You may have heard about fricy - but what other food trends does the summer of 2026 have in store for us?
Is it going to be like 2025, a sunny few weeks of tucking into sandwiches with sweet, creamy fillings? Perhaps, but not in the way you might think…
BBC Bitesize Other Side of the Story has been scanning the menu for viral dishes you might spot over the summer break.
A Magnum in a croissant
Last year, sandwiches filled with strawberries and cream were all over socials as people tried them for the first time on camera and shared their thoughts.
This year's trend is even sweeter. Social clips show people pushing a Magnum, or any other brand of chocolate-covered ice cream lolly, inside a croissant. It’s a do-it-yourself ice cream sandwich which has been around since at least 2024 though it appears to have gone viral in the last week of July with some TikTok posts on the subject getting more than 20k views and the hashtag #magnumcroissant building on Instagram.
Cabbage - on a barbecue?
Cabbagecore has been a big trend this year. It’s not just about the veg on your dish, but seeing it used on plates, tea towels and mugs to decorate our homes. Pinterest predicted it would be one of the big trends of 2026, with influential fashion magazine Vogue saying the same.
When it comes to actually eating the stuff, grilled cabbage is trending at the moment - handy for barbecue season! There are thousands of Instagram posts with the #grilledcabbage tag, plus photos and videos depicting chunky slices of big green veg sizzling away on the griddle, with people adding their own seasonings and flavourings.
This interest in cabbage may be down to the way it looks in a photograph. Charles Spence, a professor of experimental psychology at the University of Oxford, wrote for the university’s website in October 2025 how people are drawn to images of food and drink. When we see them, we often visualise ourselves eating or drinking them. When it's an impressive slab of food, like sizzling cabbage on the barbecue, it is has a bigger impact and we feel even more tempted to try it.
It’s also a bit unusual: we’re perhaps more used to seeing boiled cabbage at the side of our dinner plate, and this also helps it to go viral. Prof Spence mentioned that people like to be seen as ‘food discoverers’, trying something new for the first time, so they’re more likely to share videos and pics of them doing just that on their socials.
The power of pistachio
Pistachio has had a boost in recent years, thanks in a big way to being one of the ingredients in the viral Dubai chocolate bar.
Ever since the bar launched at the end of 2023, one supermarket reported to the BBC Food website how searches for pistachio went up by 788% in spring 2025. It’s been used in other food as well: you may have spotted jars of pistachio paste (another thing to fill a croissant) and pistachio ice cream. This year, pistachio tiramisu is a popular dessert, with thousands of Insta posts featuring creamy layers of cake on people’s timelines.
In the summer of 2026, it’s not just food where pistachio is making an impact. The grey-green shade is said to be one of the most popular nail colours of the season by some fashion magazines, and Harrod’s department store in London ran a feature on their website about pistachio perfumes.
Why is pistachio so popular now? One reason might be that it is seen as a luxury: for example, some jars of pistachio cream can cost more than £10. Posting images online has been described by some psychologists as ‘status-signalling’, demonstrating to your followers that you can afford these treats once in a while. It’s also said to make the person posting feel better about themselves.
So next time you see a pistachio croissant in a bakery this summer, consider sticking a chocolate ice cream in there… with a little sprinkle of grilled cabbage, of course. But remember, you don’t have to follow every trend - and certainly not all at once.
This article was published in August 2026
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