Practical food content is resurging
The Independent argues social platforms have rewarded flashy, hard-to-reproduce recipes and recommends simpler, repeatable formats—traybakes and weeknight meals—as the kinds of dishes that actually work in real kitchens. (the-independent.com)
Food videos that promise a full dinner from one tray are getting a fresh push as cooks and publishers lean away from ornate viral recipes and back toward repeatable weeknight meals. (standard.co.uk) John Gregory-Smith’s new book, *The Greatest Traybake Cookbook Ever*, was published as an ebook on January 29, 2026, with a hardback edition dated April 28, 2026, and Penguin says it contains 100 recipes built around supermarket ingredients and “weeknights and weekends.” (penguin.com.au) The Standard said on January 19, 2026 that Gregory-Smith has more than one million Instagram followers and framed the book around “easy family recipes,” including a baked ravioli dish and a Korean-style chicken traybake. (standard.co.uk) That pitch lines up with how social platforms now shape cooking habits: TikTok said in its January 8, 2025 trend report that the app had become a “go-to platform for trusted insights,” and the company told advertisers to work with creators whose content feels authentic rather than scripted. (newsroom.tiktok.com) Food advice from social feeds is now mainstream in the United States. The International Food Information Council said its 2025 Food & Health Survey of 3,000 Americans found that 50 percent reported encountering food and nutrition information on social media in the past year. (ific.org) Pinterest’s 2025 trend report pointed in a different direction from maximalist “food porn,” forecasting retro drinks and pickle-heavy recipes from search data collected between September 2022 and August 2024 rather than restaurant-style plating or labor-intensive technique. (business.pinterest.com; business.pinterest.com; business.pinterest.com) Traybakes fit that shift because the format is practical by design: protein, vegetables, sauce, and starch cook in one vessel, cutting active prep, washing up, and the number of pans a home cook needs. Gregory-Smith’s publisher groups his recipes into “Speedy,” “Chicken,” “Slow,” and “Rice & Pasta,” which reads more like weekday planning than stunt cooking. (penguin.com.au) The tension is not that viral recipes disappeared. TikTok’s own year-end and awards materials still celebrate food creators as culture-shaping stars, even as publishers and recipe writers are selling “low on effort” cooking to the same audience. (newsroom.tiktok.com; newsroom.tiktok.com) What is changing is the sales pitch around home cooking: less “watch this,” more “make this on Tuesday.” A one-pan dinner is easier to film, easier to shop for, and, if publishers are reading the room correctly in 2026, easier to cook twice. (penguin.com.au; standard.co.uk; ific.org)
