Top 7 Food Trends of 2018

Top 7 Food Trends of 2018

Trends are no longer just for clothing...

TACOS

With the rise of food trucks in last couple years came the rise of authentic Mexican tacos. Forget the hard shell, ground beef and cheese tortillas your family made on taco Tuesday. I’m talking real Jalisco tacos; Carne De Asada, Mole, Tacos de Bistec, and the median favourite El Pastor. The Netflix Original TV show “Ugly Delicious” advises that the tell tale signs where you can find a good taco are:

1. Go to the places where you can’t understand the menu.

2. Look for somewhere with a variety of salsas. (There’s more out there than Old El Paso Thick ’n Chunky Hot Salsa Sauce).

3. And most importantly fresh corn tortillas.

Hungry for some? Take a look at the menu of Personal Chef Damian from Charlotte.

RAMEN

This year Ramen completed its transition from packaged college dorm staple to everyone’s favourite culinary lunch. What is it that helped the 99c snack turn into a $17.00 meal? The quality of the ingredients added by the growing number of Japanese ramen shops opening all over North America. Instead of a Styrofoam or red solo cup filled with noodles and thin flavourless beef broth, today’s ramen is filled with Shio, Shoyu, Miso or, the most popular, Tonkatsu broth.  You can top these broths with pork belly, green onions, soft-cooked eggs, dashi, garlic, chili and even lobster or bacon. The creative nature of today’s ramen scene is what has really made it the must-have food of today.

Quality Ramen in Montreal: Personal Chef Kyle’s Ramen menu.

AIR-FRYING

The air frying trend has really grown in 2018. Perfect for those who love fried food and aren’t quite ready to give it up for health reason, air frying is the great middle ground you’ve been looking for. It’s not cheap, but it will save you weekly trips to the drive-thru for KFC while quickly curbing your craving for chicken wings and mozzarella sticks but with up to 75 percent less fat than deep frying.  

FLORAL LATTES

Made popular by Instagram, what were originally hipster coffee shop gems are now being offered in Starbucks across the world and beginning to pop up at every corner store. Floral tea lattes are combining a classic—the chai latte with something a little more exotic—bubble tea. Rose and Lavender are common flavours in the sweet Taiwanese cold milk tea and the floral flavours have translated well with the London Fog enthusiasts. Combine that with the pastel colouring of the flower tea lattes and you have an Instagram hit that’s perfect for rainy spring mornings.

Easy to do Floral Latte Recipe.

PLANT-BASED DIETS

Don’t expect the vegan trend to die down anytime soon. Whether your motivation is from a Netflix documentary or the desire to lose weight. People are now more than ever abandoning their carnivorous, cheese-eating ways. In fact, a recent survey conducted of 1,000 Americans, yielded that 54% of respondents said that they believed a plant-based diet to be more beneficial to their health than the traditional Western diet. It’s not just about shedding a few pounds or saving the earth, however, new research from William Roberts at Mintel show that taste is the actually the top reason US adults who eat plant-based proteins do so (52 percent). The great news about the growing vegan population? More variety. Brands like Daiya and SO Delicious continue to make the switch to a plant-based diet more accessible than it has been in previous years, with plant-based food alternatives. Even more household name brands, like Ben & Jerry’s is adding new vegan alternatives to their list of products.

Discover the beautiful menus of Vegan Personal Chef Karina from Albuquerque.

BULLTEPROOF COFFEE

Described as the CEO’s secret ingredient, Bulletproof Coffee is a high-performance drink that has a massive impact on your energy and cognitive function. A high fat coffee with proven benefits to increase mental clarity and reduce hunger throughout the day, BPC is a great alternative to your usual high-calorie breakfast. The best part? You can make it at home. BPC is your regular coffee mixed with clarified butter or ghee and MCT oil. It sounds gross, but this concoction will end up being the creamiest cup of coffee you’ve ever had.  Here is the recipe.

Idiot-proof Bullet-Proof Coffee recipe