The 12 Best TikTok Food Trends Of 2025 (So Far)

TikTok, for better or worse, is a driving factor in today's food trends. Some of these have been notable fails over the years — who could forget the viral "steak in a toaster" hack that resulted in at least one house fire?  At times, it seems like TikTok creators are flat-out trolling us since it's hard to believe the world really needed either the glitter pickle or coffee with mayonnaise. On other occasions, however, the platform does share some genuinely good ideas such as the pandemic-era frog bread, Dalgona whipped coffee, and dirty sodas. 2025 has brought plenty of fun new ideas from the platform. As the year winds to a close, we're taking a look back over some of our favorite TikTok food finds.

One ongoing theme has been smarter shopping and money saving, which is something we can all appreciate in a time of rising grocery prices and stagnant salaries. We've also covered hacks for making the most out of leftovers and even found some new recipes we're dying to try. Nothing too complicated, though — unlike YouTube, home of the lengthy tutorial, many TikToks remain nicely bite-sized.

The 5-4-3-2-1 method is all about shopping mindfully. Not in the sense of stopping to smell the summer squash, but in taking a bit more care with what you put in your cart so you won't be wasting as much food or giving in to unhealthy impulse buys. Purchasing five vegetables, four fruits, three proteins, two sauces, and one grain should sustain you for a week of well-balanced meals. The mnemonic is easy to remember and ensures you're eating healthy.

The United States isn't officially in a recession, much less a depression — at least not yet. Nevertheless, many of us are feeling the pinch and looking to save money any way we can. Summer 2025 was peak recession recipes, with TikTokers sharing their favorite cheap eats. The #budgetmeals hashtag marked such penny-pinching ideas as a "struggle meal" which included Hamburger Helper, arroz con pollo made with Dollar Tree ingredients, and tuna melts that came courtesy of a Walmart generic grocery haul.

One way to get the best bang for your buck, grocery-wise, is to use up every last drop in the jar. Two closely related 2025 TikTok trends involved using the last dregs of two condiments to sweeten your morning beverage. Yes, as it turns out, jam really does belong in your coffee as long as you like a fruity-flavored brew. You can elevate that same morning brew by pouring the coffee into an almost-empty honey container. (If honey-flavored coffee's not your thing, the same trick would also work with tea.)

Leftover pizza is never a bad problem to have. It tastes great straight out of the fridge, but if you prefer it warm, 30 seconds in the microwave will make the cheese nice and melty. Still, there's something even more fun to do with it and leave it to TikTok creators to discover it for us. They suggest giving leftover pizza new life by using it as the outer layer of a sandwich. What goes inside is entirely up to you: Double down on the dairy by making pizza grilled cheese, pile on raw or roasted vegetables for a healthy upgrade, or think outside the pizza box with peanut butter and marshmallow fluff for a fluffernutter pizzawich.

Combining a grilled cheese sandwich with Nutella might seem like a dubious proposition at first, but we at The Takeout tried it, and whaddaya know, we liked it! The recipe came courtesy of TikTok, of course, and called for using brie cheese on sourdough bread topped with chocolate hazelnut spread and crushed almonds. Surprisingly, all these disparate flavors blended into a harmonious whole that managed to be sweet and sour and savory all at the same time with just the right amount of crunch.

Crispy onion chips are in the running to be 2025's best low-carb snack. TikTokers say the chips can be made with just two ingredients: thin-sliced onions and shredded cheese. You pile the latter on top of the former, then cook them in an air fryer until they're nice and crispy. (An oven will also work if you want to bake a bigger batch.) The chips are flavorful just as they are, but can be made even better with some additional seasonings or a dipping sauce.

TikTok has been all over charcuterie boards since the trend blew up in the late 20-teens, back when the platform was still in its infancy. You'd think that with all the evolutions over the years — dessert boards, butter boards, and Halloween-themed char-boo-terie boards — we'd have seen it all by now, but good old TikTok had one more surprise in store for us this year: the BBQ-terie board. As the name implies, such boards consist of barbecued meats and smoked sausages piled high on rustic wooden platters (these are de rigueur). Optional accompaniments include baked beans, coleslaw, and mini corn muffins. Of course, there must be mustard and barbecue sauce for dipping.

Sometimes TikTok comes up with something so brilliantly obvious that we slap ourselves and ask, "Why the heck didn't I think of that?" One such hack involves making cake pops even when you don't have any frosted cake conveniently left over. As TikTok creators suggest, you can make easier cake pops simply by smushing up Little Debbie snack cakes, rolling them into balls, and dipping them in melted chocolate. Don't forget the stick!

TikTok is all about trompe-l'œil foods, with one of our favorites being cookie fries. These aren't a reboot of the deep-fried Oreos of state fair fame, but instead are something much easier to make. The dessert begins with store-bought cookie dough, which is rolled out and sliced into strips before being baked. The resulting cookie fries are perfect for dunking in milk, but can just as easily be dipped into frosting, chocolate sauce, jam, peanut butter, or whipped cream.

One thing TikTok excels at is making everything old new again. Sometimes creators revisit retro recipes under their original names, even when they don't understand the context. Such was the case with Watergate salad, a 2023 TikTok trend that revived a dish named for a half-century-old political scandal. Other times, they repackage an old idea under a new name, as with 2025's trash can cookies. These are essentially a reboot of kitchen sink cookies, another recipe that dates back at least to the 1970s. Nonetheless, the idea deserves a modern-day revival since nothing says "zero waste kitchen" like throwing leftover pretzels, sunflower seeds, dried fruits, and uneaten Halloween candy into a big batch of cookie dough.

Last year, TikTok was into dessert bowls that combined salty snacks, cookies, and candy. In 2025, however, creators wanted something a little healthier, and thus the loaded cereal bowl was born. These typically combine some type of dried cereal with other ingredients such as fruits, peanut butter, and yogurt. It's not the kind of recipe that can be made in advance, since otherwise the cereal will get mushy, but it takes just minutes to put together and is guaranteed to keep you going no matter how late your lunch break is.

This past summer's whipped Dr. Pepper is somewhat similar to 2024's fluffy Coke minus the marshmallow fluff (and using a different kind of soda). It takes just two ingredients. All you need to do is blend chunks of frozen Dr. Pepper with heavy cream and top things off with another splash of soda. Some TikTokers are coming up with autumnally-enhanced versions that incorporate fall flavors such as maple syrup and pumpkin pie spice. (Will there be a peppermint mocha version for winter? Guess we'll have to stay tuned to find out.)