Putting together a homemade meal every night can turn into a tedious and time-consuming chore, even for the biggest cooking enthusiasts. Whether you spend the day working, running errands, or couch surfing, sometimes mincing a garlic clove sounds like the last thing you want to do. Luckily, TikTok has come to the rescue with the girldinner trend.
TikTok creator @liviemaher first posted about girldinner on May 11, and her video has since received over 170,000 likes and 1.2 million views. The hashtag itself has been viewed 8.7 million times—safe to say, people are into it.
So what exactly is a girldinner? Maher likens hers to a “Medieval peasant" meal, consisting of a block of cheese, a few pieces of bread, pickles, and grapes. There’s nothing aesthetically curated about it—video after video shows food carelessly thrown together in an appetizing, yet not very visually pleasing way (compared to a similarly-stocked charcuterie board). Other girldinner videos feature bags of popcorn, sliced cucumbers, salami, everything-bagel chips, and in @marieevevenne’s case, whipped ricotta and Tostitos, topped off with sea salt.
Girldinner can go by many different names: As one user commented, “Omg when i eat cheese and berries i call it my rat girl meal.” Others referred to this tossed-together way of eating “picky bits,” “French girl meal,” or “mouse meal.”
So while the hashtag is girldinner, there’s no limitations on who you can serve it up to—especially if you have kids. After a long day of school, sports, and carpools, a casual, low-key handheld meal is probably exactly what's needed. Table manners can be, well, tabled, for the evening, and replaced by dipping, dunking, and crunching. If you’re clever, you can sneak in a few healthy options, like cut-up carrots or celery dipped in peanut butter. A girldinner is also a great way to clear out your fridge and pantry of almost-empty bags and containers of food.
Plus, the girldinner trend and summer go hand in hand—it's all about relaxation, right? So step away from the stove, turn off the oven, and channel your inner Medieval peasant. A piece of bread and slab of cheese might turn out to be your favorite meal you've ever made.