35+ Problematic Pizzas That Make Our Taste Buds Cringe
First making an appearance more than two centuries ago, pizza has become one of the most popular foods all over the world. Globally, more than 5 billion pizzas are sold every year, and the industry is worth more than $30 billion annually. Pizza is always a good thing and one of the go-to foods for people who don’t have the time or the talent to prepare hearty meals.
Pizza is love, and we challenge you to tell us otherwise. However, this doesn’t apply to pizza with kiwi, pizza with fries, or pizza with sushi and wasabi. Yes, such things exist, and if you want to be disappointed on deeper levels, scroll through the list, and you’ll see instances when pizza was clearly assaulted but the perpetrators weren’t brought to justice.
Best of luck to the customer’s teeth
If you’re not into meat or veggies, you can always order seafood pizza. That’s the beauty of pizza; it can be customized to pretty much anyone’s taste buds. Various types of seafood ingredients in frozen, fresh, or canned forms can be expected.
But what we don’t see on seafood pizzas, normally, is seafood that comes with shells, but that’s exactly what this customer got. This is just a crime. How can you expect people to eat something that looks like this? Did the customer need to pay extra to have the shells removed?
Rise and shine?
Some of us are born to cook and bake, while others are born to eat food and write about the nuances of flavors and texture. This wife seems to belong to the latter group, and as proof, we have a photo of a pizza she tried to bake.
But we shouldn’t be too hard on her because this is the first time she has baked a pizza. With a lot of practice, she’ll get better, and we are confident that she will be able to bake better-looking and better-tasting pizzas, which her husband will appreciate.
Pizza is not supposed to look like this
First invented in Naples, Italy, pizza is a fast, affordable, and tasty meal that people all over the world love. While pizza is one of the most recognizable foods in the world today, it didn’t gain mass appeal until the 1940s.
There have been many variations to the classic dish but something that looks like this can’t and shouldn’t be considered a pizza. Without context, we’d guess that this is some half-open grilled cheese. American cheese is great, but it’s not meant for pizza.
Another crime against pizza
If people were to be jailed for the atrocities they committed on pizza, prisons all over the world would surely overflow because each day, people are destroying the saucy cheesy goodness we crave. Whoever did this should be committed to a maximum security prison.
The meat and cheese are not that bad, but we don’t agree with the fries. It doesn’t belong there. After doing a little research online, we learned that in Spain, pizza with fries and hotdogs is quite normal. However, that’s just for picky eaters.
Someone ordered and the pizza place delivered
You ought to be careful when ordering pizza because some restaurants deliver exactly what you asked for. Normally that’s a good thing because we’ve seen customers complaining about being shortchanged and getting something they didn’t ask for. This pizza counts as “be careful what you wish for.”
This guy ordered pizza but forgot to mention what toppings he wanted. Since he didn’t mention any toppings, the pizzeria didn’t include even cheese or sauce. We can’t help but wonder why the baker didn’t think this was an odd order when failed to add anything but dough to the oven.
Nope, donuts and pizza don’t go together
Not everything meshes well together. Although there are a few exceptions, such as milk and cookies, and peanut butter and jelly, they don’t give you the license to just combine things willy-nilly. Pizza donuts or donut pizzas are good examples of things that don’t go well together.
We don’t care if they tell us that this is the latest trend and that this is actually delicious; we’ll just go get ourselves donuts and pizza separately. Life is already difficult as it is, and the last thing we need is a culinary crime to make it worse.
Dinner on a pizza?
According to the net, beef pepperoni is the most popular pizza in the world, though there are other pepperoni variations, such as fish and port. While it’s fun to try different variations of the classic toppings, there’s a limit to how much you can personalize your pizza.
Someone decided to put a dinner’s worth of toppings on their pizza. There’s ham, sausage, and other vile food. The only way you could get us to eat this is if we were starving. And even then it’d be pretty hard to choke down.
Nope, this doesn’t qualify as pizza
We understand that there are people who would rather not eat meat, and that’s perfectly fine. We’re glad to see that there are more non-meat toppings available for the vegetarians and vegans out there, but this loaded pizza went too far.
