I’m a trends specialist – here are 8 ingredients you’ll be eating in 2026

Restaurants and bakeries across the UK are leading the way with introducing new flavours and dishes to try. Expect to see these eight ingredients popping up more and more all next year in cookbooks, on menus and perhaps in your own cooking. Get to them know to impress your friends at your next dinner party and be ahead of the curve...

Grape

At Ravneet Gill’s restaurant Gina, they have been championing grapes with dishes like Fragola grape jelly & vanilla panna cotta, along with an airy cotton cake with Fragola grape. In savoury cooking, recipes such as chargrilled grapes (great served as a side dish for roasts) or grape focaccia are increasingly popular. Try our gorgonzola and grape flatbreads for our take on the trend. Roasted grapes are particularly loved by Ed Smith who uses them often in his recipes – and he also has new book called Peckish out in 2026. We've created this baked feta with roasted grapes and rosemary for an effortless starter recipe.

If you want to go sweet, try this black grape and wine sorbet.

Dark maple syrup

Dark maple syrup is harvested at the very end of the season and has a rich, dark amber colour and intense treacle flavour. It was one of the champion ingredients in my cookbook Flavour Heroes – 15 Modern Pantry Ingredients to Amplify Your Cooking, used in dishes like pecan-cognac carrot cake with maple glaze, and a roasted butterbean salad with dark maple-preserved lemon dressing. It's also popping up on menus all over the country like at bakery Popham’s who use it for their bacon and maple pastry, which they also sell in their shop.

Check out our maple syrup recipes for inspiration of where to use it – from pancakes and cookies to maple baked beans, soup and sticky glazed sausages.

Pomelo

Pomelo is a large, thick-rinded citrus fruit, with flesh that’s similar to grapefruit. It is widely used in Southeast Asian cuisines, particularly Vietnamese and Thai food, such as for yam som o, a classic Thai pomelo salad. Michelin-recommended pan-Asian restaurant Nanyang Blossom have a pomelo salad with fresh mint, coriander, peanuts and kerabu dressing on their menu, whilst at Speedboat Bar one of their top desserts is mango pudding with red pomelo.

XO Sauce

Championed by food writers like Jenny Lau, author of An A to Z of Chinese Food and chefs like Andrew Wong, XO sauce is an umami and spicy sauce from Hong Kong made with dried seafood, ham, chilli, garlic and oil. At Bao in Soho they are serving up a dish of hispi cabbage with XO sauce, and at Bun House Disco in Shoreditch they have a prawn XO skillet rice with prawn head oil, prawn crisp XO jam, garlic king prawn, Chinese lap cheong and chives.

Make cucumber salad more interesting with these smacked cucumbers with cheat's XO sauce or give clams with quick XO sauce a go.

Kokum

Kokum is a sour fruit that tastes like a fruity tropical tamarind, but is in fact closer to a dried mangosteen. It’s used as a souring agent in South Indian and Sri Lankan cuisines. Kokum in East Dulwich from Sanjay Gour and Simeron Lily Patel celebrates the ingredient with dishes like kokum fish fry and Malabar prawn nadan curry with kokum, whilst Dishoom’s goan monkfish curry is simmered in creamy coconut and kokum.

Hojicha

Hojicha is roasted Japanese green tea. It has a toasted, nutty flavour that’s perfect for baking. Food writer Emiko Davies's latest cookbook The Japanese Pantry features a recipe for a hojicha cream sponge roll which infuses the flavour into sweet whipped cream along with kuromame sweet black soy beans. Kova Patisserie has a hojicha chestnut shortcake on their menu, whilst at Sky High Japanese Bakery they have hojicha lattes, hojicha pastries and cookies. It’s an ingredient also loved by Tim Anderson whose new book JapanEasy Kitchen is out in 2026 – featuring recipes that use Japanese tea.

Mugwort

Mugwort is an aromatic herbal plant native to the UK but also widely used in Korean cooking and medicine. It is sage-like with notes of rosemary and is slightly bitter with hints of menthol. It’s also full of antioxidants, vitamins A and C and, unlike matcha, is caffeine-free. Kyu at Dongnae Korean Restaurant in Bristol loves experimenting in her cooking and baking – one of her most talked about creations is a black sesame and mugwort cake with white chocolate ganache.

Nettles

Nettles are increasing in popularity – they grow in abundance seasonally, are a free source of nutrition and have many sweet and savoury uses. Farm Shop’s own in-house forager, Kenny, makes a nettle cordial which is sweet yet earthy and herbaceous, and great mixed into a G&T. Nettles also feature on the menu of restaurants like Through The Woods in Crouch End, whilst one of Padella’s most enduringly popular seasonal dishes is their spinach tagliarini with nettles, nutmeg, parmesan and egg yolk, which featured in their new cookbook Padella: Iconic Pasta at Home by Tim Siadatan. We've got Petersham Nurseries' recipe for ravioli with ricotta and young nettles – the peppery taste pairs perfectly with the creamy ricotta.