This “Grandma Hobby” Is Taking Over Kitchens This Fall, According to Pinterest

Move over, sourdough. This fall, the coolest thing you can do in your kitchen might also be something your grandma did every week.

Making the things we normally toss into our grocery carts is having a moment. People are pickling, preserving, fermenting, and whipping up pantry staples from scratch, turning decidedly old-school kitchen skills into the latest iteration of the “grandma hobbies” trend.

And Pinterest has the receipts. According to the platform’s fall trend report, searches for homemade spice blends are up 209%, kombucha SCOBY recipes have jumped 201%, and strawberry lemonade concentrate canning is up 110%. People are also searching for fermenting recipes (+106%), indoor herb garden ideas (+50%), and pickled beets canning recipes (+42%).

It makes sense. After years of sourdough starters and elaborate baking projects, there’s something satisfying about learning the kind of practical kitchen skill that used to be second nature. Plus, unlike some hobbies, you get to eat the results. And depending on what you’re making, DIYing your usual grocery staples can even help stretch your grocery budget.

But you don’t need to spend an entire weekend sterilizing canning jars to get in on the trend. Some of the best things to make from scratch are also surprisingly simple—and may taste much better than what you’ve been buying.

So, consider this your beginner-friendly guide to grandma cooking. Here are nine grocery staples genuinely worth making yourself.

Is there a kitchen project that says “grandma hobby” more than putting up jars of homemade jam? Luckily, this version delivers all the old-fashioned charm without the bubbling pot or hours spent at the stove.

Our no-cook jam recipe turns peak-season raspberries, blackberries, or peaches into a bright, fruity spread in just 20 minutes. Toss the fruit with lemon, sugar, and freezer pectin, give it a good mash, and transfer it to jars. The result is a little looser than traditional cooked jam, but that makes it especially good for spooning over yogurt and ice cream, swirling into oatmeal, shaking into drinks, or whisking into dressings, like this Creamy Berry Poppy Seed Dressing.

Even better, you can stash jars in the freezer for up to a year, letting you hang onto that just-picked summer flavor well into sweater season.

Grandma factor: Preserving peak-season fruit for later—without spending all afternoon over a hot stove.

If your spice cabinet is filled with half-used jars and seasoning packets, start here. Homemade spice blends are one of the easiest ways to dip your toe into DIY pantry staples because there’s no special equipment, cooking, or waiting involved.

Our Test Kitchen has six easy formulas to get you started:

• a bright Curry Lime Rub for chicken, shrimp, tofu, and vegetables
• a Sweet Smoke & Spice Rub made for barbecue
• a savory Fennel Garlic Rub that’s amazing on seafood, zucchini, and tomatoes
• a Smoky All-Purpose Rub for chicken, pork, steak, burgers, potatoes, corn, and grilled vegetables
• an Herby-Mustard Rub for chicken, pork, lamb, salmon, and roasted vegetables
• a Chesapeake-Style Rub for shrimp, crab, fish, corn, potatoes, and fries

Most can be mixed in minutes and stored in a jar for up to three months.

Once you get the hang of it, raid your spice rack and start experimenting. Make your blend smokier, sweeter, spicier, or more herbaceous depending on what you cook most often.

Grandma factor: Having a signature seasoning blend you make by heart.

Homemade mayo sounds like the kind of thing you’d only make if you were born before jarred mayonnaise hit grocery shelves or you run a Michelin-starred kitchen. In reality, it’s essentially an egg, oil, and vinegar. Grandma would have whisked hers by hand, but our immersion blender mayo recipe does the work for you.

The payoff is a mayo that tastes noticeably richer and fresher than most jarred versions, which is why it really shines in dishes where mayo isn’t just playing a supporting role. Slather it on a BLT or tomato sandwich, use it for egg or chicken salad, swipe it onto a burger, fold it into a creamy potato salad, or dip crispy fries into it.

This is one to make when you’re actually planning to use it, though. Unlike the jar in your refrigerator door, homemade mayo isn’t designed to hang around for months.

Grandma factor: Making a condiment because, yes, you already have all the ingredients.

If you want to dip a toe into food preservation without committing to a full-on canning project, start with pickles.

Our classic dill pickles take just 15 minutes of hands-on time and require no special equipment. Or if you like them spicy, try our pickles with a kick.

And once you’ve mastered cukes, things can get more interesting: Our spicy taco pickles add taco seasoning, jalapeño, and cilantro for a punchier twist that’s practically begging to be piled onto tacos, burgers, and sandwiches.

Both are proof that an old-school kitchen skill doesn’t have to mean an all-day project—or taste old-fashioned.

Grandma factor: A fridge full of homemade pickles, with a little personality.