Granted, tofu, mushrooms, and black olives are pretty, but not everything vegan is good as a pizza topping. We can’t tell if this is better or worse than the shellfish pizza. Our teeth just hurt looking at this nutty dish (pun very much intended).
Fried egg on pizza
On the opposite end of the spectrum, some pizza lovers can’t eat a single slice without some meat on it—hence the ever-popular pepperoni slices. But that seems to be the only thing this person got right when they personalized their pizza.
At first we were overwhelmed by the sausages and chilies, but hiding under there is a worse topping. Yup, those are fried eggs hiding under there. Between the random pickles, fries, and onion rings, it looks like they just dumped everything on there.
Did this come from the sewer?
Some food might not taste all that delicious, but at least they look appealing and have an excellent presentation. On the other hand, some food might not look appetizing, but it tastes delicious. However, we doubt that’s the case here.
Well, that killed our appetite. It looks like the pizza was made with ingredients from the sewer, with sewer water drizzled on for good measure. If you’re curious about what’s on there, it’s banana and condensed milk. We’re getting diarrhea just looking at it.
Whoever made this ought to be fired
Whoever did this must be a new employee, and from the looks of things, they won’t last the week. They better already be looking for a new job because unless they have really understanding managers, there’s no getting away with this.
If a customer mentions all the toppings they want, it doesn’t mean that you need to put them individually on slices. This is why training is important; you wouldn’t want customers complaining left and right and you wouldn’t want to waste money and ingredients.
Someone should check this person’s taste buds
Anchovies on pizza is a pretty standard thing but anchovies and banana with no sauce is something that normal people wouldn’t dare eat even once in their lives. Pizza is food that requires some sauce; otherwise, you just have cheesy bread.
Something must be very wrong with a person’s taste buds to want to consume something like this. A few people online have pointed out that this is something that pregnant women might crave. If that’s the case, we’ll give her a pass just this once.
When you’re hungry and need protection from the sun at the same time
This reminds us of a crossover between the guacamole hat in Despicable Me and Homer Simpson’s nacho sombrero—things we didn’t know we needed but could probably use at some point in our lives. With this handy hat, you can protect yourself from the sun and heat up your pizza at the same time.
The only issue with it is we don’t want our food touching any part of our body except our hands. And because we’d be sweating so much under the sun during a summer day, our pizza hat would probably taste saltier than it’s supposed to.
Shrimpizza, anyone?
We can tolerate a few shrimps on a slice of pizza, and, honestly, we’re big fans of seafood. However, a slice of pizza full of shrimp is just too much. We want to be able to taste the sauce and cheese and not feel like we are drinking seawater.
If you notice us not touching our pizza, it’s probably because the pizza looks like this. This is very unappealing on so many levels, and just thinking of it now ruins our appetite. Shrimp on pizza may be common, but we don’t want this to become a normal thing.
Pizza with tuna and pickles
Various places today offer single pizza sizes that are enough for two people. Don’t worry if you can’t finish it, though. You can just take the rest home and reheat it for lunch the next day. But there’s one thing you absolutely should not do with your leftover pizza…
Even if that leftover slice isn’t enough for a full meal, you should never mix other leftovers when prepping your lunch. We’d hate to think that this is someone’s version of a tuna melt. At least he’s happy with his meal; that’s all that matters, right?
Forget the pineapples; let’s talk about kiwis on pizza
Kiwis contain potassium, Vitamins C, K, and E, and fiber. They can also be used as a natural meat tenderizer, but they should never be used as a pizza topping. Thank god kiwi pizza hasn’t caught on yet, though we are seeing glimpses of it, like this one.
If you like kiwi, then you can just eat it on its own. We love kiwi, too, but we’ll pass if it has to be on a pizza. A few folks think that this is just the same as pineapple on pizza, but we beg to differ.
There’s no season for this kind of pizza
One of the many things we associate with Christmas is candy canes. Nothing gets us in the spirit more than seeing those striped candies everywhere. Well, almost everywhere. It’d kill the mood if we saw them as a pizza topping.
The sweet, minty flavoring of candy canes doesn’t match pizza in any way whatsoever, not to mention they don’t look good when melted. Unless you want to have a toothache, we don’t recommend this during Christmas… or any time of the year.
