It may be a while until the world recovers from 2020, but you can give yourself a factory reset much more easily — start by trying something new in the kitchen. A new year always brings with it a spate of new culinary trends, and (surprise, surprise) this time, a lot of them can be done from the comfort of your own home. Here’s a lowdown of the best virtual cookery classes, restaurant meal kits and fabulous new recipes to take you into 2021.
After almost a year of lockdown, chefs and restaurateurs have massively adapted their offerings, and while it’s a scary time for anyone in hospitality, us homebody foodies hope that this new way of doing things doesn’t completely disappear when the restaurants reopen. There’s a host of lauded eateries — some with Michelin stars — now delivering their at-home cook boxes nationwide. Eat your way around the places you’ve been dying to try, minus the cost of a taxi or train ticket, and don’t forget the wine, either.
The most fashionable menus are teeming with diverse, exciting new dishes to try, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to find ingredients when you’re trying to DIY. We anticipate an uptick in homemade condiments, allowing restaurant-standard, freshly prepared food from the start to finish off a dish. For example, blend miso, maple syrup, chilli, tamari and garlic with a splash of water and you can make your very own Korean gochujang paste, or play the long game, using any leftover wine or champagne from Christmas and create your own vinegars.
Many of us love to hone our cooking abilities, and one of the biggest food trends for 2021 is set to be online cookery classes. In our post-pandemic world, it’s possible to take anything from a quick, smartphone-centric how-to on Chinese dumplings to a 24 week chef skills course.
We all know that investment pieces never go out of style, but now that we’re spending much more time at home, expect to see a surge in sales of chef-standard knives, professional-level utensils and premium cookware with a lifetime guarantee.
It’s anticipated that more and more people will become vegetarian, vegan or flexitarian this year, and that others will end up eating more plant-based meals without even intending to as meat-free restaurant offerings get more exciting. We recommend dusting off your roasting tin and trying out some fresh green combinations to usher in the start of spring.
Not only do they taste amazing, but it’s now common knowledge that pickles are good for your gut. To truly get the most out of the probiotic properties of the pickle, you should make your own and eat them regularly. You don’t have to go for the classic cucumber, either; Korean cabbage kimchi is amazing on top of rice bowls and soups, and if you can find yourself a scoby, you’re halfway to making the tangy treat that is kombucha tea.
Have you heard of any other 2021 food trends that we should be keeping abreast of? Let us know in the comments!