America’s vastness and diversity are reflected in its food tastes, with many of the country’s favourite dishes influenced by cuisines from Chinese and German to Italian and Mexican. There are so many popular foods across the US, in fact, that it’s tricky to narrow it down to just a few top choices. We’ve crunched the available data to dish up some of the most popular – and most consumed – eats in America, from fast-food goodies like burgers and pizza to retro foods and brands that are enjoying a comeback.
It seems the US is burger obsessed. Reports suggest the average American eats three hamburgers per week, amounting to a total of 50 billion burgers per year. Data from sales in 2014 shows that, in that particular year, a staggering nine billion burgers were ordered in restaurants and fast-food outlets across the country, and they’re appearing on an increasing number of menus beyond market-leader McDonald’s. Beef is the second-most eaten meat in the country, too, with nearly 25kg (55lb) available per person in 2018.
Pizza is pretty ubiquitous around the US, whether we’re talking a classic New York slice, a stone-baked sourdough or a Chicago deep-dish pie. In fact, according to a Harris Poll, it’s the country’s favourite food – and the one most people would choose if they could only eat one thing for the rest of their lives. Around one in eight people in the US eat pizza on any given day, while other statistics estimate that more than 200 million Americans – more than half the population – eat frozen pizza.
Mexican and Tex-Mex cuisines are among the most popular in the US and we reckon it would be pretty hard – not to mention disappointing – to find a town or city that doesn’t have at least one restaurant, bar or truck dishing up delicious tacos filled with anything from fish to mushrooms or pulled pork. Though it’s tricky to get exact figures, estimates suggest that people in the US munch their way through more than 4.5 billion tacos each year.
Probably actually from Belgium and possibly first served at a dinner hosted by Thomas Jefferson, French fries are devoured by the mountain in the US. It’s estimated that the average American eats around 13kg (29lb) of fries per year, the equivalent of 77 large servings of McDonald’s fries. And around a quarter of the country’s potatoes – the US' most consumed vegetables – are chipped and fried to feed the nation’s appetite.
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Whether it’s slapped on a burger, grated over pasta, torn over pizza or melted into a grilled cheese, Americans can’t get enough. In fact cheese consumption has increased by 2.2kg (5lb) per capita in the past decade or so, with the average person eating around 18kg (40lb) per year – and more cheese is now consumed than milk. According to a Modern Farmer report, cheese consumption has more than tripled since 1970, with mozzarella the most popular.
Both biscuits and gravy tend to look and taste a little different in some other countries. In the US, though, the combo signals a Southern favourite of soft, doughy buttermilk biscuits smothered in thick and creamy sausage gravy. It’s found on menus across the country, from breakfast diners to food trucks, fast-food joints and even fine-dining restaurants. And it seems the comfort food is often in people’s minds, with a spike in Google searches for biscuits and gravy in late 2020, particularly in the states of Alaska, Montana and Indiana.
Corn is America’s biggest crop and, while much of what’s grown goes into animal feed, corn products, such as grits, flour, meal and food starch are devoured in huge quantities by humans, too, with 16.5kg (36lb) per person available for consumption in 2019. And that’s not including corn on the cob, almost always guaranteed to draw the biggest queues at street food markets. Tinned sweetcorn, too, flies off supermarket shelves, with Del Monte and unbranded versions achieving combined 2018 sales of more than 115 million cans.
Tinned tuna is one of the country’s most purchased convenience foods, and in fact StarKist’s chunks of tuna in water sold more units than any other canned food in 2018, with nearly 92 million tins flying off the shelves. Two other brands also made the top 25 list, with combined total sales of more than 218 million tins. And its popularity shows no signs of slowing; in fact, several brands reported huge increases in sales in the first half of 2020.
These sizzling rashers are everywhere, it seems – topping burgers, snuggling up to avocado, even sneaking into salads and stews. For many Americans, it seems, there are few meals and snacks that can’t be improved by the addition of bacon. The salty stuff was found on 68.1% of fast food menus alone in 2018, and it’s moved beyond the breakfast table at home and in restaurants, too.
