The Top Food Trends to Look Out for This Summer, According to Feel Good Foodie

If you're a fan of recipe trends across social media platforms, there's no doubt that you've come across one of Yumna Jawad's creations.

The face behind Feel Good Foodie, Jawad has gained over 4 million Instagram followers and nearly 2 million TikTok followers by posting delicious dishes you may know and love—she helped make baked feta pasta, cottage cheese ice cream and pasta chips the sensations they became.

Now, she's partnering with California Walnuts to talk about all things walnuts—and to create more tasty, healthy recipes starring walnuts, like these Air-Fried Stuffed Shells with Walnut Meat. We sat down with Jawad to talk about her partnership, plus her predictions for this summer's food trends, the meal she would eat for the rest of her life and more.

EatingWell: Let's talk about your partnership with California Walnuts! How do you incorporate walnuts into your everyday cooking? What's your favorite unexpected way to use them?

Jawad: Being Middle Eastern, walnuts are a part of my pantry and something that I incorporate into snacks, cooking and baking. I'll grab a handful of walnuts every day with a date, for example. It's also something that we use a lot in baklava, and I use walnuts in savory recipes like rice pilaf. I'm a huge fan of walnuts, so when California Walnuts approached me about partnering, I figured this is a no-brainer. I have so many cool ways to incorporate walnuts into recipes.

One of the things they wanted to [develop] was walnut "meat," which is a really cool and fun hack in the kitchen. Anyone that hears the idea of walnut meat is kind of confused and intrigued, but pleasantly surprised afterward. Walnut "meat" is basically walnuts that are chopped or pulsed in a food processor to create this fine texture that actually mimics ground beef or sausage. I think it's really fascinating because all you really need to make walnut "meat" is walnuts. It's just one ingredient by itself, and what's cool is that it basically creates this canvas that you can doctor up and flavor. You can really improvise and get creative, it's a nutty, neutral taste so you can incorporate it into so many types of cuisines.

EatingWell: If you could choose one meal to eat for the rest of your life, what would it be?

Jawad: I have to do a snack and a meal. The snack would be walnuts and dates because I just feel that the combination is the most "superfood" thing you could possibly eat. Walnuts, just an ounce of them for example, [are packed with] fiber, protein, omega-3s, magnesium, just all of these amazing things for you. My husband's a cardiologist and he's always talking about how walnuts are good for the heart, and they're shaped like a brain so I always tell the kids they're good for the brain. And then combining that with dates; dates are such a big part of Middle Eastern culture and cuisine that I just love to eat every single day. Dates have natural sugar that boosts your energy level, so combining that with the walnuts is the best snack ever. And when I feel like getting creative, I take out my food processor and pulse those two things together to create these little energy balls. They're literally a ball of energy made of only two ingredients.

If you want to think about something more traditional to eat, I think I would have to do a Lebanese type of meal, one of my favorites is Lebanese chicken and rice. It's just comfort food: boiled chicken, rice and I like to add some nuts on top of it, any kind of nuts go really well with it.

EatingWell: What recipe of yours were you most excited to see go viral and get the appreciation that you feel it deserved?

Jawad: Baked Feta Pasta is the biggest one, and I've seen a couple people start making it and I thought, "This could be something huge, but I don't know for sure." So I basically spent all day making the video, writing about it on the blog, creating a recipe and taking photographs. I was so invested in that recipe, so to see it take off and to see it mentioned in so much media, it's one of my proudest social media moments. But now, I look at that and think I can look at things that are slowly starting to trend, or there's a fun little trending idea, and I love to take that little piece of something trending and try to see if I can give it my own little spin and make it go viral.

EatingWell: Do you have any predictions for this summer's top recipe trends?

Jawad: I know that in the last month, cottage cheese has been taking over social media, and the cottage cheese ice cream really took off. That's been really fun to see, but I think it's just starting to take off and we're going to see a lot more. I think we're going to see a lot more variations of cottage cheese-inspired desserts. I had one that was a cottage cheese cheesecake, a "cottage cheese-cake," I guess you can call it! But I'm also thinking of cottage cheese frozen bark, cottage cheese bars, I think there's so many things that you can do with it, and I'm really excited to see where this cottage cheese trend is going to go.

EatingWell: What does "eating well" mean to you?

Jawad: To me, eating well means eating whole foods that make my body feel good. That's the whole premise of Feel Good Foodie. I think about things that are going to give me energy, make me feel full, make me feel stronger, and those are the types of foods that I like to put in my body. That's what I think of when I think of eating well.