All of the TikTok Chefs and Food Stars You Should Be Following Right Now

Chances are that you’ve seen (and enjoyed) a TikTok or two in the last couple of weeks — whether it be viral dance video created by a teenager, or a cute clip of a couple playing a prank on each other.

In fact, as millions of people spend more time on social media while practicing social distancing, usage for the popular short-form video app has increased drastically, resulting in tens of millions of new downloads in the last month alone.

In an attempt to find new ways to entertain themselves, many people are also taking up cooking for the first time ever and turning to low-ingredient, easy-to-follow recipes taken straight from TikTok. The app is filled with hundreds of “TikTok chefs” sharing short and simple instructional food videos. So when it comes to which foodies you should follow, narrowing down the list can be hard. But we’re here to make things easy for you amidst the seemingly endless videos of gorgeous cheese and charcuterie boards, perfectly blended tropical smoothies, and hyperrealistic geode cakes.

Keep on reading for a full list of our favorite TikTok foodies to follow right now.

RELATED: Everyone on TikTok Is Making White Claw Slushies — Here’s How to Do It

Tabitha Brown Lotus Root TikTok

Tabitha Brown Lotus Root TikTok

Southern actress and content creator Tabitha Brown experienced chronic pain and fatigue for nearly two years. But when she tried out a 30-day vegan challenge with her husband, within ten days she was already started feeling better. Brown immediately began observing a vegan diet, and the lifestyle change allowed her to explore the culinary world with renewed energy.

Although she only started sharing her vegan recipes and cooking tips on TikTok in early March 2020, her genuine character, reassuring voice, and skillful ability to make complex recipes look simple have quickly netted her a fanbase of more than 2 million people.

“I honestly do it to help Sell your house fast jacksonville people see food differently and know they have other options if they ever want to try something new!” she tells PEOPLE. “It literally saved my life, so that’s why I share.”

Adam Carbonated Fruit TikTok

Adam Carbonated Fruit TikTok

Private chef Adam Witt recently quit his job in digital marketing to create cooking content meant to “entertain, educate, and inspire” his more than 85,000 TikTok followers.

In his videos, Witt explains how to cook like a pro and easily carbonate fruit, churn butter from scratch, and arrange SPAM Musubi with sushi rice, Japanese Furikake seasoning, soy glaze, and nori. He also produces long-form videos on YouTube, where he posts new recipes and elaborates on his TikToks.

“In terms of cooking style, it’s hard to pin one down,” he explains to PEOPLE. “I’m always researching different techniques, recipes and food history. I just let my curiosity guide what I want to cook on any given day. Though I’d say I’m heavily influenced by Asian flavors, specifically Korean food.”

Chelsea White DIY Wedding Cake TikTok

Chelsea White DIY Wedding Cake TikTok

If you’re looking for the ultimate dessert inspo, Chelsey White is your girl. She makes some of the most eye-catching cakes on TikTok and boasts an audience of more than 1.4 million followers.

To date, White has made some pretty epic creations in a process that she fully documents online. She consistently bakes cakes into fun shapes like mermaid tails, toilet paper, and Spongebob Squarepants. She even made her own wedding cake last summer. Yes, you heard that right.

According to her blog, White had daydreamed about her cake since she got engaged and decided to take matters into her own hands. “Somehow I managed to make our cake ahead of time, deliver it to the venue the morning of our wedding, and had the time of my life on our wedding day,” she writes. “In retrospect, I couldn’t imagine it any other way.”

Maggie Cheese Board TikTok

Maggie Cheese Board TikTok

While Maggie Johnson specializes in the art of cheese board assembly on TikTok, she only started building them during her senior year of college when she got adequate counter space.

Soon after, Johnson, now 23, began cooking affordable, healthy meals for herself and her roommates and sharing them online. She quickly gained an audience of more than 250,000 people, and now she has a business that takes custom orders. Typically she creates her videos based on customer requests, but every once in a while, she’ll make a fluffy sweet potato pancake breakfast board or even a dessert board.

“I started making cheese boards for fun during my senior year and that’s what really made my account popular even though I still prefer cooking to putting together boards,” she says.

“I like to show a lot of my personality and day-to-day life on my account as well,” she adds.

Vivian Aronson TikTok

Vivian Aronson TikTok

Chef Vivian Aronson was featured in the 10th season of the cooking competition show MasterChef and is known for her expertise in traditional Chinese cuisine. She’s also gained quite a bit of fame from her exuberant, animated cooking tutorials on TikTok. Cartoon-like sound effects instruct viewers how to cook Asian-inspired recipes like bacon-wrapped enoki mushrooms, whipped coffee boba tea, and matcha mille crepe cakes.

