A TikToker known for her "aggressive cooking tutorials" has gone viral for her latest "Taco Tater Tot Casserole" video.
While many amateur cooking enthusiasts share recipes and tips on TikTok with calm instructional deliveries and pleasing aesthetics, Jessica Secrest–a.k.a. TikToker @applesaucedadhd–has a completely different approach to sharing her culinary methods.
Secrest is a 30-year-old stay-at-home mom from the Midwest whose in-your-face persona in her videos is leaving viewers either completely amused by her no-nonsense tactics or left quivering in their cooking aprons.
Her latest TikTok video making a twist on "tachos"–loaded tater tot using nacho toppings–racked up nearly 13 million views.
It even made its way over to X (formerly Twitter), where some users like @Bornakang felt like they were being reprimanded after watching her clip.
They wrote:
"Damn why she mad at me for watching lol."
You might feel the same after seeing the clip below.
The video started with Secrest informing viewers, "Tonight we are having taco tater tot casserole," before slamming a big skillet filled with the savory dish on the kitchen counter.
"This is it," she said.
To start, she slapped a pound of ground beef into an empty skillet and told viewers to grind it up aggressively after stabbing the raw mound with a utensil.
Secrest said she prefers eyeballing her ingredients, rather than measuring them like most people, and she demonstrated this by bombing the casserole with a guesstimated "metric ton" of garlic powder.
"To those of you who look at this and say, 'That's SO much garlic,' yes and no," she says, adding:
"Garlic in the jar is much, much milder."
Next, she added some onion powder and informed viewers not to season over a hot dish to prevent the condensation from the moisture from causing a "clumping effect" in the spice jar.
"Be better than me," she told viewers.
Other ingredients included taco seasoning, half a jar of salsa, some water for the taco seasoning—all of which she eyeballed—and a can of black beans.
She later added the rest of the jar of salsa after she decided the dish needed more of it.
"I'm gonna add in a bag of corn," she said, while ripping apart the package with her teeth. "It's frozen. It's fine," she assured viewers.
Finally, when adding the tater tots, she advised viewers to arrange them neatly in a design instead of dumping them, which is just "chaotic and crazy."
For her final touch after the dish had been in the oven, she said:
“It’s been about 20 minutes. I top my casserole with some cheese. Why? Because I live in the Midwest.”
People shared their thoughts after watching the video.
Some were left nervously biting their nails from Secrest's assertive instructional.
Others got a kick out of her ragey recipe video.
Secrest told Buzzfeed of her personality gimmick:
"My aggressive tutorial lady character is kind of a character, but it's kind of like my internal monologue coming out through my mouth."
Secrest started her TikTok series in August after watching a TikToker selling an Uncrustable maker and using it incorrectly.
"I jumped up off my couch and I said, 'Oh, hell no. You're selling this product, you need to do it the right way.'"
She filmed her own aggressive Uncrustable video, in which she commented:
“If I have to watch one more video of one of you making an Uncrustable the wrong way I’m going to revolt."
It quickly gained viral fame with 1.5 million views.
You can watch the video here.
@applesauceandadhd THIS is a tutorial #uncrustable #uncrustablemaker #howtomakeanuncrustable #agressivetutorial #agressive #latenightwithjess #latenighttutorial #diymickeymousesandwich
Followers began requesting she make tutorial videos involving other household tasks like folding a fitted bedsheet and baking banana bread.
She continued:
"After [the banana bread] video, everyone was like, 'That's it. We need every cooking video to be aggressive.'"
"Now every night when I make dinner for my family, I film it, and I film it aggressively."
Secrest, who lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan, with her husband and their two kids, Arthur and Alice, found her viral fame a surreal experience.
She told TODAY:
“It’s really strange. A lot of the time people come for the aggressive tutorials and they don’t realize that they like it."
"A lot of people feel like they’re in the kitchen with their mom and she’s told them 800 times how to make this dish and you just didn’t listen."
"A lot of people who have lost their parents feel at home with my videos.”
Now with over 1.2 million followers, Secrest added:
“I think a lot of what resonates with people in my videos is that I’m a real person, in a real house, making real food for a real family — and it’s not super stylized or aesthetic anything. It’s just real life in the Midwest.”
“You’re just transported into my home with a really annoyed mom who’s had a day.”
@GregAbbott_TX/X
