45 Stomach-Churning Food Fails That Make Us Want To Reach For The Tums

When it comes to cooking, some of us have a natural talent for harmonizing flavors together to make a tasty, homemade meal, while others consider cooking as throwing a frozen dinner in the microwave and calling it a day. Even our ancestors knew how to make their bellies happy. And, even though our kitchens are filled with all these fancy modern gadgets to help us make the act of cooking easier these days, people are still coming up with ways to make the average breakfast into one major kitchen fail.

Get ready to grab the Tums because the fails on this list will make even the strongest stomach feel queasy. Needless to say, we’ve compiled a feast of epic cooking fails for your eyes! Take it as a warning of what could happen if you think you’re the head chef of the kitchen when you don’t even know how to cut an onion. But seriously, we hope these pictures don’t have you running around like a headless chicken worrying if you turned the oven off! 

French fried disaster

No, this is not a photo of a haunted house or any place where something gruesome happened. It is simply a photo of a kitchen where someone ruined a french-fry cooking mission pretty severely. You can obviously see the overwhelming damage of the situation.

This definitely didn’t end with golden French fries. Unfortunately, these mistakes are easy to make. So, never divert your attention while you’re in the kitchen! From the looks of it, this might have been an oil fire, and the person might have tried to extinguish it with water.

Rock pudding

Let us give you some backstory. Somebody was making bread pudding. Apparently, they left the pudding in the back of their oven for five days. Not five minutes, five days. That kind of pain turned the pudding into a rock.

So, meet Charlie, a bread pudding-turned bread rock. Charlie doesn’t have any expressions. You can pretty much see from his face that he has been through a lot, and he just doesn’t want to be disturbed anymore.

Metallic taste

How did this spoon end up inside the bread as if it were buried there? Maybe that actually was what happened. We are glad someone found this spoon before it was too late, or perhaps it was too late when that chomped on something ‘metallic.’

A utensil baked inside bread is horrifying. The situation would have been entirely different if these people had tried to warm up the bread by microwaving it. In fact, all the more disappointing. We are glad that wasn’t the case.

Pasta gone wrong

This lady wanted a simple bowl of pasta for dinner, but she didn’t know that it wasn’t going to be an easy endeavor to undertake. She had just come back home after a long day at work. We also might add that she just dropped a sandwich in the parking lot outside.

When she tried to make pasta the first time, the pot slipped, and it all fell down, as you can see. But, she didn’t give up. When she tried making it again, the pot’s handle broke, and her pasta spilled all over the place. That was a really, really bad day.

Yuck

No offense to the person behind this cooking disaster, but that looks straight-up disgusting. What’s that even supposed to be? Is it a Symbiote from Marvel comics? Or is it a Demogorgon? Stranger Things fans will get the reference.

We looked at these images so many times, researched weird concoctions, and scoured through the comments, and yet, we don’t have the slightest clue what this could be. All we know is this is the kind of thing that would be served at the spookiest of Halloween parties.

Smarty pants

You might be wondering why this person turned the wrong burner off. Well, we are wondering the same thing as well. What’s more surprising is that the situation had been like this for more than an hour. Now, that’s a waste of gas.

It’s human to make these kinds of silly mistakes. But, keeping it that way for an hour and wondering why your food is taking a painfully long time to cook, well, that is not common at all. We hope she didn’t have plans for the rest of the night because she will be here for the time being.

Really unlucky

Wanna know why this guy is really unlucky? Well, yes, he created this mess you’re about to see, but that’s just one of the two reasons. The thing is, he made this unfortunate mess just five minutes before ending his tedious 12-hour shift.

Imagine you just finished a 12-hour shift taking orders, cooking food, or doing both. You are about to go home after all that, but just when you’re about to clock out, this disaster happens. Congrats. Your shift has now been extended to two more hours.

‘Baking’ bad

This guy simply wanted to bake some bread. He was told to put it in the fridge to rise overnight so he could bake it in the morning. Someone also told him that it’s a rewarding hobby. But we think it just turned into an unfortunate hobby.