As a mom of three, Aronson also loves packing delicious lunches for her kids’ lunchboxes every day before school — their favorite snack is steamed pork buns with homemade pickles — and she frequently shares her process with her more than 400,000 TikTok followers. So if you’re looking to assemble some creative lunches for your kids once school starts up again, you know where to go.

Twin Coast Blue Cloud TikTok

Twin Coast Blue Cloud TikTok

Ashley and Taylor Johnston, @twincoast

Fraternal twin sisters Ashley and Taylor Johnston are known for their ethereal videos of perfectly blended, unbelievably creamy smoothies. Their healthy creations are typically made using regular fruits like strawberries, bananas, and mangoes. In some of their more complex smoothies, however, you may find ingredients including pitaya, açai, or matcha.

These videos consistently reach hundreds of thousands of people on TikTok, and the twins have gained nearly 600,000 followers in a matter of months. You can find their smoothie recipes here.

“We both love smoothies and never in a million years would think people would find them cool as we do!” they tell PEOPLE. “Happy to share this little nook with our followers.”

Maya Skittles Frap TikTok

Maya Skittles Frap TikTok

At just 17 years old, Maya Smith is one of the youngest TikTok foodies out there — and definitely one of the coolest. She works at Starbucks when she’s not at school and began sharing recipes for popular (and sometimes secret!) drinks back in November 2019. The more obscure the drink, the more views she gets. Her most viral video, Skittles Frappuccino, has more than 33 million views and 5.8 million likes.

“I love making drinks and it is something that I love to share with others as well, which is what got me to start the account in the first place,” she tells PEOPLE.

Her unique insight and willingness to share a behind-the-scenes look at the coffee giant has propelled her into fame. Today she has more than 1.7 million followers, and even though she’s currently unable to work in-store due to the coronavirus, Smith is still teaching them how to make yummy drinks at home.

Eitan Bernath TikTok

Eitan Bernath TikTok

Eitan Bernath, @eitan

After getting his start on the Food Network’s first-ever Chopped Junior cooking competition show when he was 11, Eitan Bernath, now 18, has turned his passion for cooking into quite a successful career.

Today, he creates energetic, highly entertaining short-form cooking videos that focus on spices, flavors, and dishes from around the world. (He saves his long-form videos for YouTube.) Bernath often turns to international cuisine while in the kitchen and makes a mean Matar Paneer, salsa verde, and homemade hummus with za’atar.

“I try to make all my recipes on TikTok super approachable while still pushing people to expand their culinary repertoire,” he says.

RELATED: Is Disney World’s Famous Grilled Cheese Recipe Really That Good? We Put It to the Test

Pesto Pasta TikTok

Pesto Pasta TikTok

Chef Sonny has been cooking seriously since he was a teenager, but due to the pandemic, he lost his job as a private chef and turned to TikTok. In just two months, his comedic cooking demonstrations on everything from puff pastry pizza to homemade hummus, and even “the best brownies in the world” have netted him nearly 500,000 followers.

That number makes a lot of sense when you consider how many lives he probably changed after revealing how to stop crying while you’re cutting your onions.

“I want every single one of my recipes to feel very doable for people,” he says. “I see so many influencers cooking at such a high level and it doesn’t really serve the average home cook. My channel is and always will be for the people!”

Deviled Eggs Lunch TikTok

Deviled Eggs Lunch TikTok

If you’re a parent and want some cooking tips (or you just like watching really cute recipe videos), you need to follow Jessica Woo. Not only does she do a great job explaining how to make dishes ranging from Disney’s famous churro bites to rainbow pancakes, but she’s also an expert at making her food look good.

Woo’s videos, which feature meal prep tips, recipes for easy international comfort food, of course, her adorable kids, consistently reach millions of people and have amassed her more than 1.7 million followers in only three months.

One thing she wants parents to know? “Let your kids try different types of food, even stuff you personally don’t like,” she tells PEOPLE. “You never know what they might be into unless you offer it and they try it.”

Quarantine Chopped Basket Challenge TikTok

Quarantine Chopped Basket Challenge TikTok

Josh Scherer, Nicole Hendizadeh, and Trevor Evarts started a TikTok channel together based on their YouTube cooking show called Mythical Kitchen. It’s exactly like it sounds — they take normal ingredients or menu items from local fast food joints and turn them into silly, sometimes bizarre creations.

