With Rosh Hashanah menu planning getting serious, we got curious about something: Are people still looking for the same foods they always have, or has the way we cook started to change?
Kosher.com looked at searches performed on the site from January through August 20 of this year and compared them with the same period in 2025.
The part we were interested in wasn’t just which kugel won. We were trying to see what people want from their kitchens and menus right now, and how it might be changing from the past.
Searches related to one-pot, one-pan and sheet-pan cooking, doubled year over year.
Searches for slow cooker and crockpot recipes rose nearly a third.
And searches related to make-ahead and freezer cooking also increased.
There are still plenty of people making the challah, the kugel, the chicken, the meat, the sides, the desserts, and then somehow starting all over again for the next meal. They would just rather not dirty every pot in the kitchen to do it.
The data suggests that the familiar foods themselves are still very much around. Searches for noodle, lokshen and lukshen kugel were essentially unchanged from last year, while challah searches were up about 7%.
So it seems to be less about replacing the traditional table, and more about finding easier ways to get it there.
That also fits with something Kosher.com has been seeing around Rosh Hashanah specifically: cooks are increasingly looking for ways to work the simanim directly into the meal.
Instead of putting every symbolic food on the table as a separate thing, apples, dates, pomegranates, carrots, leeks, squash and honey are showing up inside salads, sides, chicken, meat, and desserts.
The goal is still a Yom Tov table that feels special. People are simply getting a little more strategic about how many separate dishes it takes to create one.
For anyone currently staring down their own Rosh Hashanah cooking list, that desire for less potchke probably sounds familiar.
There are still plenty of things worth making from scratch and plenty of recipes worth pulling out every single year. The trick is figuring out where to put the effort, and where to make life easier.
Kosher.com’s 2026 Rosh Hashanah cookbook is one place to start, with ideas for appetizers, mains, sides, challah and dessert. We handpicked the recipes, keeping in mind trends we’ve seen from our readers about what we think they will like most. Everything is elegant and Yom Tov-worthy, but still approachable.
Get our free Rosh Hashanah cookbook here: https://kosher.kit.com/rosh-hashanah-cookbook-2026
If all the traditional recipes are staying on the menu, finding a few smarter ways to get there sounds like a trend worth keeping.
Data is based on searches performed by users on Kosher.com from January 1 through August 20, 2026, compared with the same period in 2025.
Sponsored by Kosher.com
