I tried the TikTok feta and tomato pasta to find out if it’s really worth the hype

Once again, TikTok has provided us with a viral video trend that we can’t resist trying, and it comes in the form of feta, tomato and pasta

We’ve had the whipped coffee and we’ve tried (and failed) the many dance trends, but this time TikTok has united us in a common love of pasta.

With over 5.5 million views, user @feelgoodfoodie showcased the recipe on her TikTok, and it’s taken over the world (literally). At this point, this recipe for feta and tomato pasta has made its way onto our For You page so many times, it would be rude not to try it. So here goes.

What is the TikTok pasta?

This four-ingredient pasta went viral on TikTok because it’s super easy to make and, allegedly, unbelievably delicious.

Finnish ‘food artist’, Jenni Häyrinen, claims to have created the dish in 2019 by baking tomatoes and a block of feta cheese, then adding cooked pasta and fresh basil – as simple as that. Jenni says she made this recipe so popular, supermarkets in Finland ran out of feta cheese.

The viral dish has been recreated so many times on TikTok you can’t escape a scroll through the For You page without seeing a bunch of cherry tomatoes thrown on a baking tray.

Some people have added ingredients like chicken, garlic or different cheeses and some have even decided to blend the mixture, but I wanted the authentic, original taste.

Time for a trip to big Tesco.

The pasta dish prep

As a student, I obviously already had pasta in the cupboard because at this point it is a staple food group. So this only left me with feta cheese, cherry tomatoes and fresh basil to find.

The feta cheese I found was the last one on the shelf – I can only imagine seeing that remaining block is how winning the lottery feels. After securing the cheese and the cheapest packet of cherry tomatoes I could find, the hunt for fresh herbs began.

I won’t lie to you, I am not (and never will be) the sort of person to regularly buy fresh herbs, I’ll take the dried kind and the dried kind only. But with the objective of an authentic recipe in mind I did something embarrassing but necessary. I asked a staff member where the fresh basil was. For that split second, I wasn’t a student but a middle-aged homeowner who regularly garnishes her meals.

Time for the main event

Ingredients in hand, baking tray at the ready and TikTok app open, I rewatched over 20 of the videos explaining the process to check it really was as simple as everyone says.

Like seemingly every other TikTok user on the planet, I put some cherry tomatoes on a baking tray and covered them in olive oil, salt and pepper. I then added the whole block of feta to the middle and covered it in more oil (yep, more!).

I put it in the oven for 30 minutes and, in the meantime, boiled the pasta and chopped the basil.

Okay, first lesson learnt – 3o minutes was a LIE. That is how long I was supposed to cook it for but I left it in for 45 minutes and burnt it. At this point I thought I had ruined everything but all was not yet lost.

I popped the tomatoes and mixed them in with the melted (and burnt) cheese before adding the pasta and the basil. And that was genuinely all it took.

Most importantly – the taste test

I’ll admit it, I was skeptical. Feta is a strong taste, I don’t even like tomatoes that much and I’d managed to burn the bloody thing, but it was beyond my wildest dreams. Oh. My. GOD.

I thought it would taste a bit mushy but when I took that first bite it was like I was sat in an independent, authentic Italian restaurant in Rome. And yes, I do think highly of my cooking skills.

I have no idea how something so simple could be so amazing but believe the hype because WOW.

Overall experience: 9/10

The pasta itself gets a 10/10 without a doubt but it definitely would have been nicer if I hadn’t burnt it. Also, the TikTok videos I saw didn’t really give accurate measurements or cooking times so it was a little bit of blind cooking. However, it is so simple that I don’t think it matters too much.

Overall, it is absolutely worth it. Go forth and sell out all the supermarkets of feta cheese, you might even get a viral video out of it.

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