In one video, Scherer showed people how to make “the best sandwich of your life in under 3 seconds” by pouring bread crumbs and strawberry jelly into a jar of peanut butter. The trio has also raised more than $30,000 for the Restaurant Workers Community Foundation as part of the #LeftoversChallenge.

“We’re chefs who take food really seriously, but also realize how stupid and fun it can be,” they tell PEOPLE. “Like you literally turn food into poop, might as well deep fry some Taco Bell.”

Spurweezy Cheetos TikTok

Spurweezy Cheetos TikTok

TikTok chef Mike Spurlock‘s videos are accessible — and original. Some highlights include braised pork ravioli with tomato cream sauce, glazed chicken and waffles with hot honey, and chocolate lava cake with vanilla ice cream.

His craziest TikTok by far showcases his recipe for Flamin’ Hot Cheetos Mozzarella Sticks. In the video, he crushes a bag of Cheetos into a fine powder and then uses it to fry a bunch of string cheese.

Not to mention, he works hard to perfectly match up video clips with the audio — and the results are extremely pleasing.

Shereen Banana Bread TikTok

Shereen Banana Bread TikTok

Shereen Pavlides is the Italian mother you didn’t know you needed in your life. A former spokesperson and on-air guest at QVC, she definitely knows her way around the kitchen, and she’s not afraid to show you, even if that means telling you off. Her videos usually feature dishes that she cooks from scratch (“Homemade made easy,” she says) like potato galette, creamy corn sauté, and Sunday sauce.

To date, her most viral recipe, which more than 20 million people have viewed so far, is a gorgeous, thick banana bread made with all those browned bananas you were probably thinking about trashing. “Don’t you dare throw those away, we’re making the best banana bread,” she lectured to her followers.

“Cooking is a way for us to connect with each other and to make something from scratch builds our confidence, strengthens our minds to know we can accomplish anything,” Pavlides tells PEOPLE. “Plus, it’s damn good!”

(P.S. If you’re wondering who wrote the song in Pavlides’ banana bread video, look up Novice Juggler by Joey Pecoraro).

Heber Clawson TikTok

Heber Clawson TikTok

It’s unlikely you’ll see another expert cake creator on TikTok as young as Heber Clawson. The 17-year-old’s videos take his nearly 800,000 followers through a fast-paced, step-by-step decorating process that demonstrates how to make buttercream cakes so gorgeous they look like they belong in a museum.

Clawson has showcased a range of desserts on his account, from a birthday cake so tall it practically reached the ceiling to a holiday-themed cake topped with a life-sized Elf on the Shelf. His most viral video — a hyperrealistic vanilla buttercream geode cake that he filled with tiny rock candies — has ten million views and 2.5 million likes.

Jeremy Scheck Pasta TikTok

Jeremy Scheck Pasta TikTok

This college student is on a mission to teach people how to correctly cook authentic Italian food. Jeremy Scheck‘s expert technique and willingness to explain the mechanics behind cooking have amassed him more than 80,000 followers on TikTok with ease.

“When I make Italian food, which is my favorite, I pronounce the ingredients and dishes correctly and draw inspiration from cookbooks written in Italian and shows hosted in Italian,” he tells PEOPLE. “I think this makes a huge difference; otherwise, every Italian-American recipe is someone putting their American spin on an already Americanized dish.”

His videos are lighthearted and instructional, as he teaches viewers how to pronounce the names of popular international foods, make restaurant-quality pasta, and become experts on Parmigiano cheese.

Jack George Ralph TikTok

Jack George Ralph TikTok

This British chocolatier is so skilled at pastry-making that he had already founded his own luxury chocolate company by the time he turned 21. Ralph was in law school prior to starting ArtChocolat, but he felt a deeper connection to the culinary world and dropped out after one year. Now, he shares his process on TikTok to an audience of nearly 25,000 followers.

If you’re wondering how to make an exquisite passionfruit ganache, strawberries and cream bonbon, or perhaps a cherry liqueur he’s your guy. And if his skill set far outweighs your own, watching him temper chocolate to create super shiny, thin shells and crack bonbons out of their plastic molding is still beyond satisfying.

Rebecca R. Ammons

Next Post

Ashburn Mother Serves Up Delicious Meals During Quarantine

Tue Jun 30 , 2020
ASHBURN, VA — Yolanda Latimer, the mother of 3-year-old girl who was born premature, has spent the past three months cooking meals in her home “laboratory” to minimize the risk to her daughter, who has chronic lung disease and is immunocompromised. Latimer is now making use of everything she’s learned […]

You May Like