We Tried Out Popular Tik Tok Food Trends, And It Was A Delicious Hot Mess

Jul 12, 2021 6:00 PM EDT

I love to cook, but one frustrating thing about cooking is recipes. They just take so much reading. Some of them are like five steps! Like, just get to the point already, recipe! We all know "process" is fake and you can actually just mix up all the ingredients at once no matter what the dish is. You're just trying to fool me into looking at a website. TikTok's short-video format solves this problem--they give me my recipes how I want them: in rapid-fire. If I miss something because I can't rewind the video, oh well, guess I'll be missing some ingredients. Anyway, I challenged myself to try out a bunch of different TikTok food trends in one week, to see if rapid-fire really works. Here's what I found out.

01
Dalgona Coffee

via Getty Images

Listen...don't try to whip this by hand. Just don't do it. I know they pretend to in the videos, but I'm telling you...swallow your pride and use an electric mixer. I whisked this sh*t until I couldn't move my arms and all I got was some sad bubbles. Once I accepted that I would have to let the machines take over, I got a pretty good treat out of this. It's very sweet (like it's basically actual candy), so it tastes just right when you combine it with the milk.
02
Carrot Bacon

via Yumsome

I gotta admit, this was pretty good. I don't know what bacon tastes like--almost certainly not like this—but it was smokey and mapley and that's the sh*t I am here for. I didn't have any liquid smoke so I used smoked paprika, and it worked great. I will say, though, I think eating it made me MORE hungry?? Vegetables aren't real food, kids. If anything, vegetables are just a lie invented by the Veggie Tales franchise to sell more DVDs.
03
Nature's Cereal

via Cooking With Ayeh

I'm proud to report that, just as I suspected, pouring coconut water on top of fruit does not magically turn it into cereal. This little snack already has a name: fruit salad. As you know, fruit salad was invented by The Wiggles in 1769 as a tastier, healthier alternative to the rat salad commonly eaten by English peasants at the time. I won't stand for TikTok taking credit for this classic dish, and neither should you.
04
Cloud Bread

via Getty Images

It's whipped egg whites that you put in the oven, and that's exactly what it tastes like. It's weird, it isn't filling, and when you take it out of the oven it kind of sinks into itself like the shy girl at a party. I mean, I guess the inside looks cool. You can make it for the Insta post if you're someone who enjoys wasting your time.
05
Feta Pasta

via Getty Images

I've been seeing this one all over, so I was excited to try it. And honestly? 10/10. It was salty, creamy, and a bit tangy. (Yes, I'm talking about feta, get your mind out of the gutter!) And it was easy as sh*t. You just throw a block of feta into a dish with a bunch of cherry tomatoes and olive oil and put it in the oven. Then you mix it up and add pasta. A god damn neanderthal could make this dish. I mean, if neanderthals had pasta. Or modern kitchens. Which I assume they didn't. Neanderthals are the cave ones, right?
06
Ramen Lasagna

via Popsugar

To make this, you just layer blocks of ramen with pasta sauce and cheese and pop it in the oven. It was pretty good, and after I finished it I was absolutely disgusted with myself. You'll have to decide on your own whether that trade-off is worth it to you.
07
Final Thoughts

via Getty Images

All in all, I was mildly impressed by how well most of these hacks worked. Some of them were actually pretty yummy. Sure, some of them made me want to die or like, at least pass out for a while, but that's neither hear nor there. Go ahead and try some of these yourself if you want, especially carrot bacon. But if you take one thing away from this read, I hope it's that you should never again slander The Wiggles by mistaking their brilliant invention for "cereal". Also, if you do, I will personally badmouth you in every Youtube comments section I can find. Amen.