10 Cooking Catastrophes That Are Too Absurd to Forget

We’ve all had our fair share of kitchen mishaps - some minor, some absolutely catastrophic. From accidentally setting breakfast on fire to impressing (or horrifying) your in-laws with a dinner disaster, cooking doesn’t always go as planned. These real-life kitchen fails will make you laugh, cringe, and maybe even feel a little better about your own culinary skills.

• My mother-in-law is an amazing cook. Determined to impress her, I invited her and my husband’s family over for dinner and decided to make my famous lasagna. When I took it out of the oven, it looked perfect. But my mother-in-law took one look at my lasagna and started laughing. Then she pulled out her own lasagna and said, “I had brought a backup, just in case.” I realized, I had forgotten to cook the pasta sheets. Each bite was like chewing on cardboard.

• We were living in a big house in the country and had invited about a dozen or more of our family and friends to share Thanksgiving with us. We were preparing a traditional meal with many side dishes, including a huge stuffed turkey as the centerpiece.
  Somewhere about 4 or 5 hours after we started cooking, we noticed that there wasn’t much heat radiating from the stove, and discovered that the oven had not been working, and the huge turkey had been just sitting there the whole time. So we called our neighbor up the road and rushed the turkey over to her oven.
  Dinner was quite late, but we eventually retrieved the bird and had dinner late. Everything went fine. Everybody stayed the night with us. The next morning, we all had vomiting and diarrhea and were standing in lines outside the bathrooms. Awful.
  Now, I maintain that it’s possible that we all just came down with a virus, and it’s possible that the turkey was just fine. But that day will be remembered by most as the Holiday of the Great Food Poisoning. © CategoryObvious2306 / Reddit

• I was backpacking and making dinner after it got dark. I had a small bottle of olive oil and the same type of bottle with dish soap. Guess which one I added to the pot. © Unknown author / Reddit

• When I was learning how to cook, I put frozen shrimp in hot oil. Immediately caused a fire several feet tall. Immediately took it to the sink. Turned the water on.
  I know now that's not the answer, but I panicked and didn't think to just put the lid on it. Thank god, pouring a constant stream of water didn't make the fire worse and actually put it out. © my_reverie / Reddit

• When I was first learning to cook, I didn’t know that oil doesn’t boil. I was trying to deep-fry something and kept getting frustrated that my oil wasn’t boiling yet. Eventually, I set the burner on high, put a lid on the pot, and left it for ten whole minutes.
  After it still wasn’t boiling, I got frustrated and tossed a few shrimps in. The whole thing nearly exploded, and it is a miracle I didn’t set a grease fire that burned down my house. The pot was spitting everywhere, screaming and smoking massively. My roommate ended up running in and opening the back door for me to toss the entire pot — oil, shrimp, and all — into the snow.
  Learned my lesson there. I stick to shallow frying these days. © gradschoolforhorses / Reddit

• 20 years ago, I found a recipe for 'ham loaf'. Basically, you put ham into a food processor and grind it up. Then, mix it with breadcrumbs, egg, and pepper. Bake in oven like a meatloaf.
  My husband and I still talk about it. It was the consistency of cat food. We've been married for over 24 years, and it has been the only thing I've ever cooked that we didn't eat and threw out instead. © tielmama / Reddit

• I was experimenting with pizza dough a month or two ago, and let it rise for a second time after I'd stretched it out on olive-oiled sheet pans. I'd made a tomato sauce from scratch, gotten all the toppings prepped, was super excited to see how they'd turn out—and the bottoms came out as absolutely horrible soggy messes from sitting in the oil for so long.
  The pizzas were falling apart in the middle, I could barely get them out of the pans. Slapping them on an electric griddle did kind of crisp the bottoms up, but I was SO disappointed. Haven't made pizza since. © niboshi_ / Reddit

• One time I made fish cakes with some fish I steamed and flaked up. Added some mashed potato, cornstarch, green onion and various seasoning. They wouldn't stick together properly when forming, so I added another scoop of cornstarch.
  Then I also dusted them in cornstarch before frying them, to get a good crispy surface. Served them up to the family and took a bite. It became immediately obvious that I had used powdered sugar instead of cornstarch. © MrsFlip / Reddit

• I wanted to impress my date with homemade pasta. Halfway through dinner, my date stopped chewing. “Uh, my tongue feels weird,” she said. My stomach sank as I realized what I've done. I checked the spice jar I had used. Instead of paprika, I had grabbed a nearly identical jar of ghost pepper powder. She spent the rest of the evening eating ice cream straight from the tub. Romantic? Not exactly. Unforgettable? Absolutely.

Yes, things don’t always go as planned. And sometimes, it’s about more than just dinner. These people had their entire vacation go completely off track.