Philly Cheesesteaks Among Most Beloved Dishes In US: Study

PHILADELPHIA — A classic Philly cheesesteak is a no-frills sandwich. The beloved dish in its purest form features only shaved ribeye steak; American, provolone, or cheese whiz; and onions, if so desired.

And the iconic sandwich created in Philadelphia is among the most popular dishes in the nation, a new study says.

TheCookieRookie.com recently released findings of a study it conducted to determine the most popular state dishes in the country.

The site created seed lists of America’s favorite state dishes and meals using various websites, including Buzzfeed, Business Insider, Mashed, and more. It then used Google Ads Keyword Planner to find the number of searches for each nationally and in each state between April 2023 and March 2024.

For the foodie cities section, the site's team analyzed each city on the various factors, giving each a normalized score out of 10 for each factor before taking an average of these.

With all that in mind, the Philly cheesesteak was ranked the No. 6 most popular dish in the nation.

According to the study, Philly cheesesteaks were mentioned in 471,026 Instagram posts, 45,200 TikTok posts, and 3.12 million searches online between April 2023 and March 2024.

Below are the top 10 most popular foods in the nation:

1. Bagels, New York
2. Avocado toast, California
3. Enchiladas, New Mexico
4. Apple Pie, Vermont
5. Gumbo, Louisiana
6. Philly cheesesteak, Pennsylvania
7. Walleye, North Dakota
8. Clams, Oregon
9. Lobster roll, Maine
10. Jell O, Utah

See the full study online here.