What Does Girl Dinner Mean?
Girl dinner is the name for a low-effort, no-cook meal that's essentially a snack plate masquerading as dinner. Think: a few slices of cheese, some crackers, maybe fruit, possibly bread, and absolutely zero actual cooking involved. It's a charcuterie board made by someone who's too tired to charcuterie.
Girl dinner isn't about nutrition or meal planning. It's about the fact that sometimes you just want to eat random stuff from your fridge while standing at the counter, and that should be normalized.
Where Did Girl Dinner Come From?
The trend was started by TikTok user Olivia Maher (@liviemaher) in May 2023, who posted a video of her plate of bread, cheese, and pickles with the caption "this is my dinner." She added the now-iconic phrase "girl dinner" and the internet lost its collective mind because literally everyone related to it.
The trend exploded because it named something women had been doing forever but felt slightly ashamed of. Suddenly, it wasn't "I'm too lazy to cook" — it was GIRL DINNER, and it was a lifestyle.
How to Use Girl Dinner
- Classic: "Making girl dinner tonight 🧀🍇" (posts photo of random snacks on a plate)
- Self-deprecating: "Girl dinner is just wine and anxiety tonight."
- Expanded: "This is boy dinner" / "this is cat dinner" — the format spread to everything.
Examples in the Wild
"girl dinner tonight is three string cheeses, some grapes, and the rest of yesterday's bread. we feast."
"medieval peasants literally ate girl dinner every day. we're just returning to tradition."
Why It Matters
Girl dinner was revolutionary because it removed the guilt and pressure around cooking elaborate meals every night. The cultural expectation (especially for women) to always have a "proper" dinner is exhausting. Girl dinner said: actually, a plate of snacks IS a meal, and that's fine. It was collective permission to not try so hard, and we all needed it.