The 15 Biggest Food Trends of the Past 15 Years: The Good, The Bad & the Pickled

Honestly, if I had to name one food trend to describe 2010 to now, it’d be the rise of foods and drinks created for social media. Instagram officially launched that year (as did Pinterest), and before long, they changed the food landscape. Shareability became a huge marketing tactic, and at its peak, the way a dish looked nearly superseded how it tasted. Remember freakshakes, where you’d fork over $20 to have someone coat the sides of the cup in frosting and sprinkles, then layer it with as many different desserts as possible (entire slices of cake included)? What about a pizza layered with three tacos per slice? Or desserts you could smash like a piñata? How about a 2-foot-tall wig made out of cotton candy? I rest my case.

That leads me right into the most perplexing food trend of the past 15 years: unicorn food. It wasn’t just foods with the mythical creatures on them—though we all recall those cakes with gold fondant horns and rainbow rosette manes—it was anything pastel rainbow. Including grilled cheese. You know we hit critical mass when even Starbucks, Little Debbie and Snack Pack pudding got in on the action.

Hey, it wasn’t all artificial dyes and stunt snacks. “Meatless Monday” was coined back in 2003, but it really started to go mainstream in 2009 and beyond, when school districts started adopting it as well. Interest in plant-based eating in general continued to grow, as people became increasingly concerned about how consuming processed and red meat affected their diets, as well as how its production affected climate change.

Aka the official food of millennials, and the food Australian real estate mogul Tim Gurner told us all to stop buying if we ever wanted to be able to buy a house. Sadly, giving up mashed avo on bread did not solve our housing woes, but it underscores how the humble breakfast became a bougie status symbol. (Strangely, no one ever questioned the financial implications of the bottomless mimosas that were often sold alongside them.)

Just as Instagram foods disrupted the food service industry, so did meal kits. There was a time when it seemed like everyone you knew was trying Blue Apron, Hello Fresh, Marley Spoon and the like, and every week you were mailed a flyer to sample a new one. But, before long, time-starved home cooks realized they weren’t saving much time when they still had to chop their own carrots, even if that teaspoon of garlic powder was prepackaged, and their popularity began to wane. (Unless you’re me, and you still commit to two meals a week, just so you don’t have to think about what to cook for those two evenings.)

If the 2010s taught us anything, it was that leggings could, indeed, be pants. If it taught us two things, it was that you could substitute just about any ingredient in a recipe for cauliflower, and somehow, magically, blessedly, it’d work. Need a gluten-free pizza dough? Cauliflower! Want to lighten up your tater tots? Cauliflower! Craving a creamier soup, sans cream? You guessed it. The cruciferous vegetable was endlessly versatile, and it’ll always be dear to PureWow’s heart, as it was the basis of our first viral video.

As a term, “swicy” has only taken hold in the past few years, but as a flavor profile, it’s been around much longer. Mexican hot chocolate has been around for centuries, for one, but in recent history, the pairing of sweet and spicy took the States by storm over the past 15 years. That coincides with the launch of Mike’s Hot Honey, when customers at Brooklyn pizzeria Paulie Gee’s started asking to buy bottles of the concoction after tasting it on their pies. By 2015, they garnered national attention on CBS This Morning, and before long, it seemed like spicy honey was being drizzled on at least one item on every trendy restaurant in America. As swicy became a more popular flavor profile, it introduced a wave of new foods to the market—and opened people’s eyes to trying ones they might not have considered before (like Tajin-rimmed cocktails or cayenne caramel corn).

Some credit Instagram—ahem, #roseallday—for the glow-up that blush wine got in the early 2010s. It was suddenly the must-order drink of summer, and before long, its even-more-refreshing iteration was introduced: frosé. Nevermind that wine mixed with ice gets so diluted it often needed another ingredient (like fruit juice or sugar and lemon) to give it any flavor, or that we were plunking down $13 a glass for the watered-down concoction. When you slay all day, girlboss, you need to rosé all Satur-yay. Right?

Another food that got a serious glow-up over the past 15 years? Brussels sprouts. Once the punchline, the boiled variety gave way to its crispy, roasted and charred cousin, often served as a side in a little cast iron skillet, drizzled with balsamic or hot honey and studded with bacon. Peep it on a menu and you know you’re paying at least $15 for your burger (no sides included).

My apologies to anyone who’s worked at a major chain, because oh, the requests you must deal with. As social media took off, so did people sharing the ways they customized their go-to orders at chains, often coining clever names and saying they were on the “secret menu.” The problem? Many people would show up to said chains and request the “Butterbeer Latte,” only for the barista to meet them with a blank stare. And then have to remake what could sometimes be a very complicated order, slowing down production and causing confusion. But oh, how delicious some of these fan-created concoctions are. (And some have become so popular they earned a spot on official menus, like the Starbucks Pink Drink.)

Blame it on all the secret menus we’ve been creating, but over the years, we’ve also become very concerned with how bloated we feel. In the quest to be more, uh, regular, a whole industry of foods aiming to improve your gut health has risen. One that’s worth an estimated $51.6 billion.

Keto, Paleo, Whole30, Mediterranean Diet—chances are you know someone who’s tried at least one of them, if not all of them. While each has its stans and haters, they all fall under the umbrella of “clean eating,” aka limiting your intake of processed foods and focusing more on eating whole foods. So this is one camp that definitely wasn’t partaking in the unicorn food trend, lest they received a letter to Hogwarts, scampered to the Forbidden Forest and poached the creature themselves.

Mocktails, once the festive-yet-forgettable addition to every baby shower menu, became a work of art, thanks to the rise of Dry January and the sober curious movement. Suddenly, all kinds of high-quality zero-alcohol or alcohol-removed brands emerged, with flavors that were less sparkling punch and more complex, offering a crispness, acidity and punch we hadn’t seen before.

First, you admired the artisans on your Instagram feed, churning out loaf after loaf of intricately scored sourdough. They, like Some Good News and tie dye, got you through lockdown, until you thought: I’ve got all this time, why don’t I give it a try? Whether your sourdough soared or failed, it didn’t matter. It was a sense of connection when we were all six feet apart. (And today, it’s experiencing a renaissance, becoming the cauliflower of 2025, as it pops up in everything from pasta to pancake mix.)

Fads are temporary; fermentation is forever. At least that’s what pickle fans would tell you, because people who love pickles really love pickles. That has become abundantly clear over the past 15 years, as we learn there is no limit to the number of things you can infuse with that salty, dill flavor. Pickle soda? Pickle cotton candy? Spicy Dill Pickle Goldfish? The future looks brine. (C’mon, it was right there.)