No applesauce, please
Applesauce is a nutritious snack between meals and a great ingredient for various dishes; it promotes good digestion and can even serve as a healthy substitute in baking. We don’t have anything against it and we even love it when used in dishes correctly.
What kind of person eats pizza with applesauce on top? To make it worse, they eat it like a sandwich! We are 99% sure that there is something wrong with their taste buds or that they are the offspring of aliens to want something like this.
This pizza must have been dehydrated
Launched out of an Indiana tavern broom closet, Papa Johns quickly grew because franchising was still cheap back in the day. Ask Americans, and you’ll find out that a good portion of them worked in Papa Johns when they were teenagers.
One guy’s memorable stint in Papa Johns involved a customer ordering a pizza with no sauce, cheese, or chicken. The customer just wanted a thin crust and some mushrooms on top. If you ask us, it would have been better and cheaper if he just bought bread.
The box looks like it tastes better
One look at this and we’re certain we’d rather eat the box than the pizza because… look at that atrocity! Not only does it have a bad presentation, but the only topping you see is also pizza sauce and gnarly-looking slices of tomatoes. How can that possibly taste good?
The person who made this (and people like them) should be kept away from the kitchen for all eternity. We fear all the culinary crimes that they will commit, and we don’t want to end up with indigestion or, worse, food poisoning.
They must have run out of pepperoni
First off, what shape is that? Is that supposed to resemble an elephant or some kind of animal we’ve never heard of? Because it looks nothing like anything we have ever seen. Secondly, they really need to step up their pepperoni game.
We can only imagine the look on the customer’s face when this abomination was delivered to his doorstep. We’d bet our bottom dollar that the delivery guy didn’t get any tip for this, and it’s more likely that the customer asked their dog to chase after him.
We don’t want to live here
Although calzone is sometimes defined as a folded pizza, we disagree. Call us stubborn, but a calzone is a calzone, and a pizza is a pizza. We are big fans of both, and whenever possible, we like to balance both whenever the craving strikes.
What you see in the photo above is neither a calzone nor a pizza. It’s just burgers and fries put inside a dough pocket. Well, apparently, it’s common in Sweden. As much as we love traveling, we won’t be taking a trip to Sweden anytime soon.
This isn’t all-American; this is trash
Pizza may have originated in Italy, but over the years, it has gone through variations, many of which are named after the places where they were developed. A good example is the Chicago deep dish—it’s a distinct yet yummy dish.
However, this “all-American” pizza gives America a bad name because, regardless of what they say about the American palate, most Americans we know don’t eat pizza like this. Even non-picky eaters would struggle to put this mess on their plates.
Iowa is now one of our least favorite states
To be fair, Iowa doesn’t rank high as an American foodie destination, so expecting distinguished culinary fare from the state is futile. Want an example of their famous food? Here’s one which will give you nightmares: Froot Loops on pizza.
When compared to this, kiwi and pineapple on pizza suddenly seem very appetizing. We checked the menu at Fong’s Pizza while writing this article, and thankfully, they no longer offer Froot Loops pizza. That’s a win for the world, if you ask us.
We think there’s only a single cheese here
If you order quatro formaggi, you’d expect four kinds of cheese on your pizza and not something that looks like the photo below. Granted, the sausage slices are huge, but it still doesn’t make customers feel any less shortchanged. False advertisement is a big NO.
If you say you’re giving customers four kinds of cheese, you better make sure that’s exactly what you deliver, or else you better prepare for a barrage of bad reviews online and awful comments and complaints on all your social media channels.
Is that mold?
At first glance, we thought that this pizza was also left in someone’s car for a decade and had started to grow mold but upon a closer look, we realized that it’s just blue cheese. Blue cheese pairs well with nuts and fruits and would make a welcome addition to a cheese board.
Normally, blue cheese is whisked into creamy dressings, sauces, and soups. Sometimes it is sprinkled on salad to make it more flavorful. This is the first time we’re seeing blue cheese on pizza, and hopefully the last because there’s nothing good about what’s in the photo.
