Jennifer Aniston Just Set The Record Straight On This Popular TikTok Recipe: ‘That’s Not My Salad’

This story has been updated since it was originally posted on 03/20/2022

Earlier this year, TikTok brought forth yet another viral food trend. This time, it was a salad recipe that Jennifer Aniston reportedly ate daily on the set of Friends that was getting all the attention. According to a recent interview with Shape, though, Aniston never actually ate the now famous salad. “I feel like I’m disappointing everybody, but that’s not my salad,” the star said. Say it ain’t so!

The internet first latched onto this recently debunked recipe when TikTok user @themodernnonna shared it to her account, garnering over 1.6 millions views for the eight-ingredient salad. Snejana Andreeva, the video’s poster, has been following Aniston’s interviews over the years about the foods she enjoyed in the 90’s—but apparently, this particular recipe got lost in translation. 

So, where exactly did this recipe come from? Its origins can be traced back to a few sources. PopSugar reported that back in 2015 the actress shared the details of her ideal salad with Living Proof: “My perfect salad — Bulgar, cucumbers, parsley, mint, red onion, garbanzo beans, feta cheese, & pistachios,” the actress reportedly wrote in a since-deleted post on the brand’s Instagram. With this and other interviews in mind, Andreeva modified the viral recipe, and fans went wild recreating the dish. 

Andreeva’s now-viral video lists the ingredients of Aniston’s famous salad as: bulgur, red onion, parsley, mint, pistachio, and cucumber as detailed in the Living Proof post. However, the TikToker added a squeeze of lemon juice and left out chickpeas, modifying the salad for her own liking. 

It seems the viral recipe is now so far off from the original that Aniston can’t even claim it as her own; she told Shape it’s “totally different” from the one she used to eat every day. “It looks delicious, but it’s not the salad I had on Friends,” the actress admitted.

This does add up when we look back at another interview in 2010, where Friends co-star Courtney Cox spoke about a salad Aniston ate every day that sounds pretty far off from the recipe sweeping TikTok. Cox told The Los Angeles Times that she and Aniston ate lunch together every day for 10 years, noting that she remembers the We’re The Millers star eating “a Cobb salad that Jennifer doctored up with turkey bacon and garbanzo beans and I don’t know what. She just has a way with food, which really helps. Because if you’re going to eat the same salad every day for 10 years, it’d better be a good salad, right?” And although the recently viral recipe does sound amazing, it’s not exactly a Cobb salad. 

Luckily, Aniston did give the real recipe so that fans can try it for themselves: shredded lettuce, chicken, egg whites, a couple of garbanzo beans (not a whole can!), bacon, and a basic vinaigrette. When Jen really wanted to spice things up, she would throw in some Pecorino cheese from a nearby Italian restaurant. That does sound delicious!

Now that that’s cleared up, the modified salad is already spreading like wildfire. Andreeva has posted a correct Cobb salad recipe to her TikTok (based on her own interpretation, of course) and balance is restored. We can’t wait to try it for ourselves.