Six food trends that’ll take over your tables and timelines in 2026
By Laura Rowe
In 2025 the nation couldn’t get enough of Dubai chocolate, dumpling one-pan bakes and cottage cheese.
But what will dominate our social feeds, shopping baskets and menus in 2026? Here’s what the experts predict.
Fricy flavours
Last year had us hooked on hot honey and chilli crisp, and 2026 is set to fire up even more innovation in the spice space.
‘Fricy’ is a mash up of fruity and spicy – think Mexico’s love of lime and chilli salt with mango, and Thailand’s fiery fruit-forward salads, for instance. It’s predicted this flavour combination will be popping up in food products and restaurant dishes aplenty this year.
Online retailer Sous Chef is already reporting soaring sales of fricy condiments. Mexican chamoy, a tangy mix of pickled fruit, lime, and chilli, is up 64% in three months, while Japanese yuzu kosho, a fermented chilli and citrus blend, has risen 28%.
Thai beef salad | Save to My Food now
With mango, lime juice and chili flakes, this dish fits the fricy brief
Drinks are getting in on the act too – with ‘spour’ (spicy and sour) cocktails appearing on bar lists and in readymade cans, including fresh new takes on spicy margaritas. Online searches for Mexican Tajín, which is increasingly used as a rim on the fiery cocktail, have been steadily rising for the past five years.
If you’re keen to get fricy flavours on the go in your own kitchen, shop for fruity chillies like Peruvian aji amarillo and Caribbean scotch bonnets, and explore traditions of serving fruit with spice, as commonly seen in parts of Latin America and Southeast Asia.
Mini portions and snackification
In 2025, we saw headline after headline on diabetes and weight-loss GLP-1 injections like Ozempic. Now they’re influencing the food we’re being served, says Jen Creevy, director of food and drink at global trend forecaster WGSN.
“Mini versions of drinks, dishes, treats and indulgences are accelerating for two reasons. One – they’re playful, cute and just make you smile. Two – they are the new go-to for those consumers either looking to cut down on portion sizes or those who are on weight-loss GLP-1s.”
Mini Cornish pasties | Save to My Food now
These mini pasties are perfect for both lunch and gatherings
Waitrose has seen a similar shift in eating habits, with 57% of its surveyed customers revealing they sometimes replace meals with snacky foods. Food trend and ideas agency, The Food People, also identified ‘snackification’, particularly “curated, crafted small formats that serve function and fun” as a big trend over the coming 24 months.
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Functional food and drink
The idea of food’s function is a big one for 2026 – and we’re not just talking about convenience or filling a hole.
Ocado Retail’s senior nutritionist Charlie Parker says, “We’re observing among our own customers an important emerging theme of a general shift in emphasis towards quality and nutrient density.”
That means a growing interest in protein and fibre, with the online grocer reporting an increase of searches for ‘fibre snacks’ to the tune of a whopping 2,578% over the past 12 months.
M&S senior nutritionist Louisa Brunt says, “the good news about fibre is that it’s all about adding more of the good stuff to meals, rather than focusing on restriction or cutting things out.”
In the same way we want more nutritional bang for our buck in our snacks, we’re also looking for health benefits from our drinks.
So, say goodbye to your basic fizzy pop and say hello to ‘functional’ and mood-boosting drinks. Think probiotic sodas, electrolyte powders, water kefirs and natural energy drinks.
And, hot on the heels of matcha lattes – which took over many a 2025 social feed – the funky #mushroomcoffee hashtag has been rising sharply on TikTok, with more than 99,000 tags.
Kombucha | Save to My Food now
You can make your own 'wellness drink' easily enough at home
Butter – but make it burnt
Not everything is about wellness and nutrition though. Butter has been enjoying some limelight in all of its guises: whipped, salted, cultured, flavoured and perhaps most deliciously, burnt.
Made viral by chef Thomas Straker in his All Things Butter series (Straker’s post is now at a whopping 19m views on TikTok and 3.8m on Instagram), the French technique of beurre noisette (browned butter) sees butter melted and cooked until browned, nutty and aromatic.
Brown butter tortelloni | Save to My Food now
Brown your butter for three minutes and toss it through your store-bought tortelloni for a quick and satisfying dish
Having been vilified in the past for its saturated fat content, it’s winning back fans over margarine because of concerns about ultra-processed foods.
With its newfound appeal and restaurant menus making a star of it as a roasty, toasty flavour injector, Waitrose tips browned butter as the ‘new pistachio’ for 2026 in their annual Food and Drink Report.
Use it in baking, to baste steaks, dress pasta or as a sauce for fish.
Jacket potatoes get a glow-up
The Kim Kardashian effect is alive and well, it seems. Her response to the very reasonable interview question in November of “do you like a jacket potato?” whipped up a storm on social media – the original clip on TikTok now has 13.8m views and 710k likes.
Despite her initial “who?”, the celebrity and entrepreneur revealed she loves hers filled with soured cream, butter (there it is again) and bacon bits, resulting in a slew of inspired recipes popping up online.
Air fryer loaded jacket potatoes | Save to My Food now
From saag aloo to tuna melt, these baked potato filliings will transform your midweek dinners
Of course, the jacket potato is nothing new. But with it becoming quicker and easier than ever to make thanks to popular air fryers (which more than 60% of UK households now own), and its status as a low-cost source of now-trendy fibre, social media stars have taken the baked spud and run with it.
Spud Bros – who film themselves making jackets with different fillings – have amassed more than 7m followers worldwide, while ‘Potato Queen’ Poppy O’Toole has upped the ante with her own glow-ups of this classic comfort food (her garlic jacket has 7.4m views on TikTok alone).
According to a survey by One Poll, 94% of UK adults say they eat a jacket potato once a week, and Waitrose reported sales of roasted spuds are up by more than a third year-on-year.
Cabbage’s comeback (yes, really)
It’s true: cabbage is having a moment. Chefs have been pushing the fancy stuff on us for years – grilled hispi, for instance, is no stranger to trendy restaurant menus – but it seems the humble brassica is what the people really want.
Cabbage soup | Save to My Food now
Who'd have thought cabbage soup would be making a comeback? This version is full of flavour
According to Pinterest, searches for cabbage soared in 2025, with cabbage dumplings rising 110%, Polish golumpki cabbage soup up 95% and fermented cabbage up 35%. Experts reckon this trend will reach the mainstream in the coming year.
Whether you’re looking to spice up your life, nourish your body or indulge in the ultimate comfort food, these hotly tipped 2026 trends will keep you well fed.
Originally published December 2025
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