Here we go again with the fries
If you thought you saw the last of fries on pizza, you’re mistaken because there it is again. American food must really have a bad reputation abroad because, in some places, when you order Pizza Americano, they give you this kind of trash food.
No, this isn’t in Sweden but in Venice, Italy. As one person on the Internet pointed out, this puts the “no” in Americano. We’d like to remind those living outside the US that most people in the US don’t eat food like this.
No peas on our pizza, please
Yes, we agree with this person that pineapple lovers and pineapple haters ought to put their differences aside for the meantime and band together to stop peas and mayonnaise on pizza from becoming a thing. This is so much worse.
Somebody pointed out that, again, something like this is common in Sweden. We can’t imagine what pizzerias there look like. We’re glad that it hasn’t reached our shores because the moment it does, we’re moving far, far away where something like this won’t find us.
Somebody realllly wants pizza
There’s a pizza crime in progress but it’s not what you think. It isn’t employees of a pizzeria behaving badly or people putting whatever toppings they can think of on their pizzas. It’s a crime in a literal sense—as in thievery.
One kitty wants a pizza so badly and probably thought it would be a great idea to steal the slice that’s on its fur parent’s plate. Too bad the person caught their cat red-handed. We think it’s safe to say there’ll be fewer treats later.
Someone should lock this person up and throw away the key
There’s a lot of debate about pineapple having no place on a pizza, and even though famous Chef Gordon Ramsay himself thinks pineapple on pizza is an abomination, we are big fans of the Hawaiian and we ask that you don’t hate us for it.
However, we draw the line at making pineapple pizza—as in literally putting pizza toppings on a pineapple and baking it. Whoever thought of this should be sent to prison for life… or at least, never be allowed to set foot in a kitchen again.
How could you forget a pizza in your locker?
We can’t ever have “abandoned” food. As a matter of fact, we even look for food in places we know where we wouldn’t find it. When we were younger, food in our locker didn’t even last a day because we were constantly hungry.
This whole pizza riddled with mold was found in a locker, and it has been there since 2010. At this point, we’re just surprised that it doesn’t have worms wriggling around. This pizza is a whole new ecosystem in itself.
Whatever you do, don’t go to Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh is a shining example of an American city that’s home to renowned art museums and countless bridges. Fun fact: it’s where Heinz ketchup originated. However, it happens to be notorious for pizzas with cold toppings, and that’s one of the many things discouraging us from visiting.
But don’t despair because that’s not the only kind of pizza available there. Pittsburgh is also the home of pizza with fluffy and highly-risen crust and plenty of sauce. That sounds like something we’d like to get our hands on.
Does this make you want to eat?
Be honest with us; the first time you glanced at this photo, did you think that this would be something good to eat? Or did it make you want to vomit? If your answer is the former, then you should book a trip to South Korea.
This is the Korean Corn Cheese Pizza, and it’s a big thing there. Enjoyed by many, it’s also something that tourists want to try when they visit, and they say it’s surprisingly good. If you want to try it but you don’t have the money for plane tickets, you can always look up recipes online.
This pizza just gave birth
This pizza mama just gave birth to four pizza babies, and there they all are, trying to crowd around her and asking her for milk. This must have been invented by someone who loves pizza too much. Who else would think to put pizza on pizza?
This pizza can be compared to an opossum carrying its babies on its back, and we can never unsee that. People continue to surprise us every single day, though not always in a good way. We hope this is the last we see of the pizza-ception.
This person deserves bland food forever
Nowadays, people are so busy that most no longer have the time to prepare a healthy and tasty meal at home. In an attempt to make meals easier, some people try to combine dishes to reduce the number of dishes to wash.
But being busy should never be an excuse to put a whole chicken on pizza. We could forgive this monstrosity if a pregnant woman ordered it, though we still question whoever slapped a whole roasted chicken on the pizza in the first place.
Melty, pastel pizza
When Easter rolls around, we look forward to the colorful pastel decorations and fluffy Peeps treats. Unfortunately, that also means that Peep pizza might come out of hiding. It’s an Easter food tradition gone wrong that is making pizza lovers and foodies all over the world physically ill.
