because yes, a sushi bake is nothing but a rice casserole. These recipes feel a bit gimmicky to me, like slightly less offensive versions of the iconic mid-2010s sushi donut. To me, though, part of the appeal of casseroles is the fact that they’re easy and generally inexpensive to make, which makes them a great option for people who are busy and are also trying to budget. (Isn’t that all of us at this point?) I just resent that it’s been presented as something more novel than it is.

Samantha Maxwell is a food writer and editor based in Boston. Follow her on Twitter at @samseating.