These Are the Top 15 Foods on the Rise for 2020

These spicy little chiles are the perfect bar food, even when you’re drinking at home. Stuffed with cream cheese or some other cheese variety and usually battered and fried, they’re a variation on classic Mexican chiles rellenos.

A recipe for something like mac & cheese was recorded as early as 1769, and Thomas Jefferson might have brought a version of the dish home with him from France — but its popularity soared after Kraft Foods introduced its packaged version in 1937. Presumably, those who order it in today are looking for something that’s better than what comes out of a box.

Probably invented by Mexican ranch workers in Texas 75 or 80 years ago, fajitas were originally made with skirt steak. Today, they’re concocted out of everything from shrimp to seitan — of course including chicken, America’s favorite protein.

Nobody’s quite sure why these crisp, meat-and/or-vegetable-stuffed spring roll variations — probably invented by a Chinese chef in New York City in the 1930s — are called egg rolls. Eggs are not involved. Whatever the story, they’re the only Chinese specialty appearing in this top 15 list, unless you count the faux-Chinese appetizer that DoorDash calls “cream cheese Rangoon” (also known as “crab Rangoon”); see below.

DoorDash calls this one of the unexpected food trends to watch for in the coming year. It’s a curiously specific one, to be sure. Pesto — that classic sauce of basil, garlic, pine nuts, and cheese — is always a popular choice at Italian restaurants. However, cavatappi — which are ridged, squiggly little pasta shapes, sometimes used for mac & cheese (see above) — aren’t a traditional base for pesto dishes. Or maybe they are now.

One of two soups on this list, this popular potage answers the age-old parental question of how you get the kids to eat some broccoli: Mix it with a lot of cheese. The tactic obviously works for grown-ups too.

This one is a surprise, not because it’s a breakfast dish (breakfast deliveries are common) but because — unlike waffles, which are crisper, for instance — it seems like something that would go limp shortly after coming off the griddle. That apparently doesn’t matter when folks are hungry for an old-fashioned morning meal, though.

DoorDash reports that an overwhelming 96% of its customers customize their orders one way or another. While “make your own pizza” was the fourth-most-popular food ordered this year, “create your own sushi roll” was the one that grew the most dramatically in popularity.

Maybe it’s the perception that fish is healthier than burgers (McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish, for instance, weighs in at 390 calories versus 563 for a Big Mac) or maybe it’s just that siren-song word “fried,” but no other type of sandwich showed anywhere near this kind of popularity growth this year.

Orders of Mexican food overall increased by 314% this year, with half of the 10 most popular foods delivered belonging to that category — but diners are apparently particularly interested in this classic soup.

As DoorDash points out, side dishes like this one have outpaced main dishes in growth this year. While a mid-year survey from the company showed French fries as being the most popular potato variety ordered, hash browns were in second place.

Brussels sprouts? Really? Apparently so. The popularity of these flavorful little mini-cabbages has been growing for at least six or seven years. According to an article in Vegetable Growers News in early 2018, people realizing that you can flavor Brussels sprouts with bacon has been a contributing factor to the rise, and while the year-end holidays used to be the big season for them, now there are promotions for them year round. In addition, while 80% of the crop used to go to frozen-food processors, now 85% is sold fresh. A lot of that obviously for delivery.

Ubiquitous New York-based chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten might not have been the first to ever produce a dense chocolate cake with a warm molten center, but his version, which dates back at least 30 years, is the one that has been most widely copied around the U.S. Here’s a question, though: How does the center stay molten on the dash from the restaurant to your door?

Crab, either real or imitation, mixed with cream cheese, wrapped up in a wonton skin, and deep-fried was almost certainly invented by Victor Bergeron for his seminal tiki-bar restaurant chain, Trader Vic’s, sometime in the 1940s. It has proven remarkably persevering over the years, appearing on both tiki-style and Chinese menus (among other places) all over the country and beyond. And its popularity is obviously still growing, though DoorDash cites these appetizers as an unexpected food trend, along with the aforementioned pesto cavatappi (see above).

DoorDash sees the impressive rise in popularity of this old-school comfort food dessert as an indication that a nostalgia trend is continuing “by bringing back classics with dessert first!” Maybe in light of the political divisiveness currently sundering our nation, people just want something we can all agree defines American values.