Traditional food of the United States: 13 dishes to know

Traditional American food mixes Native American staples such as corn, beans, squash and turkey with European, African and Latin American cooking. Beef, pork, cheese and wheat dominate, and grilling, smoking and frying are the signature techniques. The most emblematic dishes are the cheeseburger, barbecue, fried chicken and apple pie, with strong regional dishes like gumbo and clam chowder.

Updated 2026-10-124 min read

What American food is built on

American cooking started with Native American foodways, built on corn, beans, squash, wild game and fish, and absorbed the cooking of English colonists, enslaved Africans and later waves of German, Italian, Jewish, Chinese and Mexican immigrants. Many dishes seen as typically American, from the hamburger to the hot dog, are adaptations of foods brought by those immigrants.

The result is less one cuisine than a set of strong regional ones. The South cooks with corn and pork, New England with seafood, dairy and maple, Louisiana with French, Spanish and West African techniques, and the Southwest with chilies and beef. What ties them together is generous portions, a lot of beef, cheese and fried food, and dishes built for gatherings: cookouts, game days and Thanksgiving.

American food also has its own calendar. Thanksgiving is the largest eating event in the country, measured by food sales and by how much people eat, and turkey is its most popular holiday food in every region. Summer opens with barbecues on Memorial Day and peaks with cookouts on the Fourth of July.

Fusion is part of the tradition. Chicken-fried steak is a variation on German schnitzel, spaghetti and meatballs and New York-style pizza come from Italian immigrants, and Cincinnati chili, created by Macedonian immigrants, is served over spaghetti with cheddar. Other foods, such as peanut butter, were developed in the United States and spread across the country with little appeal abroad.

Main dishes

• Cheeseburger — A ground beef patty grilled or griddled, topped with a slice of cheese in the last minute of cooking and served in a bun with lettuce, tomato, onion and condiments. The hamburger is the dish most often named as the national dish of the United States; see our cheeseburger recipe.
• Barbecue — Meat cooked low and slow over wood smoke, a tradition rooted in the South. Each region has its own style: beef brisket in Texas, pork with a molasses-tomato sauce in Kansas City, sticky-sweet pork steaks in St. Louis. Barbecues are also held across the country on Memorial Day and the Fourth of July.
• Fried chicken — Chicken pieces coated in seasoned flour or batter and fried until the crust is crisp, also called Southern fried chicken. It was part of typical American farmhouse fare and is still most closely tied to Southern cooking.
• Hot dog — A frankfurter or wiener sausage, grilled, steamed or boiled, served in a split bun with mustard, ketchup, relish, onions or sauerkraut. Brought by German immigrants, it became a working-class street food in New York and is closely tied to baseball games.
• Thanksgiving turkey — A whole roasted turkey, the centerpiece of Thanksgiving dinner on the fourth Thursday of November. It is served with sides such as stuffing, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie, many made from ingredients native to the Americas.

Soups and stews

• Clam chowder — A soup of clams, diced potatoes, salt pork and onions from the Northeast. New England chowder is made with milk or cream, Manhattan chowder with tomatoes, and Rhode Island chowder with neither; it comes with oyster crackers.
• Gumbo — A Louisiana stew built on a dark roux and the Creole "holy trinity" of celery, bell pepper and onion, with shellfish, chicken or andouille sausage, thickened with okra or filé powder (ground sassafras leaves). It simmers for hours and is served over rice; it is the official state cuisine of Louisiana.

Sides, snacks and breakfast

• Buffalo wings — Unbreaded chicken wings deep-fried, then tossed in melted butter and vinegary cayenne hot sauce, served with celery and blue cheese or ranch dressing. They were invented in Buffalo, New York; try our Buffalo wings recipe.
• Mac and cheese — Macaroni in a cheese sauce, most often cheddar, traditionally baked in a casserole dish under a browned top. It is often described as the classic American comfort food; see our baked mac and cheese.
• Cornbread — A quick bread of cornmeal leavened with baking powder, with roots in Native American cooking. It is a staple of Southern tables, and in the Southwest it is baked in a cast-iron skillet.
• Biscuits and gravy — Soft baking-powder biscuits split and covered in white gravy made from pork sausage drippings, flour and milk, heavy on black pepper. It is a breakfast dish, above all in the South.

Desserts

• Apple pie — Apples baked between two layers of shortcrust pastry, with a solid or latticed top. The recipe came from England, but American versions are sweeter and the pie has become a byword for American tradition.
• Key lime pie — A custard of condensed milk and the small, very tart limes of the Florida Keys in a pie crust. Condensed milk was used because fresh milk spoiled before refrigeration.

A country of regional kitchens

New England keeps to chowders, baked beans, cranberries and maple syrup. The South has barbecue, grits, biscuits and pecan pie. Louisiana splits into Creole cooking in New Orleans and rural Cajun cooking with crawfish boils and boudin sausage. The Midwest is sausage and barbecue country, and Texas and New Mexico cook with beef and chilies, close to the Mexican and Central American kitchen that gave rise to Tex-Mex.

To see how those borders blur, read about the traditional food of Mexico and the traditional food of Canada.

Cook American food at home

The cheeseburger, Buffalo wings and baked mac and cheese all have full step-by-step recipes in Copper, with ingredients, timings and the one technique that makes each work. Find them on our page about the food of the United States.

For the neighbouring kitchens, see our guide to North American food.

The recipes

• Cheeseburger🇺🇸 United States · 30 minutes
• Buffalo wings🇺🇸 United States · 45 minutes
• Baked mac and cheese🇺🇸 United States · 50 minutes

Questions people ask

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• What is the national dish of Canada?
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Sources

1. American cuisine — Wikipedia
2. Barbecue in the United States — Wikipedia
3. Gumbo — Wikipedia
4. Clam chowder — Wikipedia
5. Thanksgiving dinner — Wikipedia
6. Buffalo wing — Wikipedia

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