Tahini is one of those ingredients you might not realize you can make yourself until you see that it’s just two ingredients: sesame seeds and oil.

Toast the sesame seeds first to draw out their deep, roasty nuttiness and fill the kitchen with their warm, toasty aroma. Use our homemade tahini recipe for hummus and salad dressings, drizzle it over roasted vegetables, or turn it into a sauce for grain bowls.

Take your grandma hobby one step further and make our Halva with Chocolate, which really benefits from homemade tahini. The rich, sesame-packed confection gets a layer of bittersweet chocolate on top and may just become your new favorite candy bar.

Is buying a jar easier? Absolutely. But if you have sesame seeds sitting in the pantry—or want the freshest possible batch—this is a satisfyingly low-effort DIY.

Grandma factor: Turning one humble ingredient into something you’ll use all week.

Making butter from scratch feels very Little House on the Prairie—especially timely now that the pioneer classic has gotten the reboot treatment—which is precisely why it belongs on this list.

You don’t need a churn. Heavy cream and a food processor will get you there. Keep blitzing past whipped cream and eventually the fat separates from the buttermilk, leaving you with actual butter.

Add flaky salt and stop there, or lean into it with herbs, honey, citrus zest, or roasted garlic. It’s not necessarily going to replace the butter you buy every week, but as a cozy afternoon project—or something to put on the table when people come over—it’s hard to beat.

Optional: Go full Ma Ingalls and press your hand into the finished butter as decoration—because who needs a fancy butter mold when you have five fingers?

Grandma factor: Extremely high. You made butter from scratch!

Remember the great sriracha shortage of 2023, when the iconic green-cap bottles became nearly impossible to find and prices skyrocketed? Consider that your reminder that knowing how to make your own is a skill worth having.

And our homemade sriracha is much easier than you might expect—no fermentation required. Fresno chiles and roasted red peppers get blitzed with garlic, brown sugar, salt, and vinegar, then strained and simmered until the sauce is thick, glossy, and fiery. The whole thing takes just 45 minutes, and a jar will keep in the fridge for up to four months.
Grandma factor: Turning a pile of fresh chiles into a condiment you can stash away for months.

One of the best arguments for making tortillas yourself? Our from-scratch flour tortillas have a refreshingly short ingredient list (just flour, baking powder, and oil) and none of the preservatives some packaged tortillas rely on to extend shelf life.

You don’t need a tortilla press either—a rolling pin works just fine. Once cooked in a hot skillet, they’re soft, chewy, and lightly blistered in a way that the packaged kind just can’t compete with.

Make them for taco night, breakfast tacos, or quesadillas, or just eat one warm with your homemade butter. We won’t judge.

Grandma factor: Learning the kind of recipe you eventually stop needing a recipe for.

If cheesemaking sounds far too ambitious for a casual Saturday afternoon, fresh ricotta is here to change your mind.

Homemade ricotta can be made with just a handful of ingredients (milk, vinegar, lemon juice, and salt) and doesn't require aging, special cultures, or a cheese cave in your basement. Heat the milk, add acid to form curds, strain, and you’re essentially there.

And this is one DIY where you can really taste the difference. Freshly made ricotta is softer, creamier, and more delicate than the firmer, sometimes slightly grainy stuff in a supermarket tub.

It’s particularly good as is or whipped smooth to spread over toast, dolloped onto pasta, or served with fruit and honey. It also happens to be the kind of kitchen project that makes you feel disproportionately accomplished for the amount of work involved.

Grandma factor: Casual cheesemaking.

If there were an official condiment of grandma hobbies, homemade apple butter might be the coziest one.

Despite the name, there’s no dairy involved. Apples are cooked low and slow with warm spices until they become deeply concentrated, spreadable, and almost caramelized. Your kitchen smells incredible in the process, which is half the appeal.

Spread it on toast and biscuits, spoon it over oatmeal or yogurt, brush it on baked ham or pork chops, pair it with cheese, or tuck a jar into a fall hostess gift.

It’s also a great way to use up an overly ambitious apple-picking haul—which is perhaps the most grandma-coded fall activity of all.

Grandma factor: Off the charts.

Not everything needs to be homemade. Sometimes the jar of mayo is exactly what your lunch needs, and nobody is suggesting you start churning your own butter every Tuesday.

That may actually be the best part of this particular grandma hobby. The goal isn’t to recreate a time when everything had to be made from scratch. It’s getting to choose the parts that are genuinely fun to make.

Start with a jar of pickles. Mix your own signature spice blend. Make ricotta once just to discover that you can. Spend a rainy fall afternoon turning apples into apple butter.

At the end, you haven’t just killed a few hours without scrolling. You’ve learned a skill—and there’s something delicious waiting for you in the kitchen.