This guy ended up baking a wig instead of bread. Also, if you look at it closer, the bread rose, but way more than expected. That’s because he put too much yeast. To everybody who wants to bake bread, we suggest you learn what not to do from this image.

It’s Thanksgiving

According to the person who posted the image of this poor turkey, it was the first time his little sister had made a turkey for Thanksgiving. We can clearly see that it didn’t go smoothly. Sorry for the roasting, but it doesn’t even look like a turkey anymore.

It looks less like a turkey and more like a huge black toad. We could come up with countless examples of what this looks like other than a turkey. For instance, it looks as if this turkey is wearing black latex. Well, let’s stop there.

Crisp

First of all, this next item is really crispy. We’re just talking about the tortilla. But, it looks like this guy took things a bit too seriously, considering that he literally cut the plate into two. It looks like he didn’t understand his own strength.

Maybe this is what happens when the Hulk tries to make a quesadilla. We also want to take a look at the knife that was able to pierce through this situation with such precision and ease. Maybe he used the trusty laser knife.

Air-fried

Let’s clear some things up. Firstly, this is a sweet potato and not a piece of coal. But, it is so cooked that it could actually work as coal! Just kidding. You don’t know what would happen if you put a few of these babies under some meat. Barbecue perhaps?

Will that lead to tastier meat? We can’t say. But apparently, this sweet potato was air-fried, and that’s why it became this monstrosity. We think this person is actually messing with us because it looks like the exhaust vent of a small rocket, not an air fryer.

Fallen food fallen chef

This lady is obviously done with everything. Looking at the condition of her kitchen, her feelings are quite valid. Sometimes, cooking does get pretty frustrating. Add a few botched cooking experiences, and suddenly you don’t have an appetite anymore.

We honestly do feel a bit sorry for her. It looks like this mega-disaster triggered a meltdown. That cat seems to be enjoying it, though, without a single care in the world. Why wouldn’t it want all that? That’s a lot of dinner for one creature.

Banana bread branching out

That cooking dish is big enough for baking banana bread. Yet, the banana bread sprouted out as if it was feeling claustrophobic. Well, it received all the freedom that it needs now. But this one isn’t that bad because it still looks edible.

It looks more appetizing than the other failed cooking experiments we’ve seen so far where the items didn’t even look recognizable, let alone edible. For some funny reason, doesn’t this look like a mama banana bread is giving birth to a baby loaf?

Spaghetti bonfire

Were the spaghetti not there, it would have definitely looked like a bonfire. Needless to say, bonfire or not, this is a pretty serious accident and quite dangerous, though. A fire burning out of control like this can only lead to a botched dinner.

It’s okay that this person decided to grab a camera and snap a photo, but we really hope that they immediately grabbed the fire extinguisher. They should’ve done that before documenting it. But henceforth, it’s probably best to know what your doing before playing with fire.

Epic fail

We have another failed spaghetti experiment, but it doesn’t look as dangerous as the previous one with the flames. It’s still pretty serious since there’s glass everywhere, and it’s definitely not edible. If we had to make a joke, we’d never describe sauce as “crispy.”

After looking at this image, the only new thing we learned is that if things go south while cooking, the glass lid of your pot might shatter. Which, again, is dangerous. That’s either a bad lid or that’s a huge spaghetti mess-up.

Take a guess

For starters, this looks detestable. Let’s just start from that note. No offense intended, but it looks as if the Smurfs showed and puked into that pan. What actually happened was this person was in the middle of making Thai basil chicken.

However, it looks nothing like Thai basil chicken. He walked around the house for a little bit, and when he came back, he saw that his brother had put blue food dye in it, and that clearly explains this disturbing color. Oh, brothers and their shenanigans.

What just happened?

Let’s fill you in on exactly what happened here. The person who was supposed to boil these eggs basically did a super bad job at it. He forgot to set a timer when he was cooking them, and because of that, he had to deal with this scenario.