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This iconic canned pork, invented in 1937, is enjoying something of a comeback, with Hormel Foods reporting record sales in the past few years and a further boost as people seemed to turn to familiar comfort foods during the COVID-19 pandemic. A report by Adweek suggests around a third of US households had at least one can of Spam in 2017, while Hormel says nearly seven million cans are sold annually in Hawaii, one of its biggest markets.
Frozen yogurt or “fro-yo” may be popular but good old-fashioned ice cream is still the most popular frozen dessert, according to the International Dairy Foods Association. It suggests that the average American consumes more than 10kg (22lb) of the creamy cold stuff each year, with an estimated 1.4 billion gallons of ice cream and related frozen desserts produced in 2017. The biggest market is the Great Lakes region, and it seems the US is a nation of traditionalists, with vanilla the most popular flavour, followed by chocolate.
What could be more soothing than a glass of milk and a plate of chocolate chip cookies? Not much, it seems. A report released in late 2020 suggested a 25% increase in cookie consumption during the COVID-19 pandemic, with one in five Americans making their way through three or more per day. Utah, Idaho and Oregon are apparently tops when it comes to cookie consumption, according to the data, while chocolate chip is considered the ultimate classic – especially at Christmas.
Soup sales seem to have been boosted by increasing numbers of people working from home, with Campbell Soup reporting a 35% boost in its sales of the liquid meal in the US during the first quarter of 2020. Its chicken noodle and cream of chicken soups were also among the top-selling canned foods in 2018, selling nearly 140 million units in total, while Swanson’s Chicken Broth sold 35.5 million cans.
As well as being the most popular flavour in soup, chicken is actually the country’s most popular meat, having edged ahead of beef in the past decade. According to data from Grubhub, the spicy chicken sandwich was the most popular dish in 2020. And, while chicken nugget sales have reportedly dropped in recent years, Americans still ate around 2.3 billion servings of them in restaurants in 2018.
Twinkies must surely have appeared in more US-based TV shows and movies than any other snack (apart from doughnuts, perhaps). The snack-sized cakes, filled with vanilla cream, are a national institution – so much so that people were outraged when they briefly disappeared after owners Hostess Cakes filed for bankruptcy in 2012. Data shows that an estimated 3.32 million Americans mainlined eight or more individual servings in 2020 – and around 1,123 Twinkies are produced every minute.
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Oreos, launched in 1912 and sold as part of a luxury biscuit selection, went on to become a stratospheric success. The chocolate cookies, which sandwich a cream filling, exceeded $3 billion (roughly £2.2 billion) in sales in 2019, with the US their number one market. And their popularity is on an upward trajectory, with parent company Mondelez reporting a 19% increase in North American year-on-year sales in the first quarter of 2020.
There’s obviously something about Os when it comes to America’s favourite foods, as these hollowed-out rounds, like tiny, crispy doughnuts, are the nation’s favourite cereal. Honey Nut and regular Cheerios have topped the cereal charts for years, with respective sales of around 129 million and 139 million boxes in 2018. Parent company General Mills also reported record sales of its pantry staples, including the cereal, in the first half of 2020 – another sign that many Americans are finding comfort in familiar favourites.
There are various theories about the origins of chop suey, perhaps the most prevalent that it’s an Americanisation of the Chinese dish “tsap seui” – a similar hodgepodge of stir-fried meat, eggs and vegetables traditionally made with leftovers. Whatever the truth, it’s come to symbolise American-Chinese food with its popularity initially boosted in the 1920s when New York artists and food critics praised its deliciousness. It may not be so trendy today but it’s still a mainstay of many Chinese restaurant menus and street food stalls.
Whether it’s spread on toast, topped with jam, smothered on apple slices or baked into cookies, peanut butter is a store-cupboard staple for many Americans. Around 297 million people in the US eat peanut butter, with sales of around 612 million jars in 2019. Well-known brands JIF, Skippy and Peter Pan are the most popular, along with stores’ own-label jars.
Americans much their way through 20 billion hot dogs each year, according to estimated figures by the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council – an average of 70 per person. Many of those bangers in (or out of) buns are bought at ballparks and street sellers, with others sold at grocery stores. Armour’s Vienna Sausages, like smaller hot dogs, sold more than 75 million units in 2018, making them the third most popular tinned food.