The “brains” behind the melty, pastel-colored nightmare is a man named Adam Kuban. Why did this supposed pizza guru suddenly start disrespecting the ancient art of preparing pizza? We can’t even begin to comprehend what happened before this picture was posted online.
Battered and deep-fried
This might be something that people from down south would like, but this is something that most pizza lovers all around the world would consider a serious offense. It’s enough to ruin your appetite…or maybe even make you consider kiwi pizza.
Even without the crusty outside, the sandwich is pretty gnarly. And why must people deep fry everything? To make this meal complete, you should get unhealthy soda on the side. This is the perfect way to increase your calorie count and get your cholesterol levels to skyrocket.
Only get pizza from decent pizzerias
Let this serve as a warning to only order pizza from places that specialize in pizza. It’s alright to take risks, but not when it comes to food. You’d want to spend your money on food that you’ll eat and enjoy, especially when you’re very hungry.
This is what a customer ended up with when they tried to order pizza from somewhere that clearly doesn’t know how to make pizza. They could have spent the money somewhere else and had a good dinner but instead, they had something they didn’t even want to eat.
This requires a life sentence
This is a pizza crime that requires a life sentence. We love sushi, salmon, and all manner of seafood but this one is just unforgivable. Looking at this almost makes us want to puke and whoever thought of this should reconsider their life choices.
Seriously, though, you can’t just let people loose in the kitchen because they’ll come up with various dishes that we’d rather forget. We’d like to remind you not to fix what’s not broken and to always stick with what works.
We feel for the person who bought the pizza
We feel the pain of this person. No matter what the food is, it’s not easy to pay for a good meal only to see it utterly destroyed. How long did they leave this pizza in the oven that it turned out like a chocolate pizza?
And no, you can’t just brush off the burnt part because there isn’t even any part left that’s not burned. This is a surefire way of wasting money. He should have just eaten in the restaurant and forgotten about bringing home some pizza for his bro.
Pizza isn’t an Oreo cookie
Cookies and milk go together very well—we can thank Oreos for making that combo a must for both children and adults. It should go without saying that pizza isn’t anything like cookies, and there’s no need to dunk a slice of pizza in a glass of milk.
We’re with this guy who wants to call the police because someone like this should be in jail. If you want to drink milk, then drink milk. And if you want to eat pizza, then eat pizza, but please, you’re not saving time by doing both simultaneously.
Why do you have to treat pizza like this?
This is clearly hurting the pizza in more ways than we care to describe. This is reminiscent of Lady Cassandra from Doctor Who—that strange woman who kept her youth and beauty by remaining a stretch of skin strung up on a board.
If the pizza could talk and had hands, we’re sure it would be dialing 911 and asking for urgent help because it wouldn’t be able to carry on like that any longer. Some people’s brains just work the wrong way.
We don’t want magic on our pizzas
Edible glitter might make food more exciting, but we don’t want it on our pizza. Kids, who are never picky when it comes to pizza, even dislike it. We don’t care if it’s actually magical. Yes, glitter is nice to look at but nasty to put in your mouth.
This is proof of the saying “all that glitters is not gold.” The perfect pizza formula already exists, so stop trying to change it to make it more innovative. Nobody needs groundbreaking pizza; we want an edible pizza that won’t give us a stomachache.
When you’re in a hurry but still need a whole meal
Sometimes we want to still enjoy a full meal even when we’re in a hurry, but we never thought for a second that the said meal would look like this. Forget the chicken/chocolate pizza earlier; we found a worse way to incorporate a whole rotisserie chicken on pizza.
If you think you’ve seen it all, we urge you to travel to Brazil. The country is known to put the weirdest things on its pizza, and this is the result—horror of all horrors! People there have too much time and ingredients on their hands.
Mortal sin against pizza
Mortal Kombat is a classic among video game fans. But even with the bigger budget, it seems like the films won’t win an Oscar anytime soon. Still, the franchise has quite the following, and you can find Mortal Kombat merch everywhere… but that shouldn’t extend to pizza.
Yes, you might like pizza and Mortal Kombat but you should never combine the two together because it won’t end well. This might look cool and amazing, but we won’t vouch for its taste. This is an art that should only be seen, not tasted.