He was suddenly reminded of the fact that the eggs were still boiling in the kitchen after one of them exploded. The sound snapped him out of his slumber. However, we can’t say this is an epic disaster since only a few eggs exploded.

Burnt to shreds

This one is just sad. For some bizarre reason, this Reddit user’s sister tried to make a peppermint candy platter on a perforated pizza pan. The candy part is nice, but why do you need to conduct such experiments when you know it’ll end up in a disaster?

Now we’re here. What is she supposed to do now? Who’s going to clean that mess? In fact, who’d even volunteer for such a daunting task? It’s no secret that this situation will be challenging to clean. We hope she has someone to help her!

Temperamental problems

This is the deed of an angry dad. The dad of the person who clicked this picture got angry at the pizza he was preparing. Out of rage, he threw the whole thing over the fence. You can see how it’s hanging, sorry, drooping from the fence.

If we’re being honest with ourselves for a second here, the pizza just needed a bit of work because it doesn’t look so bad even in this condition. If the dad were a bit more patient, then the pizza might have turned out to be delicious.

Fancy egg

Although strange, we understand people messing up the cooking process when it comes to wine, french fries, or even pasta. But how could you mess up boiling an egg? It’s literally one of the most basic things you can prepare. That doesn’t even look like a boiled egg!

It looks like something you might see on a menu of a really fancy restaurant. The way the egg yolk is spiraling out looks like a hairstyle of some sort. All in all, this particular boiled egg would look great as a cartoon character.

Botched smoothies

This kind of thing is widespread. You need to stay sharp if you’re using a mixer, a blender, or a food processor. Those things rotate at an insanely high speed. If you turn it on without closing the lid properly, whatever you’re preparing will be all over the place.

It will look something like this. We’re pretty sure this happened because he didn’t close the lid properly. Because of these mistakes, companies are making blenders and food processors that don’t work until you close the lid. That’s definitely for the best.

Happy birthday to you

You should be able to guess what this thing is from the title. That also means that most of us wouldn’t have even been able to recognize it had it not been for the title. But, it’s supposed to be a cake that a wife made for her husband’s birthday.

If it were for us, we’d honestly pass on eating it, but we certainly applaud the effort. As you all know, it’s the thought that always matters! On the other hand, we sure think that some cake-baking practice is much needed for the wife.

When you go too far with experimenting

This is not a chef hat. Once again, it’s a failed cake. Honestly, there are many cake mixes, and yes, it is possible to make a cake in an slow cooker. But, you need to watch it. If you don’t know what you’re doing, you could have the same result, too.

Rice cookers can not only be used for baking cakes, but you can use them to bake some really tasty pancakes. You only need a recipe, a couple of skills, and patience to make it work. This disaster could’ve happened because the cook forgot to spray the pot before.

Weird egg

This is a poached egg. Well, yes, it is a poached egg, but we mean that this egg is literally ‘poached.’ It looks terrible, and we think it’s only of use for a photo. We don’t think anybody would consider eating this.

It looks like a giant tadpole if the tadpoles were giant and white in color. It could’ve happened because this egg was maybe the one that had been in the back of the fridge for the past few months, making it far too expired.

Breakfast

What would you do if you had to eat this for breakfast? Even if it was edible, we don’t know how good or bad it is for digestion. We know we are reading your minds, but don’t worry, it’s not a pair of bricks.

It’s some sliced sourdough bread that was prepared at home and topped with some creamy light brie cheese. The description surely sounds amazing and mouth-watering, but the image is the complete opposite. This person baked this catastrophe for 11 hours.

Cheesecake pizza

That, ladies and gentlemen, is a cheesecake with some cute dots on it, according to the person who posted this image. According to the same person, the dots make the cheesecake look like a skin disease. That’s too bad.

We know most of you weren’t thinking about it, but now that we put it in your minds, it grosses you out. Well, we’re sorry for that. On a lighter note, it looks like a cheesecake pizza or like a pepperoni cheesecake, if those disastrous dishes even exist.