Like hash browns in bite-sized nuggets, Tater Tots are a particularly American treat. They were invented (and later trademarked) in 1953 by Ore-Ida, now part of Kraft-Heinz, as a way to use up potato scraps. The golden potato cylinders are sold as snacks at ball games and by the bag in the frozen aisle. And it seems people can’t get enough, with around 32 million kg (70 million lbs) eaten per year.
It’s hard to imagine now but there was once a time when avocado on toast wasn’t really a thing. Now it’s rare to see a café or brunch spot without the creamy fruit smashed on to a slice of sourdough. Its rise has been meteoric, with data suggesting Americans spent nearly $900,000 (£649,237) per month on avo on toast in 2017, compared to $17,000 (£12,263) three years earlier.
This US-born dish, thought to have originated when Italian immigrants first started to come to America from the late 19th century, is still a saucy, sloppy, splatter-prone favourite. It can be found on menus at pretty much every classic Italian taverna and it’s also hugely popular as a convenience food, presumably for those who are missing their nonna’s home cooking – nearly 61 million cans of Chef Boyardee Spaghetti & Meatballs were sold in 2018, putting it in the top 10 of canned goods. Campbell’s version sold more than 43 million.
The phrase “American as apple pie” still rings true, it seems – at least when it comes to dessert choices. The classic sweet comfort food is still a huge favourite – whether it’s a homemade pie with golden, crumbly pastry or one of McDonald’s handheld treats. Apples are, in fact, the most popular fruit in the US, followed by oranges, bananas and grapes.
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Crackers are a store-cupboard staple in many American households, perhaps because they’re so versatile. A total of $7.4 billion (around £10.3 billion) worth of crackers sold in the year up to May 2019 and the biggest sellers were those sandwiched around fillings from cheese to chocolate and peanut butter. The next most popular category was saltines or soda crackers, served with anything from salads to chowder. Then it’s the classic Graham cracker, typically crushed into desserts like cheesecakes or used for making those campfire favourites, s’mores.
Tortilla chips are so popular in the US that they have their own national day, celebrated each February – presumably with a bowl of chips and guacamole or as cheese-smothered nachos. More than 206 billion tortilla chips were devoured by US consumers in the year up to May 2019, while sales of chips and dips surge by around a third in the week leading up to Super Bowl; before the 2018 event, Americans bought enough bags of tortilla chips to stretch across the US 2.5 times.
Burritos have become one of the country’s most popular convenience foods, loved for their handheld convenience while still being pretty much a full meal – at any time day – in one package. In 2018, bean burritos were the most popular food ordered on Grubhub, with chicken burritos also in the top 10. Their sales generate billions of dollars each year and there’s no sign of that popularity waning, with 72% of millennials saying they eat two or three of the tortilla-wrapped meals per week.
Served freshly toasted and buttered or heaped with cream cheese and salmon, bagels really are everything. Nearly 203 million Americans or 61% of the population ate bagels in 2020 – and the baked goods have had a meteoric rise in popularity in the past decade, with consumption increasing by more than 22 million since 2011. More people buy stores’ own bagels rather than any particular brand, while of course there are traditional bakeries turning out delicious fresh bagels daily.
While bowls of comforting, slurpable ramen have become hugely popular in the states, with instant ramen noodles enjoying a sales boom, sushi is still the most popular Japanese food in the US. The country’s appetite for California rolls and salmon tempura means that the sushi restaurant sector was worth $22.25 billion in 2019. Favourites vary across the US, with research in 2016 suggesting fans in Boston, Massachusetts preferred spicy tuna rolls while people in Los Angeles, California ordered more crunchy rolls than anywhere else.
Whether they have a hole in the middle or are piped full of jam or custard, whether they're deep-fried or baked, it seems Americans can’t get enough of this treat. In 2020, Americans ate more than 201 million of them, while a survey for National Donut Day proved they're loved by many. A classic glazed ring was voted the favourite style, and top brands were Krispy Kreme and Dunkin’ Donuts.
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