What accounts for the popularity of a recipe? Sometimes it’s just a very basic dish that people want to make sure they do right. Food websites often report that their most searched-for recipe is for a dish as simple as roast chicken – and of course around Thanksgiving, everybody wants to make sure they’re cooking that big bird correctly. (Here are some old-fashioned dishes that deserve a comeback.)
Sometimes, on the other hand, interest in a particular dish grows because someone famous mentions it, or because it’s featured in a movie or TV show, or because somebody made it (and/or ate it) on TikTok or YouTube.
To determine the most popular recipes of 2022, 24/7 Tempo reviewed the recipe section of Google’s Year in Search compendium, which charts the recipes that had the highest rise in search traffic this year compared to 2021.
One thing the list suggests is that the Googling public is more interested in savory dishes than sweet ones. There’s only one dessert here, plus a sweetened breakfast standby. On the other hand, the Italian-deli sandwich makes two appearances, as does Italian tomato sauce. A model, an actor, a TV series, and (possibly) a play are also called out. (If you want somebody else to make your sandwich, here’s a list of the best deli in every state.)
Because the exact recipes for most of these dishes vary from source to source, we are publishing only basic descriptions of each dish. If you want an actual recipe of any of these, well, Google it.
10. “The Bear” spaghetti
> What it is: Spaghetti with tomato sauce
This pasta, as seen on the Hulu series “The Bear,” is made with a simple sauce involving San Marzano tomatoes, olive oil, garlic, red pepper flakes, and parmigiano.
9. Bella Hadid sandwich
> What it is: An Italian-style sub
The recipe for this 19-ingredient sandwich, with turkey, salami, and provolone as the starring players, was posted on TikTok by model Bella Hadid.
8. Grinder sandwich
> What it is: An Italian-style sub
A more generic term for the Italian-deli sandwich at No. 9, the grinder is also called a sub, a hero, a hoagie, a wedge, and a spuckie in various places.
7. Jennifer Aniston salad
> What it is: A Greek-style salad
It is widely believed that Jennifer Aniston (whose heritage is Greek; her father’s original last name was Anastassakis) ate this salad – which includes bulgur wheat, chickpeas, cucumber, and feta – daily while filming “Friends.” Aniston says she did eat a salad every day, but it wasn’t this one, and that she has no idea how her name came to be attached here.
6. Green goddess salad
> What it is: A salad with herb dressing (among other things)
This is a confusing one. Green goddess dressing, traditionally made with sour cream, mayonnaise, chives, tarragon, and chervil, and invented in San Francisco in the 1920s as a tribute to a hit play called “The Green Goddess,” can be used with any conventional lettuce-based salad.
A Google search for the salad of the same name, however, turns up an iceberg and spinach salad in a rice vinegar dressing, with or without nuts; another salad involving artichoke hearts, avocado, and cucumber; and still another that adds shrimp to the mix. The same name is also applied to a fruit salad based on pistachio pudding, whose alternate name is Watergate salad for reasons nobody understands.
5. Mango pie
> What it is: Fruit pie with a graham cracker crust
This is a fairly straightforward dessert made with fresh or frozen mango pulp, heavy cream, and sweetened condensed milk and crushed graham crackers bound with butter. It is a traditional dessert in Colombia, among other places, where it is known as pastel de mango.
4. Quick pancake
> What it is: Easy-to-make pancake
The key here is simplicity – just mixing together flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder, then stirring in milk, vegetable oil, and egg.
3. Marry Me chicken
> What it is: Chicken breast in cream sauce
One story is that some unnamed magazine food editors were testing this recipe – which calls for heavy cream, parmigiano, herbs, garlic, and sun-dried tomatoes (sometimes garnished with bacon) – when one of them said it was so good, she’d marry it if she could. Another explanation of the name is that cooking it for a prospective spouse will seal the deal. (There’s also something called Engagement chicken – a whole bird rubbed with lemon juice.)
2. Cincinnati chili
> What it is: Greek-style meat sauce
No Texan would recognize this as chili. Developed by Greek immigrants in Cincinnati in the 1920s, it’s flavored with such spices as cinnamon, clove, cumin, and nutmeg and is served over spaghetti, topped with various combinations of shredded cheddar, beans, and chopped onions.
1. Sugo
> What it is: Tomato sauce
“Sugo” is simply the Italian word for “sauce.” It generally means a long-simmered tomato sauce, pretty much the same as the sauce on the spaghetti at the other end of this list, from the Hulu series “The Bear.”