Inedible

Until now, we’ve seen only edible items. Well, items that were either still okay to eat or items that were made to eat but couldn’t because of how they ended up. But, this next disaster is completely inedible because, well, it’s not food. 

We can clearly see that it’s a glove. The brother of this Instagram user accidentally ended up cooking his sister’s glove. We can’t imagine how something like that could even happen, but it did. So, we all need to take this as a lesson.

Deceptive

Brownies, anyone? There’s something really special about these brownies, and that is that they are not brownies at all! Could you take a random stab at what it is, then? You could surely use these brownies for April Fool’s day!

Let us now kill the suspense. It’s not brownies. It’s an oven-baked pizza with a heavy emphasis on the ‘oven.’ A guy fell asleep making this pizza, and he never realized that he let the whole thing cook for nine whole hours.

Thought of the day

The thought of the day is inside this picture. It’s quite a peculiar thought, and we don’t understand the context pretty well, but it surely has something to do with the person behind this entire mess of a situation.

But, the question still remains. What the heck happened here? It could be a pressure cooker mishap because there’s some kind of damage in literally every corner of the kitchen. If not that, then we think that the vent hood caught fire.

Mystery

We have the 411 on this epic fail. One day, the chef of the person who posted this image was consolidating a walk-in for a restaurant. The guy then went to look for the chef. When he went inside, this is what he saw.

It’s a huge mess. Firstly, the chef is missing. Secondly, there’s a whole container of spicy mayonnaise or whatever that is on the floor. What’s more annoying to watch is that it’s on and in those shiny shoes as well.

Halloween pasta

Don’t freak out. That’s just pasta. Those are not maggots. Now that we’re on the same page, here’s what happened. This guy wanted to create a new pasta shape. But, you can see that he failed. He ended up making pasta suited for a Halloween party.

That’s not even a new shape. It’s almost as if the original shape was squeezed a bit, and it now looks like maggots. Trust us; there’s nothing more disturbing than that thought. But it just looks terrible even though it probably tastes delicious.

Salt everywhere

That amount of salt is enough to put a person in a coma. We don’t know how accurate that is, but even looking at this image dries our mouths because there’s just so much salt in this pan! Where did the omelet even go!?

This guy should’ve honestly taken the clue. He captioned the image saying he’d never switch from Morton’s again, but there’s honestly no problem with this brand here. It’s clear that those are salt crystals. Basically, this is not the salt’s fault!

Holy pizza

If that’s lunch, then we suddenly lost our appetites. We know many of you would choose to have lunch because even though the shape is nonexistent, it still doesn’t look so bad, and the taste is probably not that terrible either.

Also, this is the result of someone’s husband saying that he’ll be the one who will take care of lunch on this particular day. Well, he wanted to prove himself, and now we all know how that turned out. At least, we think people should appreciate the effort.

Better to be careful

Did you think that this was lava? We thought the same thing as well. It turns out that it’s effortless to be deceived upon seeing such disastrous cooking fails. That’s not lava, though. It’s sugar syrup. You heard that right.

The moral of this story is to be really careful when you’re cooking with sugar syrup. Why, you may ask? You never really know when it could boil over your stove and pit the glass on the burner. We can’t even make out what this person was trying to make.

Waffle shmaffle

It’s Christmas, and you roll out of bed thinking that a beautiful breakfast is waiting for you. That’s what usually happens, but we don’t think that’s the situation here because look at those waffles. Those aren’t even waffles anymore. It’s more like a fried keyboard.

If not a keyboard, then it actually looks like the inside of the waffle iron where they cooked it. That’s what happens when you overcook otherwise simple foods. It’s still acceptable if that’s a chocolate waffle. If it’s a vanilla one, we’re simply out of words.

Too careless this time

This guy was clueless during this next endeavor because he preheated the oven to 400 degrees without even checking once if something was in there. To his dismay, there was a cutting board inside. Firstly, what is a cutting board doing there?

