A viral joke about trendy fusion food has come full circle. The New York Times Cooking Instagram account recently turned “lemony miso gochujang brown butter gnocchi”—a meme meant to mock NYT recipes and whitewashed culinary trends—into an actual dish. Food writer Eric Kim recreated the satirical recipe in a cooking video on Instagram, asking viewers for more meme-inspired dish ideas.
Fans of the meme went wild over the video, crying, laughing, demanding jail time, and, of course, criticizing Kim’s cooking.
What is the lemony miso gochujang brown butter gnocchi meme?
References to lemony miso gochujang brown butter gnocchi and similar recipes slamming a bunch of trendy food words together started back in 2023 as a way to poke fun at New York Times recipes specifically. As it evolved, people referenced Trader Joe’s and wealthy neighborhoods dominated by white people in social media posts listing mishmashes of ingredients from different cultures.
In early 2025, the phrase “lemony miso gochujang brown butter gnocchi” became the favored variation of the meme as its popularity accelerated. It’s meant to mock mostly rich white people who borrow heavily from non-white cultures to make complicated “fusion” recipes in an attempt to look cool in front of other Trader Joe’s shoppers and New York Times readers.
Meme origins and spread
The first known variation of the recipe meme called it “harissa miso gochujang sheet pan angel hair pasta,” and was tweeted by @babytajine on May 16, 2023, attributing it to “Every NYT recipe.”
The post didn’t get much traction, but a similar tweet by @bobbyonmain on March 6, 2024, racked up over two million views. The text post reads, “Every recipe is now butter bean harissa miso gochujang pasta.”
X user @shreyabasu003 tweeted “NYT recipes: Lemony miso gochujang brown butter gnocchi” on Jan. 19, 2025, jokingly citing the New York Times as inspiration. This post gained over 2.7 million views
From there, jokes about this specific recipe took off, showing up about other rich and/or white people things and mixing with other memes until the New York Times itself took notice.
Eric Kim’s lemony miso gochujang brown butter gnocchi recipe
On Feb. 25, 2025, @nytcooking on Instagram posted a video featuring Eric Kim (@ericjoonho), a Korean-American food columnist for The New York Times Magazine. He starts the video by referencing the meme, but also says he thinks the recipe “would taste good.”
Kim begins by cooking shelf-stable gnocchi in oil and adds the butter and garlic to brown in the same pan, mixing in more oil with the gochujang and miso. He then squeezes in fresh lemon juice and adds a bit of water, sweetening it with maple syrup.
Finally, Kim tops the gnocchi with a handful of arugula as a salad, adding a little more oil, salt and pepper, and more lemon juice.
“So, there you have it,” Kim says.
“We started with a meme, and now we have lunch. I want to hear more of your Mad Lib recipe titles and maybe we’ll try them out.”
Lemony miso gochujang brown butter gnocchi, the copypasta
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