Our Favorite 2018 Food Trends - Fresh Dish Post from Price Chopper

Say goodbye to yesterday’s trends. While we still love our pumpkin spice, spiralized vegetables and mason jar meals, we’re making room for all new hot trends.

Each year, the National Restaurant Association surveys hundreds of members asking them to rate food items in terms of hot trends, yesterday’s news or perennial favorites. Here are your top 20 hottest food trends for 2018:

1. New cuts of meat: Go beyond the basics and ask your Price Chopper butcher to try these meat cuts: shoulder tender, oyster steak, Vegas strip steak, and the merlot cut.
2. House-made condiments: Restaurants and chefs are foregoing bottled condiments in favor of their own versions of staples such as mustards, mayonnaises, ketchups, aiolis and more.
3. Street food-inspired dishes:  Pretty much anything that can be eaten while walking will do the trick. Named in the survey were tempura,kabobs, dumplings and pupusas.
4. Ethnic-inspired breakfast items:  Chorizo scrambled eggs and coconut milk pancakes to name just a couple.
5. Sustainable seafood: Ethical harvesting of seafood is top of mind for consumers these days. Sustainable seafood is seafood that considers the well-being of the species and the oceans.
6. Healthful kids’ meals
7. Vegetable carb substitutes:  Say no to potatoes and grains. Say yes to new spins on old favorites likeCauliflower Fried RiceandZucchini Spaghetti.
8. Uncommon herbs:  Add unique flavors to your cuisine with herbs such as: lovage, chervil, lemon balm, papalo
9. Authentic ethnic cuisine
10. Ethnic spices  such as harissa, curry, peri peri, ras el hanout, and shichimi.
11. Peruvian cuisine
12. House-made/artisan pickles: Similar to the house-made condiments, chefs are opting for their own specialty toppings over commercially-produced options.
13. Heritage-breed meats:  Going along with the hyper-local trend, heritage-breed meats are increasingly popular because they are rarer and often raised on smaller farms.
14. Thai rolled ice cream is exactly what it sounds like. This treat starts with a milk-based liquid that is poured and manipulated on an extremely cold base such as a frozen marble counter top. As the ice cream freezes it is spread out evenly and then rolled off the surface using spatula.
15. African flavors
16. Ethnic-inspired kids’ dishes
17. Doughnuts with non-traditional filling  like liqueur or Earl Grey cream
18. Gourmet items in kids’ meals
19. Ethnic condiments  such as sriracha, sambal, chimichurri, gochujang, and zhug.
20. Ancient grains  are typically gluten-free and versatile in recipes and are loaded with trace vitamins and protein. A few examples included: kamut, spelt, amaranth, and lupin.

Download theNational Restaurant Association’s What’s Hot: 2018 Culinary Forecast.

Source:
National Restaurant Association. “What’s Hot 2018 Culinary Forecast.”http://www.restaurant.org/FoodTrends