Who kept that thing in there, and why would anybody do that? Anyways, he didn’t check, and as you can see, the cutting board completely lost its form. It melted into a gooey red substance that actually looks intimidating. How unfortunate.

Yin Yang

If you’re a glass-half-empty kind of person, you would throw this thing away. If you’re a glass-half-full kind of a person, you’d consider eating the other side of the eggs in this pan to prevent food wastage. Either way, it sucks.

This looks like many things. It looks like those are tens of thousands of tiny little insects. Sorry for putting gross thoughts in your mind. It looks like mud, too. But, it actually is salt and pepper. Well, a lot of salt and pepper.

Ugh, why?

We have seen a lot of food fails up until this point, but not once did we actually see a tasty and beautiful-looking food item until now. Here we have some delicious spaghetti, but the fail is obvious. The person that did this was probably speechless.

He can’t eat it because he spilled half of it on his bed as if he were a little kid. That’s a lot of wasted food and an annoying mess to clean up. And of course, there are the dishes to do as well, since he made spaghetti. Better get started!

Yikes!

Trust us, that honestly would’ve looked way better if it were inside the container, or at least if it were on the plate. Since it’s all over the car’s floor, it looks really unappetizing. Not to mention that it would be tough to clean up that mess.

What happened was that this lady tried to transport some chili for her sister in laws birthday dinner. It was all fine and dandy until she was cut by another vehicle on the road, which resulted in spilled chili all over the car floor.

Breaking out 

You do know that chardonnay and casserole go hand-in-hand, right? It’s quite a nice combination. Well, this casserole won’t pair that well with chardonnay. That’s because it already has some “chards” of glass baked inside. See what we did there?

This happened because six people were impatiently waiting for the casserole at eight at night. Maybe they should’ve been a little careful or at least a little more patient. They were left with a messed-up casserole and angry stomachs.

Crime scene: Do not enter

It would be normal for anybody to scream at the top of their lungs when they return to return home only to find this mess in the kitchen. Also, it would take a while for most people to understand that it’s not literal blood.

It’s just some balsamic vinegar. The person behind this disaster just wanted to put some on his salad. But, he managed to put some balsamic vinegar everywhere in the kitchen except on his food. Good job indeed.

Nachos 1-not-1

That’s a 1-not-1 and not a 101 because that’s definitely not how you make nachos. This is for sure how you ruin nachos and your kitchen in a matter of a few minutes. This guy must’ve been really careless to do something like that.

From the looks of it, it feels as if this guy just went into the kitchen, opened a bag of chips and a can of beans, and just tossed it all on the rack. But, he failed to do that as well. So, all of it just fell down. We’re not shocked.

Banana brick

This mashed banana bread looks like a brick. This photo documents the attempt to make a loaf of banana bread by the wife of this Reddit user. We just have one tip. You should consider using overripe bananas instead of rotten ones.

We have another tip. Banana bread doesn’t need water, so avoid it if it’s not necessary. Since we’re giving out tips, let us continue. If you need a caramelized crunch in the bread, use butter and sugar instead of using grease and flour! Thank us later.

Wine experiment gone wrong

The person who posted this photo said their friend’s dad tried to make something new. Apparently, this is the result of what happened when he decided to make some wine. It looks like he woke up and chose violence instead.

Is that actually wine? Are they sure that the dad tried to make some wine? Or was it something like the dad attempted to murder everybody? There’s undoubtedly gonna be a whole lot of whining for cleaning up all that wine.

So close, yet so far

Let start with a short story. The mother of the person who posted this image was craving a cherry pie, and her daughter wanted to help her fulfill those cravings. So, she thought of making a pie from scratch.

Everything was going smoothly for her. She made the pie, and she almost brought it to her mother. She was so close. Unfortunately, she dropped it on her mother’s doorstep, literally. She was probably so happy and proud of herself—poor girl.