10+ Culinary Disasters That Would Leave Chefs Clutching Their Aprons in Horror

Hours of prep work, only for your dish to go horribly wrong. These kitchen catastrophes are every chef’s worst nightmare. From flaming failures to unrecognizable wrecks, these culinary catastrophes are the moments that would make even the most experienced chefs second-guess their career choice.

• As I was leaving work, my husband texted me, “I’m cooking a surprise for you!” This man has never willingly stepped into the kitchen to cook. I was equal parts thrilled and terrified.
  As soon as I opened the door, I had to cover my nose because the house was filled with smoke. The fire alarm was blaring, and my husband was waving a towel under it, looking panicked. “What’s going on?” I shouted. “I was trying to make lasagna,” he said sheepishly.
  Turns out, he didn’t realize you’re supposed to boil the noodles first and had thrown them in the oven raw. We spent the whole night airing out the house.
• I decided to make homemade pizza for my then-teenaged daughter. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision, but I had all the ingredients, including homemade sauce and grated mozzarella, in the freezer. We assembled the pizza together, topping our creation with sautéed veggies and sprinkling on cheese from the unmarked Ziploc freezer bag.
  The time went off, but the cheese wasn't melted yet. I gave it more time. Still not melted. Strange. The crust was getting pretty brown, so I stuck the pizza under the broiler. Nothing.
  We were quite hungry, so we pulled it out of the oven. She took a bite, looked at me in astonishment, and blurted out: "POTATOES!". The unmarked bag contained shredded potatoes, which looks quite a bit like mozzarella. We were still laughing so hard that we were crying when the pizza delivery guy arrived...I label my bags now. WEugeneSmith / Reddit
• Spent hours making and decorating 'butterfly cakes' (basically fancy, decorated fairy/cupcakes). Every counter space was full, so I put them on the nearest surface, a kitchen chair, then unthinkingly sighed with exhaustion and sat on them. PurpleWomat / Reddit

• I once spent almost an entire day making red sauce from fresh tomatoes in my garden. It was so delicious and as a finishing touch during the final hour of simmering, I added crushed red pepper. Except it wasn’t crushed red pepper, I accidentally added mulling spice. I definitely cried as I threw it all away. soft_tooth / Reddit
• Making gravy for Thanksgiving dinner at my sister's house. I thought I could improve the flavor with soy sauce. I grabbed a bottle that looked like my soy sauce at home.
  Turned out to be Mexican vanilla. The Vanilla Gravy Incident lives on in family folklore. jrossthomson / Reddit
• I once made roast potatoes after a haircut. After 45 minutes of roasting, I noticed they all had a seasoning of freshly cut hair. When I was bending down to put them back in the oven after turning and checking, stray hairs were falling off my head onto them. Boswellox91 / Reddit

• A friend invited me and a couple of other friends to dinner when I was in high school. His mom served homemade chicken soup, which was fine.
  There was chocolate cake for dessert, but instead of serving it on separate plates, she went around to each of our places and sliced off a piece into each of our soup bowls, each of which still had some broth. Chocolate cake flavored with chicken broth is not a flavor I really want to repeat. President_C***** / Reddit

• I was backpacking and making dinner (boxed couscous) 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
• Found a bread recipe that took 3 days from start to finish. Lots and lots of steps. The author promised bread like straight out of the ovens in heaven. On the third day, I was finally ready to bake the bread.
  The very last step was to spray the bread with water. I grabbed the spray bottle and sprayed away. Strange. The bread was all full of foam. Looked at my hand. "Kitchen spray."
  All the dough straight in the trash. Never tried the recipe again. CrankLeaf / Reddit
• I dropped a pan of lasagna on the floor. Molten hot lasagna. I ended up on the ER full of morphine and my hands and my chin in an ice bath. CElia_472 / Reddit
• I made peanut butter cookies with vegetable oil but didn't realize my dad had been storing leftover frying oil from fish in a vegetable oil container. TessaThompsonBurger / Reddit

• My uncle was grilling burgers and hot dogs and sprayed the grill with some “cooking oil/PAM” and also sprayed the tops of the burgers and dogs.... Well, we go to eat, and they taste funny, turns out the spray was grill cleaner. So far, we are all still alive. hurtfulproduct / Reddit
• My mother-in-law, bless her heart, makes “stewed green beans.” Which means she takes canned green beans, dumps them in a saucepan, and cooks them down until they are mush (I think she cooks them 3-4 hours). I believe she puts some kind of margarine in the pan, but no seasonings or anything like that. theredgoldlady / Reddit
• My grandmother was such a terrible cook that once when she was cooking corned beef, I walked into her kitchen and promptly threw up due to the smell. My dad once said that he thought she was a good cook until he went into the army. He wasn't trying to be funny, it was just an honest observation. cursethedarkness / Reddit
• A guy I was dating in high school tried to impress me by making chicken Alfredo. He didn't have heavy cream for the sauce, so he used french vanilla coffee creamer and didn't tell me. karma_kaze13 / Reddit

We all love tasty food, especially when we’ve cooked it ourselves. But sometimes, things go wrong in the kitchen, and those moments can be pretty hard to forget.