The Most Searched Recipes On The Internet Might Not Be What You Expect

Remember when we used to go to these places called restaurants, where they cooked your meal for you and brought it right to your table? While that does sound nice, it hasn't been an option in most of the United States for a few weeks now — although it seems much longer than that. Residents in most states are under orders to stay home as much as possible, and nonessential businesses are closed or limited in their operations in an effort to slow the spread of the virus that causes COVID-19. So people are left to their own devices when it comes to meals, and Google has reported a surge in recipe searches. The results are not what you would expect — at least not in ordinary times.

If you think about it, maybe it's no surprise that many of the most-searched-for recipes on Google during the pandemic try to replicate the types of foods people usually order out. Google recently shared its most popular recipe searches from the past 30 days (via Today). The list includes the popular brunch-menu item French toast, along with fried rice and pizza dough — the foundations of two mainstay takeout orders. A lot of restaurants still offer takeout or delivery, but people may feel safer these days without the added human interaction.

Two cakes made Google's recent top-10 recipe list: carrot and chocolate. These are the types of foods more likely to be ordered from your now-probably-shuttered bakery than made at home, but how long can we be expected to go without cake? The list also includes "chicken breast recipes" and "ground beef recipes" — also known as, "let's see what we have in the freezer." For sweetness and comfort, the list has banana bread and chocolate chip cookies. The last but not least top-10 recipe is for dalgona coffee — a whipped-coffee drink using instant coffee that has gone viral as people probably make fewer runs to the Starbucks drive-thru. 

Which recipes are usually the most popular? Google comes out with a most-searched list every year, and the trends from 2018 and 2019 strongly indicate comfort food. In 2018, pecan pie, meatloaf, and beef Stroganoff topped the list of human foods (via Delish). For some reason, "hummingbird food" came in second. Most popular last year were shepherd's pie, chicken parmigiana, and ham glaze (via SheKnows). Snickerdoodle cookies made the top-10 list both of the past two years.

Wait, how do you make snickerdoodles, anyway? No doubt, Google knows the answer.